US, 1946, 92’
directed by: Orson Welles
written by: Anthony Veiller, Victor Trivas
cast: Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Orson Welles, Philip Merivale, Richard Long, Konstantin Shayne
cinematography: Russell Metty
edited by: Ernest J. Nims
producers: Sam Spiegel
production: International Pictures, The Haig Corporation
Oscar Nominee for Best Original Screenplay 1947; Venice International Film Festival 1947
The Stranger is Welles's first film made after a four-year break that followed the making of The Magnificent Ambersons and Citizen Kane. It is also his single high-grossing film. However, Welles, whose creative freedom was substantially limited by the contract he had signed with the production company, considered the film one of his worst works. Ignored by critics for many years, The Stranger has only recently been reevaluated to an extent and is now seen as one of Welles's underestimated films. The year is 1946. Wilson, an investigator of the War Crimes Commission, is looking for ex-Nazi Franz Kindler, one of the architects of Holocaust. However, Kindler hid his traces well. The investigator has but one lead: Kindler's peculiar obsession with clocks. The investigation takes him to Connecticut, where Kindler lives under a new identity.
Orson Welles (1915 – 1985) is one of the most important persons of the 20th century. This superior intellectual, director, actor and writer, magician and radio host, playwright, painter and poet left his trace in Croatia, too. This is a unique opportunity to see some well-known, some less known and some unknown films and footages that this creative genius made in his lifetime, some of them in our country. The hundredth anniversary of his birth and thirtieth anniversary of his death are an opportunity to see what it is like when a top artist makes top art – often against all odds.
