Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) – B. Ingster

Is this the first film noir?  Some think so -- but of course, the genre has no real beginning nor end and was never more than a loose association defined by the common elements.  Certainly, many of the elements are here, including low key (high contrast) lighting, voice-over narration, a horrifying dream sequence, a man or two poked by the fickle finger of fate, and the presence of Elisha Cook, Jr. and Peter Lorre (both of whom also appeared in another film also identified as a harbinger of the genre, The Maltese Falcon, 1941).  Here, Lorre is given top billing (as a result of his starring role in the Mr Moto series), but he has only a few scenes as the titular stranger who ultimately becomes a suspect for the two murders that reporter Mike Ward (played by John McGuire) gets entangled with. But there is quite a lot of action before we ever meet Lorre:  Ward is the star witness at a murder trial but he and his girlfriend come to have doubts about whether the poor shmuck who was convicted (yes, Elisha Cook, Jr.) really did it.  The style (by cinematographer Nicolas Musuraca) is influenced by the German Expressionist movement (though not to the level of Caligari) and Ward seems genuinely haunted (bring on the dream sequence).  But it is all over and done with in about an hour and the ending is unexpectedly upbeat.  The best noirs were yet to come!