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The Stranger

New 35 mm Print! THE STRANGER, 1946, MGM/UA, 95 min. Director Orson Welles’ suspenseful study of an escaped Nazi war criminal (played by Welles himself) living in a small Connecticut town, who is pursued by a Federal agent (Edward G. Robinson) to a no-holds-barred climax. Loretta Young gives one of her finest screen performances as Welles’ unsuspecting wife. Ironically, this was Welles’ most successful film at the box office.

Ok, so what does this mean? Is MGM (or perhaps even Warner) sitting on a recent print of The Stranger? I know the Roan Group currently has the best print on DVD in a double feature set, but if there is a possibility that another studio is going to do a better release... I would rather wait. This print was shown last year, and I only just found out about it.

Does anyone know what the status of the rights are and/or has heard anything about an eventual "official" home video release for DVD? Thanks.

Turner Classic Movies regularly shows the licensed studio version, and even with broadcast anomalies, it trashes all of the PD versions out there. They must just figure (perhaps rightly), that the market is too saturated with these PD versions warrant another.

What "broadcast anomalies?" For the record, I have the Master Tone disc of THE STRANGER which (despite one or two glitches) is near excellent for a PD disc. Really sharp and dark. I think this is an underrated film, and really a lot of fun.

The German DVD of "The Stranger" looks very good from the screen captures here.

jesus the mexican boi wrote:What "broadcast anomalies?"

I've seen that Mastertone disc -- it's fine for what it is (good tonal range), but has a much more unstable image (rocks up and down slightly) compared to the TCM source. Broadcast anomalies? Standard def Dish Network stuff: macroblocking, halo effects, not much in the way of deep blacks or picture detail.

I was telling a friend of mine how good The Stranger looked on TCM and what a shame that a good DVD release hasn't come out yet. I think The Stranger is a very underated Orson Welles film and that a Criterion or a Warner Home Video 2 disc special edition release with a print restoration would be more than welcome in the near future.

Absolutely! Look at Elite's Night of the Living Dead or Criterion's Carnival of Souls. Here you have two titles that are carried by most retailers due to the quality, supplements and reliable DVD label, despite the fact that you can get them a variety of different and cheaper releases.

I'll probably end up getting Roan's version soon because I'm tired of waiting, but if Warner or MGM want to step up with a better transfer with decent supplements, I'll definitely be there to double-dip.

dvdjournal is saying that both the Stranger and The Trial are coming from Universal on Feb 7. I can't find anything else on it.

Both titles are coming from Focus Film on Feb 7th - they released them together before in Citizen Welles set. Nothing to get excited about. They must have confused it with Focus Features (part of Universal).

Released by Focus Film!!!......Why would it be released again! DVD BEAVER did a good comparison on all the dvd versions out there. Forget the Focus Films version and wait until somebody does it right!

I still need to order the R2 of this film. The only copy I have of it is the Questar Five Killer Classics Noir set. The transfer is pretty blah in that but watchable. I stumbled upon this film one night on TV at around 3 in the morning during my college years and was enthralled. I didn't know much about Orson Welles at that time, but his rant at the dinner table really got my attention. Who the hell was this guy? This movie lead to my major fascination with his work including his other films and radio broadcasts.

I was disapointed when I read in "This is Orson Welles" that he considered it to be his worst film. It's no Othello but it isn't a bad film, imo.

porquenegar wrote:I was disapointed when I read in "This is Orson Welles" that he considered it to be his worst film. It's no Othello but it isn't a bad film, imo.

Well, I think that Welles was still bitter over how the studio cut out an elaborate prologue -- 30 minutes of footage -- that featured a large chase between Wilson and Meinike as he tried to locate Kindler in Argentina. I'd love to see that footage some day...

But I agree with you, it's one of my favorite Welles' films and was also one of the first I ever saw of his. Good stuff.

I have not purchased this DVD yet as I have been waiting for a definitive version. I used to have the Laserlight version, but that, of course, was garbage.

Is the Roan version worth purchasing? Is it far better than the Laserlight version?

I grabbed the Roan version for less than $10, and the picture quality is pretty decent, so yes, I'd recommend it.

From the Warner chat at the HTF:

Warner doesn't own The Stranger.

I think that the ball is now in Criterion's court.

They also said that MGM owns it and Sony doesn't have a relationship with Criterion to give them access to better materials for this title....

dx23 wrote:From the Warner chat at the HTF:

Warner doesn't own The Stranger.

That was me. They completely dodged my question about The Rainbow Thief, but at least gave me some hope about Zabriskie Point.

Ashirg wrote:They also said that MGM owns it and Sony doesn't have a relationship with Criterion to give them access to better materials for this title....

Well, that is even worse, since Sony doesn't believe in their catalog unless the name is Zorro, Spider-Man or Charlie's Angels

dx23 wrote:

Ashirg wrote:They also said that MGM owns it and Sony doesn't have a relationship with Criterion to give them access to better materials for this title....

Well, that is even worse, since Sony doesn't believe in their catalog unless the name is Zorro, Spider-Man or Charlie's Angels

You missed Fifth Element and Leon, The Professional.

Just watched the new Hungarian release of this which is from the MGM transfer. Looks beautiful. Small amount of debris but very nice contrast and detail. Very pleased. Will this be released in the US? A bit of improvement over the Roan. With this and the upcoming Mr. Arkadin from CC looks like the Welles library is looking--well--better.

While reading the very good review by Glen Erickson on the recent Criterion release of Mr. Arkadin, I noticed that he wrote the following in the in the review and footnotes:

Reading about The Stranger and The Lady From Shanghai, we discovered that the films we knew actually had major sequences missing, remixed soundtracks, and even entire scenes re-shot by other hands. 1

Footnotes
1. I first read about an extensive, lost prologue to The Stranger in Bret Wood's terrific article in Video Watchdog's issue #23, May/June 1994. That movie was meant to begin with a serious Arkadin- like Nazi hunt from Germany to Argentina before finally catching up with Welles' character posing as a college professor in a small New England town

did anybody know about the missing footage?

IIRC, that footage was never shot -- too expensive. The real coup, though, would have been if Orson had had his way and the Edward G. Robinson character would have been played by Agnes Moorehead.

Orson finally gets the Blu-ray treatment.

DVDBeaver compares the Blu-ray with the existing DVD editions.

Based on the frame grabs, this Blu-ray leaves me unconvinced. It's utterly lacking in detail--looks like an HD upscaling of an old (and not very good) standard def "public domain" transfer, possibly from 16mm. To my eyes, the MGM DVD used better (definitely 35mm) source materials and it appears to have more detail. It certainly has superior contrast. I suspect it would be better stick with the MGM DVD and just use your Blu-ray or DVD player's upscaling. I have a sick feeling that we're going to see more of these "restored" public domain films on Blu-ray now that the format has reached a fairly wide market penetration.

I'm grateful that DVD Beaver took the trouble to review the disc, though.

If that's any indication of what their upcoming Blu-ray edition of Kansas City Confidential will look like, I'm glad I just picked up the MGM DVD.