I See a Dark Stranger (1946)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

I See a Dark Stranger (1946) – F. Maunder

Deborah Kerr is a lot perkier than I remember her being in other pictures (and just a year before Black Narcissus and her turn as an uptight nun). But what’s this? She’s an Irish lass who has heard so many stories of the revolution that she hates the Brits enough to help some Nazi spies? This weird premise pulls viewers in funny directions – do we want her caught or not?  Trevor Howard falls in love with her, but he’s a British officer and sworn to turn in any spies he finds. The action moves from Ballygarry to Dublin to the Isle of Man and somehow becomes a very Hitchcockian thriller.  Apparently, Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne were set to reprise their comic characters from The Lady Vanishes but had too many demands and were replaced by substitutes (the cops on the Isle of Man, obviously). In fact, the movie is written by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat who wrote that Hitchcock picture (Launder directs here). Some classify this as noir and it is about serious matters – the D-Day plans are the MacGuffin! But it’s a lot more fun than that suggests.