When Strangers Marry

There is a ridiculous amount of mood and tension over opening envelopes, finding notes slipped under a door, montages, shadowy doorways and streets, phones and doorbells ringing, et cetera. Mitchum and Hunter do well in spite of their material where Hunter marries a man she only met three times (Jagger) and Michum is the man she turned down, which makes it kind of senseless that Hunter and Mitchum are always such close friends where he even wants to volunteer to find the missing husband (being turned down, wouldn't he hope a divorce results if the husband doesn't come back?) and help locate the silk stocking strangler. Of course toward the end you might guess who the strangler really is before you find out. This premise is interesting, but suspense is built too often in montages, fantasies, and moody music instead of through the story and characters.

This is a Hitchcockian film that reflects well the Film Noir period of Hollywood. Suspense is high, and the audience is kept guessing right to the end about who might be the killer of the drunk good-time Charlie, who innocently invited a stranger in a bar in New York to stay in his apartment for the evening. Don't be fooled by the original name, though. It is being aired on the premium classics channels under the a.k.a. name "Betrayed".

WHEN STRANGERS MARRY (aka Betrayed) 1944. Even most film fans know William Castle only for his gimmicky 50s & 60s horror films like THE TINGLER. But, Castle cut his teeth with several crime and mystery films which often bordered on Noir such as early entries in The Whistler series. STRANGERS is very much a B movie with all the usual shortcuts (montages, stock footage and scenes that can be only seconds in length). It's an efficient enough little thriller with a stellar cast including Kim Hunter, Dean Jagger, Neil Hamilton (as another cop) and the great Robert Mitchum. Much of your enjoyment will depend on how you take the twist towards the end, but, it moves along at a brisk 67 minutes and has enough to pass the time.