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Talk About a Stranger (1952)
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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writers:
Charlotte Armstrong (story) and
Margaret Fitts (writer)
Release Date:
18 April 1952 (USA) more
Plot:
In an idyllic setting, a likable but dangerously volatile twelve-year-old boy tries to settle a score with his disagreeable, mysterious neighbor. full summary | add synopsis
User Comments:
Offbeat story elevated by John Alton's magical camerawork more (11 total)
Cast
(Complete credited cast) | George Murphy | ... | Robert Fontaine Sr. |
 | Nancy Davis | ... | Marge Fontaine |
| Billy Gray | ... | Robert 'Bud' Fontaine Jr. |
| Lewis Stone | ... | William J. Wardlaw |
| Kurt Kasznar | ... | Dr. Paul Mahler, alias Matlock |
| Anna Glomb | ... | Camille Wardlaw |
Additional Details
Also Known As:
The Enemy (USA) (original script title)
The Stranger in the House (USA) (working title)
more
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
65 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Sound System)
Certification:
USA:Approved (PCA #15527) | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)
Filming Locations:
Company:
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An old dark house in a California orange-growing community gains a mysterious tenant, and, scared on Halloween, the kids take an instant dislike to him. When the mutt belonging to one of them, Bud (Billy Gray), is later found poisoned, Bud fixes on the strange neighbor as its killer. With a November freeze threatening the crop, already restive townsfolk start to gossip, egged on by the implacable Bud. His parents, George Murphy and Nancy (Reagan) Davis -- both actors to become major forces in California and national politics in the next decade -- find him careening out of control. The story starts out as a fairly routine thriller based on a courageous (for its time) caution against McCarthyist hysteria. But then it turns into something more complex and memorable. When Bud sets off to find incriminating evidence, the tone and the images grow more gothic and evocative. John Alton's superb cinematography conjures up masterful effects from the smoke rising from the smudge-pots, the twisted branches and dark foliage, and the beclouded moonlight. (There's much in this movie that steals the thunder from Charles Laughton's solo masterpiece, the 1955 Night of the Hunter). The script deserves credit, too, for resolutely retaining the young adolescent's point of view while never stooping to condescend.