Customer Reviews

I See a Dark Stranger [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliatt specialized in smart, witty, quintessentially British thrillers of the sort that made Hitchcock's name-- and not only did they write one of Hitchcock's first big successes, The Lady Vanishes, Gilliatt really invented the minigenre of the droll train-based thriller with 1932's Rome Express while Hitchcock was still learning his trade. (After The Lady Vanishes they wrote its sort-of-sequel, Night Train to Munich, which I for one think is even better.)

Deborah Kerr stars as an Irish lass with stars in her eyes for the Irish cause, which get her caught in the intrigues of a Nazi spy (the scarily cold Raymond Huntley). It was Kerr's breakthrough performance (and one that may seem familiar since Maureen O'Hara copies it closely in The Quiet Man). Especially compared with today's sub-Republic-serial action films, the suspense scenes are well thought out and present believable problems (how DO you get rid of a body from the second floor of an inn in a small town where everyone knows you?), and the comic touches (note the surreal "twin" bureaucrats) are sharply observed.

The presence of Trevor Howard as a light romantic lead in this film reminds us that as British thrillers got more serious after the war-- in such films as The Third Man, The Clouded Yellow and They Made Me a Fugitive, all starring Howard and making use of his dour, seen-awful-things-in-wartime manner-- Launder and Gilliatt weren't really capable of following. But when it comes to amusingly British, skillfully exciting entertainments in the 1930s and 1940s, they were first-rate and deserve to be better remembered.

This is one of a series of first-rate British movies Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat wrote and, in a number of cases, directed starting in the 1930s.

Deborah Kerr plays Bridie Quilty, a young Irish woman who was brought up to despise the British. Its 1944 and Ireland has stayed neutral in WWII. When she reaches her majority she is determined to join the IRA and fight against the Brits. She travels to Dublin to seek out the IRA and is rebuffed, but is recruited by, unknown to her, a German spy. Raymond Huntley, a great English character actor, plays the spy. He has her finding out information as a worker in a pub, next to a British army base just across the border. Unexpectedly, she meets a young Army offficer (Trevor Howard) who is in counter-intelligence, and then comes across a great secret which, she is told, must be delivered to an agent she thinks is fighting against the Brits on behalf of the Irish, but is actually a sleeper Nazi. Bridie's adventures are many, some romantic (although she can't stand the idea of falling for a British officer), some funny, some dangerous. The conclusion, where if Bridie is caught on the Northern Ireland side of the border she'll be hanged, but if she can cross the border to Ireland she'll be safe, is a nice little drama of its own. It causes a quandry of conscience for Howard, and is resolved neatly.

This is a charming and expertly made movie. Deborah Kerr, at 24, brings glowing naivete to the part. After Kerr made this and Black Narcissus (1947), she was off to the USA.

Launder and Gilliat's films read like a roster of quality and craftsmanship. Among them are The Lady Vanishes, Night Train to Munich, The Rake's Progress, Green for Danger, The Belles of St. Trinian's, The Green Man, Geordie and Young Mr. Pitt. Except for The Lady Vanishes, none are out on DVD in the U.S. and should be.

saw it on tv. bought it next day. great movie for a dark windy night. all british, great old inns, tea, murder, just enjoy a 1940.s movie that you can re-watch and still enjoy. deborah kerr as a very young lady, wanting to do the best for her counrty but knowing somethings very wrong....and off we go..won't say anymore, but buy and enjoy.

This comparatively little known film may not bear comparison with the very best, but it certainly does not justify the comparative neglect it has been subject to, at least in this country. It is a very satisfying comedy-thriller, and well worth watching, with a good performance, as usual, from Deborah Kerr.

Deborah Kerr is wonderful in an early role as a mislead patriotic young thing willing to sign up as an agent for the IRA. That face, those eyes, her wonderful expressive eyes...ah, there I go again. Anyway, if you love D. you'll adore this war-era piece that just gives you a peek at what is to come in the future of this wonderful actress.

"I'm a retired spy." -- Deborah Kerr to Trevor Howard


If ever a film about a young Irish lass so passionate in her distaste for the English that she ends up working as a German spy during WWII could be described as airily charming, this is it. A pleasant Irish lilt can be heard and felt in Deborah Kerr's enchanting performance as the feisty but quite naive Birdie Quilty. Regaled by her father's tales of the Irish from the time she was a wee lassie, as a young woman she sets out to find the man he supposedly fought with and join in the rebellion. Her father's tales were pure blarney, of course, and when rebuffed, she becomes a spy for the Germans simply because they're against the Brits!

