☆ ☆ ☆ 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!
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