Three Strangers is an interesting and complex film written by John Huston and Howard Koch and directed by Jean Negulsco. The movie seems to be either an eccentric variant on film noir or, perhaps, a precursor to that genre like Huston's The Maltese Falcon. Three Strangers is noteworthy for its highly intelligent and intermittently poetic script and features excellent acting. A beautiful woman in foggy London, Mrs. Shackleford (Geraldine Fitzgerald) selects two men, seemingly at random, and invites them to her apartment late at night. She has a statue of the Buddhist goddess Kwannon (called Kwan Lin in the film) in a niche in her living quarters and is enacting a kind of folk ritual -- it is believed that if three strangers meet in front of Kwannon at midnight on the Chinese New Year, the idol of the goddess will open her eyes and grant their wishes. The men that Mrs. Shackleford has selected for participation in this spiritualist experiment are a sleazy lawyer, Arbutny ( Sidney Greenstreet) and an alcoholic drifter, a ruined gentleman who goes by the name Johnny West (Peter Lorre). The three wish for a fortune and, at midnight, as Big Ben tolls the hour, the window blows open, the candle is extinguished so that no one knows for sure whether the goddess has opened their eyes and granted their wishes. Mrs. Shackleford desires the return of her husband whom she has offended (apparently by adultery) but still loves -- she thinks she can buy him back. Johnny West is on the lam -- while blind drunk, he was asked to play the part of sentry during a robbery in which a police officer was killed. The robbery's mastermind is on trial and West, with a cockney thug named Gabby and a cockney girl, are hiding out. The girl has agreed to render perjured alibi testimony to save their boss, the criminal mastermind, Fallon, from the gallows. Arbutny has diverted money from a trust held for the benefit of an eccentric widow, Lady Rhea Belladon. (The widow claims to have sex nightly with the randy ghost of her dead husband). The three plots are essentially independent but are cross-cut together in a clever manner. Each plot reaches its climax just before Kwannon delivers on her promise by granting the three strangers a winning sweepstakes ticket -- the three own a ticket on a horse that is favored to win the British equivalent of the Kentucky Derby. Arbutny, who has tried to seduce the widow unsuccessfully, is ordered to return her accounts to her -- he plans to kill himself with a revolver, spreading newspapers on the floor to protect the carpet from the mess. Of course, he reads in the papers that the sweepstake ticket on the horse, worth 30,000 pounds if the animal wins the race, has been won by Mrs. Shackleford. Johnny West is in prison awaiting execution. The criminal mastermind has escaped and fled London. Of course, the horse's victory in the race changes everything and the gentle drunkard is released from jail and gets the girl -- the others end up dead or insane. (It's curious to see Peter Lorre playing a romantic part in a film -- but he was a highly expressive actor and carries off the role with aplomb; it's a little like seeing Harry Dean Stanton as the romantic lead in Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas -- he's good enough to pull it off even over the viewer's objections.) The movie is beautifully designed with atmospheric sets -- one in particular, a dark retreat under a bridge next to the Thames River is particularly beautiful in a dark, chiaroscuro way.
Huston had the idea for the movie in 1936 when working for Gaumont in London and he pitched the story to Hitchcock who was very interested. But the movie didn't get made until a decade later. The film has considerable interest for admirers of Huston. The theme of the fateful sculpture -- here Kwannon and the falcon in The Maltese Falcon -- is obviously dear to Huston's heart. Furthermore, Huston's theme that greed leads to moral chaos and, ultimately, the loss of fortune -- an important aspect of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre -- is also presented in this movie. There's a startling scene in which Geraldine Fitzgerald tries to seduce her estranged husband -- she is wearing filmy lingerie, has lit a fire, and swoops in for a kiss. When her husband turns his face away from her, she stabs her cigarette into the back of his hand -- a scene that is very similar to the awful moment in The Grifters in which Anjelica Huston's crime-boss punishes her for theft by burning her hand with his cigar. Of course, Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre were first teamed in Huston's Maltese Falcon and audiences clearly liked to see the two men together. When the dour Sidney Greenstreet is led by Mrs. Shackleford into her dim apartment, Peter Lorre is already there -- he turns to greet the fat man who grimaces and the soundtrack even accords this "meet cute" with a sort of splash of happy music. (Unfortunately, Lorre and Greenstreet, occupying different independent plots are separated for most of the film. Greenstreet, in particular, playing the Scrooge-like lawyer sweats copiously, dabs at his face and neck, and acts up of a storm -- when he encounters bad news, his face swells up and he seems about to succumb to apoplexy. At the end of the movie, he gets a spectacular mad scene.) Three Strangers is a clever and effective film, not great, but, certainly, still very interesting and entertaining.
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