No, it's not Albert Camus. It's better -- more dramatic, more visual, more bombastic -- it's Orson Welles. Welles at the time was having trouble with his reputation. He couldn't finish a movie, it dragged on forever, it cost a fortune, and so on. So he ran into difficulties raising money, as he would for the rest of his life. This was his shot at proving he could turn in a commercial success as well as anyone else. Don't know if it convinced the venture capitalists but it's an above-average tale of Edward G. Robinson uncovering the identity of Franz Kindler (Welles), one of the more atrocious of the Nazi criminals, who has hidden himself as a teacher at the elite Harper School. (The name of the prep school Welles himself attended as a child.) Welles is a respectable figure in this small New England town. When a deliberately released ex-Nazi tracks him there, with Robinson in his wake, Welles kills his old friend without a qualm and buries him in "a densely wooded area." Welles, as Kindler, even kills his wife's dog that threatens to dig up the body.
It's not a sinister/comic masterpiece like "The Third Man," though the plot conforms to a similar template. And it's certainly not "Citizen Kane." It's Welles bringing it all home. But, the thing is, he does a good job of it too. Commercial it may be, but it's unmistakably Welles. It's as if Copley had painted a portrait of Paul Revere and had added at the bottom a slogan -- "Buy Revere Copper." Welles simply can't keep himself out of the picture. There are all sorts of quirky camera angles and strange shadows and overlapping dialog. Best scene: Welles is enclosed in a phone booth. He's calling his wife and inviting her to a meeting that will result in her death without his being there. Welles whistles tunelessly, waiting for the call to go through, and on a notepad with a pencil tied to it, he sketches a clumsy swastika, then turns it into a box and crosses it out. And all the time he projects placidity, even boredom.
There are a couple of the unusual character actors that Welles liked to include in his films. Nobody is the equivalent of Dennis Weaver in "Touch of Evil." (This is a commercial effort, right?) But Mr. Potter, who runs the general store comes close. Nobody else comes close. Edward G. Robinson is fun as the war crimes investigator. Loretta Young was a name but adds nothing special. Richard Long is a disaster.
Welles gives his real identity away at dinner when he carries on about how the Germans are all into racial superiority and Siegried's sword and whatnot and, when somebody objects that Marx wasn't dictatorial, he replies that Marx wasn't a German, he was a Jew. (Why couldn't Robinson simply have vetted Welles' curriculum vitae?)
Somebody quotes Emerson's famous statement that, to someone who has committed a crime, the earth is made of glass. Emerson was into "immanent justice," meaning that even if men didn't catch you at it, God would give it to you in the neck in the form of bad luck. (That's New England for you.) Welles doesn't get it in the neck. He gets it in the abdominal cavity in a very dramatic (and commercial) climax.
The movie was made to satisfy all tastes and it gets the job done. Really worth seeing.
It's not a sinister/comic masterpiece like "The Third Man," though the plot conforms to a similar template. And it's certainly not "Citizen Kane." It's Welles bringing it all home. But, the thing is, he does a good job of it too. Commercial it may be, but it's unmistakably Welles. It's as if Copley had painted a portrait of Paul Revere and had added at the bottom a slogan -- "Buy Revere Copper." Welles simply can't keep himself out of the picture. There are all sorts of quirky camera angles and strange shadows and overlapping dialog. Best scene: Welles is enclosed in a phone booth. He's calling his wife and inviting her to a meeting that will result in her death without his being there. Welles whistles tunelessly, waiting for the call to go through, and on a notepad with a pencil tied to it, he sketches a clumsy swastika, then turns it into a box and crosses it out. And all the time he projects placidity, even boredom.
There are a couple of the unusual character actors that Welles liked to include in his films. Nobody is the equivalent of Dennis Weaver in "Touch of Evil." (This is a commercial effort, right?) But Mr. Potter, who runs the general store comes close. Nobody else comes close. Edward G. Robinson is fun as the war crimes investigator. Loretta Young was a name but adds nothing special. Richard Long is a disaster.
Welles gives his real identity away at dinner when he carries on about how the Germans are all into racial superiority and Siegried's sword and whatnot and, when somebody objects that Marx wasn't dictatorial, he replies that Marx wasn't a German, he was a Jew. (Why couldn't Robinson simply have vetted Welles' curriculum vitae?)
Somebody quotes Emerson's famous statement that, to someone who has committed a crime, the earth is made of glass. Emerson was into "immanent justice," meaning that even if men didn't catch you at it, God would give it to you in the neck in the form of bad luck. (That's New England for you.) Welles doesn't get it in the neck. He gets it in the abdominal cavity in a very dramatic (and commercial) climax.
The movie was made to satisfy all tastes and it gets the job done. Really worth seeing.