| Stranger on the Third Floor | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Boris Ingster |
| Produced by | Lee S. Marcus |
| Written by | Frank Partos Nathanael West |
| Starring | Peter Lorre John McGuire Elisha Cook Jr. |
| Music by | Roy Webb |
| Cinematography | Nicholas Musuraca |
| Editing by | Harry Marker |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 16, 1940 (United States) |
| Running time | 64 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $171,200 (estimated) |
Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) is a film noir thriller, featuring Peter Lorre, co-written by Nathaniel West, and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The picture was directed by Boris Ingster.[1]
It is often referred to as the first "true" film noir of the classic period (1940–1959).[2][3][4] It has many of the hallmarks of noir: an urban setting, heavy shadows, diagonal lines, voice-over narration, a dream sequence, low camera angles shooting up multi-storey staircases, and an innocent protagonist falsely accused of a crime and desperate to clear himself.
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Reporter Michael Ward is the key witness in a murder trial. His evidence – that he saw the accused Briggs standing over the body of a man in a diner – is instrumental in having Briggs deemed guilty.
Afterwards Ward’s fiancee Jane is worried whether Ward was correct in what he saw and Ward becomes haunted by this question. Next Ward’s neighbour is killed the same way as the man in the diner, but Ward is arrested for trying to point this out to the police. As a result, Jane goes out to try to clear Ward by finding the sinister stranger that Ward saw on the stairwell.
Upon its release in 1940, The New York Times film critic, Bosley Crowther, called the film pretentious and derivative of French and Russian films, and wrote, "John McGuire and Margaret Tallichet, as the reporter and his girl, are permitted to act half-way normal, it is true. But in every other respect, including Peter Lorre's brief role as the whack, it is utterly wild. The notion seems to have been that the way to put a psychological melodrama across is to pile on the sound effects and trick up the photography."[5]
The staff at Variety also believed the film was derivative, and wrote, "The familiar artifice of placing the scribe in parallel plight, with the newspaperman arrested for two slayings and only clearing himself because of his sweetheart's persistent search for the real slayer, is used...Boris Ingster's direction is too studied and when original, lacks the flare to hold attention. It's a film too arty for average audiences, and too humdrum for others."[6]
Dave Kehr, writing for the Chicago Reader, calls the film "An RKO B-film from 1940, done up in high Hollywood expressionism. It's absurdly overwrought (which was often the problem with the German variety), but interesting for it. The director, Boris Ingster, is better with shadows than with actors—venetian blinds carve up the characters with more fateful force than Paul Schrader's similar gambit in American Gigolo, and there's a dream sequence that has to be seen to be disbelieved."[7]
Currently, the film has a 80% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on five professional reviews.[8]