The Stranger

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, an American federal agent (Edward G Robinson) is assigned to trail a Nazi war criminal who is released in the hope that he will attempt to contact his superior, who is one of the key figures behind the Holocaust.

The Stranger was one of Orson Welles’ final studio films and, whilst the visual flair and directorial stamp of Citizen Kane may have been taken from him, Welles relishes the style of classic film noir, aided by Russell Metty’s expressionist cinematography. His performance as the eponymous stranger surely prefigures his classic on screen performance Harry Lime in The Third Man.

---