After a fortuitous pairing in THE MALTESE FALCON/’41, Peter Lorre & Sydney Greenstreet became a sort of team @ Warners, co-starring in high quality B-pics & lending support on bigger-budget items. This crackerjack suspense yarn may be the best of the ‘Bs,’ a winner-takes-nil lottery fever tale with Geraldine Fitzgerald holding up her end (and then some) in third position. Jean Negulescu, in one of his nifty early directing gigs, stretches a thin budget for a crepuscular London, where our three strangers interlock on the fate of a lottery ticket & a bit of luck off an exotic statue. There’s Fitzgerald’s furtive, estranged wife, trying to foul her husband’s exit; Greenstreet’s solicitor, playing with a client’s investment money; Lorre’s petty crook, drinking his way into a pal’s murder charge. Beautifully orchestrated, probably by co-scripter Howard Koch working off an initial draft from John Huston which already touches on favorite themes of riches slipping thru fingers.* Fitzgerald, who never quite broke thru to major stardom, may have her best role here, at least as leading lady. And if Greenstreet does little fresh (he gives much the same perf later this year in THE VERDICT), Lorre is a mini-revelation, touching & sweet, as a compromised good guy. But everybody shines on this one.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Note FALCON holdovers lenser Arthur Edeson & composer Adolph Deutsch.
DOUBLE-BILL: *Huston’s first film after war service, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE/’48, might well be titled THREE STRANGERS; and ends with nearly the same ironic twist.
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