The Stranger

Welles' third film, often described as his worst, but still a hugely enjoyable thriller as Robinson's man from the Allied War Crimes Commission patiently stalks Welles' former top Nazi, now ensconced as a prep school teacher in a small Connecticut town and newly married to the innocent Young. Admittedly some wobbles develop (not least in Orson's own overpitched performance), and the script has its naïve moments (as when the Nazi gives himself away in a dinner-table gambit: 'Marx wasn't a German, he was a Jew'). But it is studded with great scenes like the stranger's furtive flight through the dockyards at the beginning, the murder in the woods with boys streaming by on a paperchase, or the Nazi's death high on the clock tower, impaled by the sword wielded by a mechanical figure as the hour begins to strike. Terrific camerawork from Russell Metty throughout.