The Stranger

Following five years after his groundbreaking CITIZEN KANE, this thriller was Orson Welles only theatrical hit. He was inspired to make the film after seeing documentary footage of the liberation of the concentration camps. He believed reforms in post-War Germany were pointless, because the “putrefaction of the soul” that was Nazi ideology was just waiting to fuel another fire.

In the film, Welles plays Nazi-in-hiding Franz Kindler. The young architect of genocide has become a professor in America under the name of Prof. Charles Rankin. His cover is perfect; he’s about to marry Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young, THE BISHOP’S WIFE), the daughter of Judge Adam Longstreet (Philip Merivale, NOTHING BUT TROUBLE). But he’s about to fall into a trap set by Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson, DOUBLE INDEMNITY), an officer of the United Nations War Crimes Commission. He has let free Kindler’s confident Konrad Meinike (Konstantin Shayne, VERTIGO), who leads him right to Kindler.

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Check Out the Trailer

The best compliment I can pay Tony Scott’s film is that it’s SPEED on a train. Once the runaway train starts rolling the suspense just keeps climbing to the very end. This is one of Scott’s best films for its craftsmanship alone.

Trainer conductor Dewey (Ethan Suplee, MALLRATS) leaves his train thinking the breaks are on, but he was wrong. His expression as the train starts down the track without him tells it all. The nearly half mile long train is in full throttle racing away at over 70 miles per hour headed toward heavily populated areas. Its cargo is highly toxic.

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