Frank Launder and Sidney Gillant concocted this tasty Irish stew as pleasant to look at as it is to savor, thanks to photographer Wilkie Cooper, and a breathtaking Deborah Kerr. Birdie's inner thoughts are given voice by Kerr throughout the film and offer more than a small amount of humor. Trevor Howard proves quite likable as the Army Intelligence Officer who is quite smitten with Birdie, despite her bewildering behavior. Even knowing she dumped a body into the ocean for some peculiar reason can't keep him from chasing her. He was already a goner, of course, and had asked her to do it to protect herself.

Birdie ends up way over her head and once she realizes Irish lives are at stake, has a change of heart. It's not so easy to just quit, however, especially when those bad guys want the information you've destroyed. A fun escape through an Irish funeral procession and mad dash for Eire, cap off a unique film. But just because she's one of the good guys now, doesn't mean she's a bit less Irish! Once the viewer settles in to the special mood of this delightful and pleasant film they'll have an excellent time. A must for classic film fans.

The rise to prominence in American films during the forties of an outstanding British beauty with dazzingly red hair, and intense, sparkling green eyes is a twice-told story. The first go around is with Greer Garson, the second is with Deborah Kerr. Of the two Kerr's was the better, longer career. Garson was a fully matured and highly touted stage actress of 35 nearing the top of her skills when she first hit Hollywood. She was all charm and lightness as financee to Robert Donat's Oscar-winning shy Mr. Chips, and Garson herself won an Oscar soon thereafter as wartime icon Mrs. Miniver. Garson then proceeded to perform at a respectable level for another dozen or so years in increasingly unremarkable films. By contrast, Deborah Kerr started in films at a far younger age than Garson; Kerr was not even twenty when she made her first film appearance, and she developed and grew into an highly accomplished screen actress as her career progressed over the course of nearly another quarter century before leading roles ended. Kerr was still barely a little over thirty when she broke ranks from the usual Hollywood type casting that found her playing a British lady - as the sexy adultress washing in the waves with Burt Lancaster in "From Here to Eternity".

In "I See a Dark Stranger", a surprise hit of 1946, Kerr is asked to carry the entire film's human sympathies. Suspense and plot both advance the story and offer her scene after scene to take over, which she unfailingly does. Given the seemingly impossible task of eliciting sympathy from post wartime audiences for a headstrong young Irish girl who hates the British so much she moves to Dublin to join the IRA, Kerr wins over the entire audience to her complicated young woman. Moreover, she continues this emotional bond when after failing to find a home with that stalwart organization, she joins up instead with the Germans as a spy against the Brits! In many ways this part asks way too much of any actress in a Britain only just relieved of ending a dreadful war with Germany, but Kerr certainly rises to the challenge.

How Kerr achieves such an acting tour de force at the tender age of 25 astonishes. The film's success as film makes most sense within the context of other Kerr's roles, and particularly other recent roles, more provocative roles than normally associated with her today. What one notices immediately about Kerr here as actress is her God-given gift for evoking a deep heart-felt sympathy from an audience, while never at any time explicitly asking for such sympathy. It's a remarkable balancing act! Although her reputation in America today remains that of a lady-like person, in fact her best roles have shown Kerr a far more determined and delving student of troubled human character. Her Irish spy in "I See a Dark Stranger" is one of these roles.

In her prior big success, "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp", Kerr plays three roles - the first finds her a turn of the century, self-assured suffragette and patriot, who loses a governess job in Germany over her principles. In her third role in the film, with the unnerving militaristic masculine moniker of Johnny Cannon!, Kerr not only bests her lover in argument, but while he's in full military gear loses her patience, strikes him over the head knocking him out, and dashes off forcing him to groggily give chase. Throughout the film her proper but determined characters struggle with inner conflicts, and it is always her courage that wins us over to her.

