Amazon.com video review:
For budget-minded cineastes, this two-disc set of Orson Welles films is
a welcome addition to any DVD library, even if it falls short of its
claims. While the accompanying documentary demonstrates that
The Stranger, The Trial, and Welles's 1934 silent short
Hearts of Age have been restored, source materials are not specified,
inviting speculation that the films were digitally "cleaned" from video
sources in the public domain. The films do sound better than ever with a subtle
5.1-channel remastering, and the visual quality is good but hardly pristine; Milestone Video's DVD of The
Trial presents a crisper, sharper image.
Those quibbles aside, the set's strengths do make for an acceptable and
affordable means to appreciate Welles's visual ingenuity, stylized by
cinematographer Russell Metty in Welles's conventional Nazi-manhunt thriller
The Stranger, and by Edmond Richard in the brilliant, budget-constrained
production of Kafka's The Trial. The films are excellent, and apart from
critic Jeffrey Lyons's flaccid commentary tracks, this package treats them with
all due respect. --Jeff Shannon
Amazon.com video review:
There isn't much to connect these two features beyond the general
umbrella of film noir and the presence of Loretta Young (hardly a
noir
icon), but the Roan Group's collection features excellent prints of both of
these often poorly represented classics. The clean, sharp pictures and
clear
sound show these two films off at their best.
The legendary story that hovers over Orson Welles's The
Stranger is that he wanted Agnes Moorehead to star as the dogged Nazi
hunter who trails a war criminal to a sleepy New England town. The part
went
to E.G. Robinson, who is marvelous, but it points out how many
compromises Welles made on the film in an attempt to show Hollywood he
could
make a film on time, on budget, and on their own terms. He accomplished all
three, turning out a stylish if unambitious film noir thriller, his
only
Hollywood film to turn a profit on its original release. Welles stars as
unreformed fascist Franz Kindler, hiding as a schoolteacher in a New
England
prep school for boys and newly married to the headmaster's lovely if naive
daughter (Loretta Young). Welles the director is in fine form for the
opening sequences, casting a moody tension as agents shadow a twitchy low-level
Nazi official skulking through South American ports and building up
to
dramatic crescendo as Kindler murders this little man, the lovely woods
becoming a maelstrom of swirling leaves that expose the body he furiously
tries to bury. The rest of film is a well-designed but conventional
cat-and-mouse game featuring an eye-rolling performance by Welles and a
thrilling conclusion played out in the dark clock tower that looms over the
little village.
In Cause for Alarm, Loretta Young is an elegantly tailored happy
homemaker caring for
her invalid husband (Barry Sullivan), a former pilot suffering from a
mysterious heart disease that has driven him to almost complete madness.
Convinced his wife and his doctor are in collusion to kill him, he's
carefully recorded the "evidence" of their crime in a letter to the
district
attorney and prepares to turn the tables on them, but even his own sudden
death can't stop the chain of events that plunges his wife into a waking
nightmare. An unusual entry into the film noir school of paranoia, Tay
Garnett's melodramatic thriller trades the dark alleys and long shadows of
urban menace for the sunny, tree-lined streets of middle-class domesticity.
Young, so often cool, calm, and carefully coifed in her studio roles,
beautifully evokes the American Dream as the dutiful wife who collapses
into
a state of hysterical desperation. Spinning a web of lies to
retrieve
the damning letter, her world falls apart around her as she unwittingly
sinks herself deeper into a morass of suspicion and circumstantial
evidence.
Though this is less slick and stylish than his claim to film noir
fame
The Postman Always Rings Twice, Garnett spins a simple premise into
a
tense, terrifying ordeal, and Young's deadened narration adds an eerie mood
of doom to the suburban setting. --Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com Essentials:
The legendary story that hovers over Orson Welles's The
Stranger is that he wanted Agnes Moorehead to star as the dogged Nazi
hunter who trails a war criminal to a sleepy New England town. The part
went
to E.G. Robinson, who is marvelous, but it points out how many
compromises Welles made on the film in an attempt to show Hollywood he
could
make a film on time, on budget, and on their own terms. He accomplished all
three, turning out a stylish if unambitious film noir thriller, his
only
Hollywood film to turn a profit on its original release. Welles stars as
unreformed fascist Franz Kindler, hiding as a schoolteacher in a New
England
prep school for boys and newly married to the headmaster's lovely if naive
daughter (Loretta Young). Welles the director is in fine form for the
opening sequences, casting a moody tension as agents shadow a twitchy low-level
Nazi official skulking through South American ports and building up
to
dramatic crescendo as Kindler murders this little man, the lovely woods
becoming a maelstrom of swirling leaves that expose the body he furiously
tries to bury. The rest of film is a well-designed but conventional
cat-and-mouse game featuring an eye-rolling performance by Welles and a
thrilling conclusion played out in the dark clock tower that looms over the
little village. --Sean Axmaker
