Talk About a Stranger (1952)

Best movie of this year hands down!

What a waste of my time!!!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

This unknown little MGM item is based on a Charlotte Armstrong story (American mystery writer who wrote THE UNSUSPECTED and DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK, among others). The main focus is on the little boy (BILLY GRAY) who thinks the new menacing neighbor is the man who killed his faithfuldog and he's played with professional assurance by Gray. In fact, he has to carry the film since GEORGE MURPHY and NANCY DAVIS are relegated to roles on the sidelines.It's directed in competent style by Arthur Bradley, photographed in more than competent style by John Alton, full of moody B&W imagery, but the story is so thin it's almost transparent and winds up in a brief running time of one hour and five minutes.The last ten minutes wind up the story in good fashion, although the ending is a bit hard to swallow, as contrived and synthetic as any character-driven tale could be. KURT KAZNAR is the mean looking neighbor who suddenly turns out to be Mr. Good Guy when we learn about his past. The simple moral of this fable is that you can't judge a book by its cover, nor a person by first impressions.I have no criticism of Billy Gray's performance in the central role. He was one of the least self-conscious of all the child actors who came along at this time--and probably reached his peak as Doris Day's bratty little brother in BY THE LIGHT OF THE SILVERY MOON and ON MOONLIGHT BAY.

Surprisingly well-made and, at times, subtle and unpredictable Billy Gray vehicle released six months after the spectacular "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Billy was certainly on a roll.Although there is a certain Bildungsroman aspect to the film, the emphasis is on plot and intelligent development. Several scenes introduced primarily to increase interest and suspense are brought off very effectively. Bradley's treatment of children is intriguing.Photography and music are certainly above average for this era, genre, and budget.Unfortunately, this movie does not appear to be available on DVD or video, although if you keep an eye out, you may catch it on TMC.

Kurt Kaszner who has certainly played his share of villains on the screen has come to settle down in a small California town in the citrus fruit growing area. He's surly, bad tempered, and scares off anyone trying remotely to be friendly to him. Especially young Billy Gray who has a paper route that Kaszner is on. Even Gray's father George Murphy can't get any kind of smile out of him.In a small town, a fellow like Kaszner is bound to raise eyebrows, but no one outrightly accuses him of anything until a dog that young Mr. Gray has adopted is poisoned. Of course there's a lot more to the story, but I won't spoil anything by going farther. Talk About A Stranger can be deadly if you don't know the facts and let the worst impulses in your mind start taking control.Talk About A Stranger is an unpretentious film from MGM's B picture unit which has a simple message and speaks it plainly. Nancy Davis is in this as Gray's mother and Lewis Stone is in this as well in one of his last films.The film has a nice moral lessons about jumping to conclusions before all the facts are in.

Rather surprising that the director here, David Bradley, would go on to make some notoriously awful films. There isn't quite enough to the story and the ending is a timid disappointment, but the film boasts some unusually powerful, even unforgettable imagery. The kind that, if you see this movie as a child, will probably stick with you for a lifetime.Bradley does a wonderful job conveying a sense of how alien and intimidating the world must look through the eyes of a ten year old, especially when that ten year old ventures outside the safe, protected space that is his every day environment. (An environment that seems relatively harmless during the day but hostile and terrifying at night.)What images. The boy's head framed against the backdrop of the huge, sinister house next door where the mysterious, ill-tempered man resides. The boy sprinting through a fog-enshrouded orchard toward a raised, judgmental camera. Hitch-hiking on the side of a lonely highway as headlights bear down. A motorcyclist appearing like a ghost. Getting a ride through the dark in the cold night air, the biker's affable ramblings distant, dream-like. A mesmerizing montage of the boy watching his dedicated dad scrambling to heat his orchards on a night when the temperature drops below freezing, lighting flame after flame after flame. A subtle, unsettling sequence set in an abandoned home on the ocean where a creepy older boy scares the living daylights out of him."Father Knows Best" brat Billy Gray plays the lonely boy and he is an odd, atypically intense child actor. At times he is effective, at others he is simply obnoxious. He is one moody little actor in a moody little film. He would probably even unnerve that red-headed demon from those unfortunate "Problem Child" movies. Nobody else in the cast makes much of an impression, though everyone is adequate. George Murphy is the decent dad. Nancy Davis (actually not a bad actress at all) is hardly on screen and when she is she's playing the least pregnant looking pregnant lady you'll ever see. Kurt Kasznar is the strange neighbor, though he's not as ghoulish or ghastly looking as you're supposed to think he is. The child actress who plays Gray's nemesis/sweetheart, a girl named Anna Glomb, looks remarkably like Denise Richards must have looked like at the same age.A not-so-distant cousin of "To Kill A Mockingbird". Bradley was clearly a uniquely gifted film-maker, though this may be the only evidence of that talent. What happened?