Stranger on the Third Floor **** (1940, Peter Lorre, John McGuire, Margaret Tallichet, Charles Waldron, Elisha Cook Jr) – Classic Movie Review 8251

The 1940 Stranger on the Third Floor is a classic film noir thriller where menace lurks in every shadow and stairway. Peter Lorre stars as the sinister Stranger, whom a reporter (John McGuire) suspects has killed a diner owner.

Director Boris Ingster’s 1940 Stranger on the Third Floor is a classic RKO Radio Pictures black and white B-movie film noir thriller where menace lurks in every shadow and stairway. If not the first, it is certainly one the first true film noirs of the classic period from 1940 to 1959, with all the hallmarks of the genre.

Van Nest Polglase’s sets, Nicholas Musuraca’s cinematography, an amazing nightmare sequence and Peter Lorre, as the sinister Stranger whom rising star reporter Michael Ward (played by John McGuire) suspects has killed a diner owner, all contribute to the impressively bizarre Germanic atmosphere that is both Expressionist and Gothic.

In Frank Partos’s story and screenplay, Michael Ward is the key witness in the murder trial of Joe Briggs (Elisha Cook Jr), who is convicted on circumstantial evidence after Michael testifies he saw the accused standing over the body of a man in a diner. But Michael’s fiancée Jane (Margaret Tallichet) believes in Joe’s innocence, and Michael becomes haunted by this possibility and then his neighbour is killed the same way as the man in the diner, and Michael is suspected and arrested.

So Jane sets out to prove Michael’s innocence by trying to find the weird stranger he saw on the stairway.

Stranger on the Third Floor is a most rewarding oddity with telling performances, an unsettling visual style, a moody score and a satisfying plot, written by Frank Partos (story and screenplay). An uncredited Nathanael West wrote the final version of the screenplay.

Also in the cast are Charles Halton, Ethel Griffies, Cliff Clark, Oscar O’Shea, Alec Craig, Otto Hoffman, Bobby Barber, Lee Bonnell, Harry Bradley, Lynton Brent, Jack Cheatham, Ray Cooke, Robert Dudley, William Edmunds, Jim Farley, Betty Farrington, Greta Granstedt, John Harrison, Dell Henderson, Max Hoffman Jr, Gladden James, Charles Judels, Jane Keckley, Don Kelly, Donald Kerr, Paul McVey, Bruce Mitchell, Frank O’Connor, Broderick O’Farrell, Bud Osborne, Emory Parnell, Lee Phelps, Henry Rocquemore, Ralph Sanford, Herb Vigran, Bess Wade, Catherine Wallace, Robert Weldon and Frank Yaconelli.

Stranger on the Third Floor is directed by Boris Ingster, runs 64 minutes, is made and released by RKO Radio Pictures, is written by Frank Partos (story and screenplay) and Nathanael West (uncredited), is shot in black and white by Nicholas Musuraca, is produced by Lee S Marcus, is scored by Roy Webb, and is designed by Van Nest Polglase.

It is shot at the RKO Studios, 780 North Gower Street, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

It is the director debut of writer and later TV producer Boris Ingster (including The Man from U.N.C.L.E. TV series and the film spinoffs One of Our Spies Is Missing, The Spy in the Green Hat and The Karate Killers). He directed only two more films: The Judge Steps Out and Southside 1-1000.

Little known Margaret Tallichet was born on 13 March 1914 and was married to director William Wyler. After the briefest of careers (1938-41), with just seven film credits, she retired following the birth of second child. She died on 3 May 1991.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8251

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