The Stranger (1946)

Depending on your point of view, Orson Welles is either peripheral or central to film noir; peripheral in that he didn’t make many films that are considered to be noir, but central because of the influence of Citizen Kane, made when he was only 25 years old. While not a film noir, the chiaroscuro lighting of Citizen Kane, the low-angle photography and nonlinear structure had a great influence on film noir as it developed in the 1940s and 1950s. Welles is considered to have made three ventures into noir territory with Lady From Shanghai, Touch of Evil and this overlooked gem — The Stranger — which remains his first, and maybe his only commercial success. The Stranger, starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young and Welles himself, has an excitement largely generated by Welles’ own performance, which is intense — to say the least. It’s a sweet addition to the noir barrel, with a great opening and an unbearably fine performance from Orson Welles.

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Orson Welles — directing himself once more in The Stranger, his third film, is a powerhouse. The difficulties attached to being an artist in the commercial world of Hollywood is a theme that is tackled from time to time in noir — best of all in In a Lonely Place by Nicholas Ray. In fact, there is a strong suggestion that the lonely place of In a Lonely Place refers precisely to Hollywood itself, and what a lousy town it is to be in if you are first and foremost, an artist. It’s a problem that Orson Welles dealt with off and on, and one that he was dealing with head on in The Stranger. Having made Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons — two highly rated movies that were box office failures in terms of all-important returns — Welles was determined to make a commercial picture to show that he could draw the crowds as well as the plaudits.

Loretta Young Watches the First Widely Released Footage of the Camps

While it’s true that The Stranger is closer to the ideal of a normal Hollywood picture than Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, it is in fact barely ordinary — although Welles scholars and purists don’t see it this way, and tend to overlook it as a consequence.