Stranger on the Third Floor │ Warner Archive Collection
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment
by CHAD KENNERK
Often cited as the first legitimate film noir, Stranger on the Third Floor arrived a year before the landmark The Maltese Falcon (1941) and four years before film noir’s textbook example, Double Indemnity (1944). While considered essential noir today, the modest B-movie was not a box office success in its time. According to studio records, the film actually cost RKO a pretty penny (a loss in the realm of over $1 million in today’s dollars). Credited to Frank Partos, the screenwriter of The Uninvited and The Snake Pit, writing partner Nathanael West ultimately provided the polish on the final draft. Partos and West went on to adapt the novel Before the Fact, which Alfred Hitchcock turned into Suspicion.
The 64-minute paranoia-filled narrative of Stranger on the Third Floor follows journalist Michael Ward (John McGuire), a reporter for The New York Star who helps convict a man for murder (Elisha Cook Jr.). Though he claimed to see the man standing over the body, he later becomes haunted by doubts about his testimony when his girlfriend Jane (Margaret Tallichet) shares she has a feeling the man was innocent. In addition to raising serious questions about America’s justice system, there’s a knockout dream sequence that has helped define the title’s legacy. Full of chiaroscuro lighting borrowed from German Expressionism, there are a lot of noir hallmarks in Stranger, including a first-person voice-over delivered by the male protagonist and a non-linear, flashback structure to the narrative. There’s also a great opening title credits sequence with silhouettes of people in the windows of an apartment building and snappy noir dialogue like, “Do you talk in your sleep? Telling your secrets to the walls.”
Remarkably, Stranger on the Third Floor was a debut feature. Director Boris Ingster was born in Riga (then Russia and now Latvia), where he started his career in the theatre. He founded the Moscow State Jewish Theatre (GOSET) and met future Battleship Potemkin director Sergei Eisenstein in Moscow in the early 1920s while studying acting. Ingster eventually emigrated to France, where he served as an assistant to Sergei Eisenstein on the set of the film Sentimental Romance (1930). When Eisenstein was courted by Hollywood, Ingster followed and found work as a screenwriter and later a director and producer. He only has two other films to his credit as director: 1948's The Judge Steps Out and 1950’s Southside 1-1000, but one wonders what opportunities he might have had if Stranger on the Third Floor was as well regarded then as it is today. Art Director Van Nest Polglase already had an endless list of credits to his name by 1940, including a wide array of genres from Top Hat to Bringing Up Baby and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). The following year he worked on Citizen Kane, and later the noir classic Gilda, ultimately being credited on over 300 films. Composer Roy Webb was equally prolific and would later rework some of his themes heard here for Murder, My Sweet (1944).
This may have been a ‘B’ cast, but there’s A-class work here from Lorre, McGuire, and especially from Margaret ‘Talli’ Tallichet, who retired from acting following her marriage to acclaimed director William Wyler. She went on to make just two more films (1941’s It Started with Eve and The Devil Pays Off), which is a shame given the presence and quality she brings to the screen here. Peter Lorre doesn’t have much screen time but receives top billing and makes a major impression as the eponymous stranger. As it turns out, there’s a reason for his brief tenure in the film. Lorre owed RKO two days on his contract and was given this role to cover the deficit, receiving top billing largely because he was the most recognisable name among the cast! As mentioned, Stranger on the Third Floor and The Maltese Falcon tend to be the films cited by historians as the first noirs, while others point to Fritz Lang’s M (1931) as a major precursor. All three have Peter Lorre in common, along with Elisha Cook Jr. in the later two. Fans who want to visit Lorre will find him interred in the Cathedral Mausoleum at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.
The Warner Archive Collection continues to impress with remastered Blu-ray releases created directly from 4K scans of the original nitrate camera negatives. That kind of clarity is particularly important and appreciated when it comes to the sharply contrasted blacks and whites of film noir. More generous than usual, the special features include two wonderful vintage 1940 Merrie Melodies cartoon shorts directed by Tex Avery, Ceiling Hero and Wacky Wildlife. The later features particularly beautiful animation and depictions of animals that look a lot closer to their real-life inspirations than the traditional look of their Looney cousins. Lorre fans are also treated to three episodes of the classic radio series Mystery of the Air, all starring Lorre: Beyond Good and Evil, Crime and Punishment, and Mask of Medusa. The Warner Archive Collection release looks stunning, a must-have for every hard-boiled noir fan.
Stranger on the Third Floor is available on Blu-ray 24 February from Warner Archive Collection.
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