The STRANGER / Le Criminel (1946)

Cast Edward G. Robinson, Orson Welles, Loretta Young, Philip Merivale, Richard Long

That this 1946 noir was the only Orson Welles film to show profit on release and that it was the director’s least favourite picture might suggest an absence of his signature talent. But while Welles had been pressured into making a more conventional (ie commercial) film after what RKO Radio Pictures saw as his disastrous second film, the studio butchered but still brilliant The Magnificent Ambersons, the auteur nevertheless managed to turn in a terrific cat-and-mouse thriller that’s full of recognisably Wellesian touches (notably the climax set in a church clocktower). The great man himself plays a German war criminal hiding out in a small Connecticut town, where he poses as a teacher and is engaged to lovely Loretta Young. Hot on his tail, however, is Nazi hunter Edward G Robinson. That casting was forced on Welles (who wanted his regular player Agnes Moorhead), but it works splendidly anyway.

Un enquêteur, Wilson, relâche de prison Konrad Meinike (Konstantin Shayne), un criminel de guerre nazi. Il espère que ce dernier le guidera à attraper un autre fugitif très reconnu, Franz Kindler (Orson Welles). Meinike retrouve Kindler, qui se fait passer pour “Charles Rankin”, un professeur d’histoire dans la charmante petite ville de Harper au Connecticut. Une ironie troublante fait qu’un criminel nazi notoire enseigne l’histoire du monde à l’élite Américaine tout en étant marié à la fille (Loretta Young) d’un juge de la cour suprême (Philip Merivale). Le film est un divertissant jeu du chat et de la souris avec Wilson qui met une incroyable pression sur Kindler pour révéler sa véritable identité.