Three Strangers *** (1946, Sydney Greenstreet, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Peter Lorre) – Classic Movie Review 3883

Director Jean Negulesco’s forgotten 1946 film noir crime drama Three Strangers is very welcome as one of the nine pairings of the great screen team of Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. Also starring Geraldine Fitzgerald, it is a suspense film about three random strangers who become joint partners in a winning lottery ticket, with third-billed Lorre cast against type as the romantic lead by Negulesco.

A lucky lottery ticket means either happiness or bad luck for money-hungry lawyer Jerome K Arbutny (Greenstreet), small-time criminal Johnny West (Lorre) and unhappy Crystal Shackleford (Geraldine Fitzgerald). They are three strangers, with a serious problem in each of their lives, who make a common wish together before the Chinese idol of Kwan Yin (the Chinese goddess of fortune and destiny) and share a sweepstake ticket on the night of the Chinese New Year in London in 1938.

The idea is that Kwan Yin will open her eyes and her heart and grant the wish. Crystal has a Kwan Yin idol and picks two random strangers off the street and the trio decide their ideal wish is a sweepstake ticket they buy equal shares in to be a winner.

John Huston and Howard Koch’s steady, if rather dour screenplay is heavy on irony and strong in characterisation and its successful interpretation benefits from both the actors’ performances and Negulesco’s forthright direction.

Three Strangers is a must-see for the sake of the appearances of those three great star character actors at around their best form, though you can tell that they are having to go into overdrive to make this one persuasive. But, once again, they are up for it.

It also stars Joan Lorring as Icey Crane, Robert Shayne as Bertram Fallon, Arthur Shields, Marjorie Riordan, Rosalind Ivan, John Alvin, Peter Whitney, Alan Napier, Clifford Brooke, Doris Lloyd, Stanley Logan, Holmes Herbert, Leslie Denison,Keith Hitchcock, and Ian Wolfe.

Huston was inspired to write the story after he bought a weird statue in London. It was at one point intended to be a sequel to The Maltese Falcon, in which Greenstreet and Lorre star, but Warner Bros discovered they did not own sequel rights to the characters.

Three Strangers is directed by Jean Negulesco, runs 92 minutes, is made by First National/ Warner Bros, is released by Warner Bros (1946) (US), is written by John Huston (original screenplay) and Howard Koch (original screenplay), is shot in black and white by Arthur Edeson, is produced by Jack L Warner (executive producer) and Wolfgang Reinhardt and scored by Adolph Deutsch, with Art Direction by Ted Smith.

It is also available in a computer colorized version.

It cost $457,000.

It is shot in Warner Brothers Burbank Studios, 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California.

Sydney Greenstreet made his film debut at 62 in The Maltese Falcon (1941) with Peter Lorre, and re-teamed for eight more movies, followed by Casablanca (1942), Background to Danger (1943), Passage to Marseille (1944), The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), The Conspirators (1944), Hollywood Canteen (1944); Three Strangers (1946), and The Verdict (1946).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3883
Check out more reviews on: derekwinnert.com