This is precisely the great charm of her role in "I See a Dark Stranger". Kerr's quietly determined Irish revolutionary looks beyond herself, and dreams of reawakening the stories of 1916 and the native struggles against the onerous British Rule. Once caught up in the true realites to such a stance in a world at war Kerr's character discovers she's losing control of her life. Her existence turns into a dangerous and scary world of uncertainty and fear, of confusing ambiquities, and growing threats on her own person. It's all a fabulously entertaining young Bildunsgroman, and Kerr plays her dominant role to the hilt. Watching her complicated reaction to Trevor Howard's attempt at an embrace on an Irish hillside exemplifies all that is so marvelous about her acting. With an offhand touch of her original Scott's burr, Kerr looks back and forth, eyes raised in effrontery, as she wiggles away announcing in a countrified manner, "I must be sittin' on a thistle!"

Set alongside her very next performance, as the shy Irish nun gone to the Himalayas in the unforgettable "Black Narcissus" Black Narcissus - Criterion Collection, Kerr as spy acts far more confidently in challenging her world. But certainly both portraits draw from the same heart-felt confusions and difficulties confronting a perplexed young person with a confusing morality of the world. Her flashbacks to life in Ireland in "Black Narcissus" are among the finest in all of film, expressing in a few minutes her entire reason fo ending up a Catholic sister at the roof of heaven. (Naturally the American Catholics, for whom the idea of nuns with a prior life was intolerablee, demanded these scenes be removed when the film was released in America!)

A lovely performance all round by an actress who never receives the full attention she deserves. Don't miss the entirety of Kerr's great long scene with the wheelchair - worthy of the best moments from the screen writers previous efforts for Hitchcock, it deserves credit as memorable film-making.

Note: For some reason this very British film is only available on DVD in the Region Code for North America. The quality of the print is about average for films of this era. I've watched it twice, the second time on a state of the art television and using a Blurray DVD player to up the image. The results were a marked improvemment - giving a far better image quality, sense of depth. Scenes set in darkness or low light - there are a several crucial ones in this spy thriller - no longer left me squinting to see what was going on.

A post-WWII B&W film featuring the beautiful Deborah Kerr. There are a couple of other significant names from that era in the film (Raymond Huntley, Trevor Howard), but this is really The Deborah Kerr Show.

Kerr superbly takes on the character of a 21 year old Irish girl, in 1944, with a chip on her shoulder against the English (which she inherited from her late father). She makes a fumbling attempt to get into the IRA, is rejected, but then later recruited by German spies.

An entertaining spy story with some GREAT historic and landscape footage from Ireland and Britain during the period. Also is an interesting look at the politics of the time. The plot is not really rocket science, but is a vehicle for Kerr to turn in a remarkable performance as the young Irish would-be revolutionary.

The transfer was a little jumpy in the first few minutes, but then crystal clear black-and white throughout. The soundtrack was adequate, but with the music typically "tinny", of that film era. Very British.

I See a Dark Stranger is a curious if wildly entertaining British thriller from 1946, just after the war. It stars Deborah Kerr as Bridie Quilty, a rambunctious Irish girl fed on her father's tales of resisting the English in the teens. Growing a hatred towards the English in general (especially Oliver Cromwell, which becomes a recurring gag), she decides to join the IRA at the height of WWII. Naturally, instead of the IRA she ends up getting involved into all sorts of unfortunate Nazi plots and the fate of England more or less ends up in her hands. Trevor Howard, as a romantic interest she is forced to become involved with due to her duties as a spy, tails her throughout the movie. The movie is noteworthy mainly for its excellent, lovingly detailed script, which manages to balance humour with suspense (although not perfectly) as well as the superb performance of Deborah Kerr. She is ravishing at 25, and the film provides her an endless variety of scenes in which to strut her considerable acting talents. There is something of an overuse of first-person narration throughout the film, although that, and the many dark scenes, give the movie a creepy noirish feel (although it is by no means a noir). The charming Trevor Howard and the rest of the supporting cast are quite good too, although Kerr retains the spotlight throughout.

Lovers of old, black and white mystery movies should get a kick out of this one. A young, idealistic Irish girl sets off for England during WWII to do something...ANYTHING... to further the Irish cause against England. Her naivete and zeal cause her to be secuced into aiding German spies against the Allies. Trevor Howard portrays the man who eventually saves her from herself.
Altogether a delightful story of intrigue, murder, humor, and romance with a peppery mix of Irish/English politics brought to life by an outstanding performance by a youthful Deborah Kerr. The film was produced at a time when excellent screen writing and outstanding acting were the things that captivated an audience, rather than computer-generated special effects.
This is an exceptional film. Grab a DVD of it for your collection while you can still get one.