Product Details

• Actors: David Lansbury, Ernie Hudson, Martin Sheen, Bill Raymond, Sean Nelson
• Directors: Jay Craven
• Writers: Jay Craven, Don Bredes, Howard Frank Mosher
• Producers: Jay Craven, Bess O'Brien, Brook Wetzel, Holden Brooks
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Allumination
• VHS Release Date: July 27, 1999
• Run Time: 112 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 1578482348
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #299,179 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Jay Craven has made a little niche for himself in dramas of the American Midwest. His 1993 sleeper Where the Rivers Flow North chronicles the standoff between the WPA and a defiant Vermont farmer during the depression. Stranger in the Kingdom, adapted from the novel by Howard Frank Mosher, finds Craven back in Vermont, circa 1952, where a sleepy little town is awakened by the arrival of worldly black pastor Ernie Hudson, fresh from 15 years of service as an Army chaplain. The community doesn't take to their new two-fisted moral policeman, and tongues wag when he takes in a sexy young French Canadian mail-order maid fleeing from her abusive household. When she's murdered the community points its fingers to the minister. As long as the film stays with Hudson, it's a compelling portrait of small-town provincialism turned ugly, but the film's real protagonist is hometown attorney David Lansbury, a fun-loving scamp who confronts his own arrested adolescence while defending Hudson in a Perry Mason-like climax. The film loses its complexity as it turns whodunit, but until then it's a richly populated, well-sketched portrait of rural paradise polluted by ignorance and hate, beautifully shot in autumnal colors. Sean Nelson (Fresh) costars as the minister's son, and Martin Sheen and Henry Gibson appear as attorneys for the prosecution. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good film, definitely worth a rental if you're interested, November 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Stranger in the Kingdom [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The third in Jay Craven's series of film adaptations of Howard Frank Mosher novels (the others are 'High Water' (1991), 'Where the Rivers Flow North' (1993), and the upcoming 'Disappearances'.) By far Craven's darkest film to date, telling a story of murder and racism in a small, backwards Vermont town, c. 1950. A nice piece of cinema which is at once both a compelling drama and a well executed whodunit, featuring top-drawer performances (particularly Rusty DeWees, Bill Raymond, and Ernie Hudson.), and an appropriately eerie score by the Horse Flies. Not entirely faithful to the book, but how many films are? Worth at least a rental from anybody who likes a good drama.

2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Vermont Movie, August 31, 2006

By 

Mike E. - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Stranger in the Kingdom (DVD)

Why? Because I'm in it and so is my 1936 DeSoto Airflow. A long day of shooting is about 2 to 5 minutes that are used in the final edit.
Movie was shot in a small town in Vermont Noth of Hanover, NH. Many locals were used.
Fun movie that all should enjoy.