This week’s mystery movie has been the 1946 film “I See a Dark Stranger,” with Deborah Kerr, Trevor Howard, Raymond Huntley, Michael Howard, Norman Shelley, Brenda Bruce, Brefni O’Rorke, James Harcourt, Liam Redmond and W. O’Gorman, by Frank Launder, Sidney Gilliat and Wolfgang Wilhelm. The film was written and produced by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat. Production design by David Rawnsley, photographed by Wilkie Cooper, art direction by Norman Arnold and edited by Thelma Myers. Music by William Alwyn, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson. Directed by Frank Launder.

Bosley Crowther, reviewing the film for the New York Times (April 4, 1947) said:

That talent for richly combining melodrama and comedy, which writers Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat so delightfully displayed in their scripts for Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes” and Carol Reed’s “Night Train,” has been deftly applied by those gentlemen to the writing, production and direction of their own film, a British honey entitled “The Adventuress,” which opened at the Victoria yesterday. Since that is a recommendation quite sufficient for lots of folks, we wouldn’t blame you for dropping this paper right now and rushing down to get a seat.”

Grace Kingsley, reviewing the film for the Los Angeles Times (Dec. 26, 1947) said:

Important chiefly because of the outstanding talents and beauty of Heroine Deborah Kerr, J. Arthur Rank’s English production, “The Adventuress,” which opened yesterday at the Esquire Theater, is nevertheless sufficiently exciting to hold any spectator. Perhaps, ironically, the film’s chief fault is to be found in too many close-ups of the star, which at times seem to halt the story action.

“I See a Dark Stranger” is available on DVD from Amazon for $13.90.
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This week’s mystery movie has been the 1958 film “Equinox Flower.” Original story by Ton Santomi, screenplay by Yasujiro Ozu and Kogo Noda, produced by Shuzuo Yamauchi, cinematography by Yuharu Atsuta, music by Kojun Saito. Directed by Ozu.

Vincent Canby of the New York Times said (May 27, 1977):

“Equinox Flower”—a particularly inscrutable title even for this great Japanese director—is one of Ozu’s least dark comedies, which is not to say that it’s carefree, but, rather, that it’s gentle and amused in the way that it acknowledges time’s passage, the changing of values and the adjustments that must be made between generations.

The movie is available on DVD through Amazon.com.

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This week’s mystery movie has been the 1952 MGM picture “The Devil Makes Three,” with Gene Kelly, Pier Angeli, Richard Rober, Richard Egan, Claus Clausen, Wilfried Seyferth, Margot Hielscher and Annie Rosar. The screenplay was by Jerry Davis, based on a story (“Autobahn”) by Lawrence Bachmann.  Photography was by Vaclav Vich, art direction by Fritz Maurischat and Paul Markwitz, musical direction by Rudolph G. Kopp, and songs by Bronislau Kaper and Jupp Schmitz. it was directed by Andrew Marton.

It is available on DVD from Warner Archive for $15.49.

“My Man and I,” with Ricardo Montalban and Shelley Winters, which was on the original double bill, is also available from Warner Archive for $15.49.

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This week’s mystery movie has been the 1949 MGM picture “Intruder in the Dust,” with David Brian, Claude Jarman Jr., Juano Hernandez, Porter Hall, Elizabeth Patterson, Charles Kemper and Will Geer, from a screenplay by Ben Maddow based on the novel by William Faulkner. The movie was photographed by Robert Surtees, with art direction by Cedric Gibbons and Randall Duell, music by Adolph Deutsch, set decoration by Edwin B. Willis and Ralph S. Hurst, and makeup by Jack Dawn. It was produced and directed by Clarence Brown.

“Intruder in the Dust” is available on DVD from Warner Archive for $16.99.

Mary Mallory notes that the Film Noir Foundation recently posted a three-part interview with Claude Jarman Jr. on “Intruder in the Dust.”

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