Directed by: Orson Welles
Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Orson Welles, Philip Merivale, Richard Long, Konstantin Shayne

STORY

The war is over, but some of its monsters have disappeared.
Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson), an investigator pursuing Nazi war criminals, is searching for Franz Kindler, a fugitive who has systematically erased virtually every trace of his former identity. Wilson takes a calculated risk, releasing Kindler's former associate Meinike in hopes that the man will lead him directly to his quarry.
The trail leads to the seemingly idyllic town of Harper, Connecticut. There, respected professor Charles Rankin (Orson Welles) appears to have built the perfect American life. He teaches at a prestigious school, is fascinated by clocks and has just married Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young), the daughter of a prominent judge. But Charles Rankin is a carefully constructed identity. Beneath it is the man Wilson has been hunting: Franz Kindler.
What follows is not simply a pursuit but a psychological battle. Wilson knows the monster he is looking for is somewhere behind Rankin's respectable façade. Mary must confront the horrifying possibility that the man she loves may never have existed. And Kindler becomes increasingly dangerous as the comfortable new world he has constructed begins collapsing around him.

The Stranger gives AIN audiences three formidable talents in one picture: Edward G. Robinson's controlled intelligence, Loretta Young's emotional vulnerability and Orson Welles's unsettling combination of charm and menace. And behind the camera, Welles transforms the peaceful streets, houses and clock tower of small-town America into places where darkness can hide in plain sight.

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS

ORSON WELLES — IN FRONT OF AND BEHIND THE CAMERA
Orson Welles didn't merely play Franz Kindler/Charles Rankin. He directed the film as well, giving audiences the unusual pleasure of watching Welles construct the menace from both sides of the camera.

EDWARD G. ROBINSON CHANGES SIDES
Audiences accustomed to Edward G. Robinson's legendary gallery of gangsters and tough guys get something different here.
Robinson plays the hunter rather than the criminal.
His Wilson doesn't need gangster theatrics. He's patient, observant and methodical. Robinson uses the same intelligence and authority that made his criminals formidable and turns those qualities toward bringing a criminal to justice.

LORETTA YOUNG HAS THE FILM'S TERRIBLE DISCOVERY
Loretta Young's Mary isn't simply caught between two men. She's caught between two realities.
Accepting Wilson's story means accepting that her marriage, her husband's identity and much of the life she believes she has begun are based upon a lie. That gives Young some of the picture's most emotionally difficult material.

HOLLYWOOD CONFRONTS THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS
The Stranger holds an especially important place in film history because it became the first commercial narrative feature to incorporate documentary footage of Nazi concentration camps.
Wilson shows the images as evidence of the atrocities committed by the regime Kindler served.
For movie audiences in 1946, the war wasn't distant history. It had ended only the previous year.

WELLES HAD SOMETHING TO PROVE
By the time The Stranger came along, Orson Welles had acquired a Hollywood reputation for ambitious productions that could become expensive and difficult.
This time he demonstrated that he could play by the studio's rules.
Remarkably, Welles completed The Stranger on schedule and within budget — accounts even report that he finished a day ahead of schedule.
For AIN, there's something especially interesting about watching one of cinema's great artistic experimenters prove that creativity and production discipline didn't have to be enemies.

THE CLOCK ISN'T JUST DECORATION
Watch the enormous clock that dominates Harper.
Clocks and clock mechanisms become a recurring visual motif throughout the picture, reflecting Kindler's own obsession with them. Eventually the town's clock tower becomes far more than scenery.
This is Orson Welles, after all.
When he puts something enormous in the background, keep watching it.

JOHN HUSTON HAD A HAND IN IT
The credited screenplay is by Anthony Veiller, based on a story by Victor Trivas, but John Huston and Orson Welles also contributed to the screenplay without screen credit.
That means an already impressive pedigree gets even better: Welles and Huston contributing their talents to the same noir thriller.

THE STUDIO DIDN'T LEAVE WELLES'S FILM ALONE
Welles surrendered final-cut authority as part of the arrangement that allowed him to direct.
Editor Ernest J. Nims was given considerable freedom to remove material considered unnecessary. Significant footage was ultimately eliminated, including substantial material from Welles's original opening.
Much of that missing footage is believed lost.

EVEN LORETTA YOUNG FOUGHT FOR WELLES'S SHOT
Welles later remembered a remarkable moment involving Loretta Young.
Producer Sam Spiegel wanted an additional close-up of Young during an important scene. Welles believed inserting it would damage the sequence. Young sided with her director — despite the fact that the proposed additional shot was her own close-up — and even involved her agent in defending Welles's staging.
For an actress to fight against getting another close-up because she believed the director's version was better tells you something about the collaboration.

WELLES MADE THE ORDINARY LOOK DANGEROUS
There are no gothic castles required here.
Welles places evil inside an apparently comfortable American community — among respectable homes, schools, churches, shops and neighbors.

That contrast is precisely what makes The Stranger disturbing.
The danger doesn't arrive looking like a monster.

It has already moved into town.