Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)

Film: Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)

Stars: Peter Lorre, John McGuire, Margaret Tallichet, Charles Waldron, Elisha Cook, Jr.

Director: Boris Ingster

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

It's sometimes hard to pinpoint what exactly is the "first" film noir.  The movie that is often-cited as the first "classic" film noir is The Maltese Falcon, and honestly it's hard to argue on that one-it's definitely the movie that, along with Touch of Evil, serve as the two bookends of the genre in Classical Hollywood.  But it's not the first.  A movie like, say Algiers in 1938 has a lot of film noir elements (crime, a dangerous woman, etc), and a number of the gangster films of the 1930's starring Humphrey Bogart or James Cagney would also fit this bill.  But if you want to look for a title that is oft-cited as truly the "first film noir" and not just a movie that is a clear precursor to the genre, Stranger on the Third Floor is amongst the most name-checked for that honor.  Made in 1940, it has a detective (in this case, a reporter, and eventually his girlfriend joins the investigation), a beautiful woman, and a seedy underbelly to it that coming in in a crisp 66 minutes, and is told in the fast-paced filmmaking style that the noir genre would become famous for.

(Spoilers Ahead) The plot on this one is pretty simple.  You have Mike Ward (McGuire), who is determined to marry his sweetheart Jane (Tallichet), but needs money & employment to do so.  He gets that opportunity covering a murder trial where he's the key witness (journalistic ethics be damned!), and his testimony convicts the killer to Death Row.  But Jane is convinced the man didn't actually do it (based on nothing but woman's intuition, which in this case is entirely accurate), and this haunts Mike.  Briefly after meeting a Stranger (Lorre) on a street corner, he has an extended dream where it's him who is sentenced wrongfully, and afterward his neighbor is found dead.  Mike is now the chief suspect since both men were killed in the same manner, but as we learn in the final moments of the film, it's actually the Stranger, who has escaped from some sort of asylum, who did it.  Jane tracks down the killer, and is nearly killed herself before he is hit by a car, and confesses before dying.  Jane & Mike get the happy ending (and an implied wedding) as the film closes.

The movie has the vibes of a prototypical genre-creating film.  A movie like The Maltese Falcon or Star Wars inspired a thousand clones they were so good, in both cases basically inventing a genre it worked so well, but most prototypical films in genres are more similar to Stranger on the Third Floor, struggling to find their footing.  The movie has some really good parts-Peter Lorre is spectacularly creepy in the film's closing, when even the least-jaded of filmgoers will wonder if Jane is actually going to get out of his clutches (it makes total sense that Lorre after this movie found a long history in film noir).

But you needed more Lorre and less McGuire.  McGuire doesn't work as the leading man (Lorre gets top billing since he was the most famous person in the cast, but he's only in a small section of the picture), and he really can't land the plot of either being "wrongfully accused" or "maybe an insane killer," which he's asked to be twice.  He's mostly just kind of a lug, there for the movie to work around.  This is perhaps why he didn't get the career in film noir that people like Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson did-he's too generic.  With a better leading man (like Bogart), and some rewriting, this would be a finer picture.  As it is, it's mostly just a curiosity for anyone who loves film noir.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Brighton Rock, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, They Drive By Night, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, Julie, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Lightning Strikes Twice, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Late Show, The Long Goodbye, Lost Highway, Night Moves, Nightcrawler, Le Samourai