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Overrated and overhyped

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

On a roll with adjectives, I thought "Three Strangers" was, in fact, unconvincing as well as unsatisfying, while at the same time mildly entertaining. The story is flawed, a very surprising adjective, as it was written by no less than John Huston, who wrote the screenplay for "Treasure of The Sierra Madre" and "The Maltese Falcon". It starts off well but then tails off into the lives of the three people, who do not meet again until the end of the picture. The bulk of the movie deals with the private lives of the three, which turn out to be disparate if not sensational. The fault is Huston's, as he did not inject their tedious lives with enough flair or spice.Once again, as in 'The Verdict", the heroes are an obese senior citizen and a geeky Hungarian. Once again, it works. Lorre comes out OK, but towards the end Greenstreet, an effective actor if he stays within his range, is asked to extend himself and overacts. Geraldine Fitzgerald is given a thankless role as a calculating shrew, not nearly up to her heartbreaking Oscar nom role in "Wuthering Heights".In my opinion a couple of scenes needed another take and look rushed and half-hearted, but my overriding thought is that when this situation is coupled with the unlikable principals and a pedestrian storyline, it all adds up in my mind to a rating of 6 for a flawed, unconvincing movie.

I read the back story on this film and how long they wanted to make it....Along with the top "A-list" stars they wanted for it and for the life of me...I can't see them in this. Who they chose was dead perfect.Two men follow a beautiful woman to her apartment but for her...it was by design. She shows the men a Chinese goddess of fortune and at a certain time of the the year, if 3 strangers all wish on it then it will come true. Peter Lorre plays an aloof crook who doesn't care if he gets caught or not. He's just chillin' the whole time through this. He decides that he has a lottery ticket for a horse race in his pocket and that they should wish on that to win. If they do it's 30,000 pounds to the winner. Split 3 ways that's 10,000 each. The real story is the stories of each of the 3 strangers lives outside that wish they made upon the Chinese goddess of fortune. Peter Lorre is a crook who's hiding out with one of his accomplices waiting for another crook to get out of jail. He's on trial for murder and they sit and wait for him to get free. Sydney Greenstreet is a sheister estate lawyer who funnels his clients funds into stocks and what not and he chooses a wrong stock and loses the money in the process. He needs this lottery ticket for a horse race to win. Geraldine Fitzgerald plays a shifty no-good wife of a prominent official who's in the marriage for all the wrong reasons. He's left her a long time previous but she wants to make up with her husband for all her wrongs but she only wants to so no other woman will have him. She knows he can't get a divorce without her consent so he's stuck and she pulls the strings. Problem is that she needs money and this ticket could help her out.This is a really winding story of 3 losers who if they would just do one thing right in their life then Karma would probably help them out. As it stands though, these are 3 people who deserve their fates because they created them. A really creative idea for a story and really well done. A great ending you see coming but it's still good any how. All 3 leads were cast perfectly for what this film has to offer. Give this one a shot and wait for the ending to see what Karma is all about.

Geraldine Fitzgerald recruits two strangers -- Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet -- from the foggy streets of Victorian London and asks them to her flat. She asks them to chip in for a sweepstakes ticket and sign a document that they are equal contributors and none will sell his third of the payoff to anyone else. Maybe I should explain because this confused me. The sweepstakes isn't a random drawing of a number. It's horse race. The favorite horse is announced just before the race, so suddenly anyone who happens to own a ticket with the name of the favorite on it -- in this case "Corn Cracker" -- finds himself with a bird in the hand. He can sell his ticket (or his share in the ticket) to someone else at a higher price than what he paid. But the document with three signatures forbids this. So we already know this is a set up for later conflict.As a matter of fact, the three signators are all up to illegal or unethical doings. Geraldine Fitzgerald is a wife whose impulsiveness has alienated her husband, a Member of Parliament who is now in love and in bed with a Canadian woman. A scandal would be calamitous to his career. She squeals on him out of spite.The bibulous Peter Lorre has been involved in a stick up in which a bobby was killed by his partner. He barely escapes hanging.Greenstreet, a Mount Everest of blubber, has been embezzling funds from the trust fund of one of his agreeable but ditzy elderly female clients. When she insists on an imediate audit just before the race, Greenstreet becomes desperate and needs to sell his share of the ticket in order to make up the loss. He rushes to Fitzgerald's flat where he finds her and Lorre. Conflict ensues.All the way through, I wondered how the screenwriter, John Huston, was going to pull these three disparate narrative threads together because, after that first adventitious meeting, they never meet again until the resolution.Well, he does a pretty good job, and the director, Jean Negulesco, doesn't let the script down. Both the writer and director add something to what otherwise might have been a pedestrian story of suspense and murder and intrigue. The sets help too. Who can not be enthralled by the foggy streets of London where each shadow might hide a mysterious figure -- perhaps with a RAZOR? I kind of like it, especially the mountainous Sydney Greenstreet with his quivering lips and darting eyes. Great heavy.

The time is 1938 London before the World War. A woman of mystery, Geraldine Fitzgerald, invites two perfect strangers played by Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet up to her apartment. She's a believer in the ancient Chinese god of Kwan Lin and it's said that if Three Strangers wish on that deity and their's is the same wish it will be granted. In this case the wish is money and it's in the form of a sweepstakes ticket that Peter Lorre has purchased and who gives two thirds away to Fitzgerald and Greenstreet in the hope of fortune coming their way.After this we see a glimpse of the lives of the three people. Lorre is a petty criminal who's gotten himself into a beautiful jackpot being accused of a murder that he didn't commit. Fitzgerald is a shrewish wife who stays married to an unhappy Alan Napier who just wants to be free to marry Marjorie Riordan. This is a harbinger of a role that Fitzgerald really perfected a dozen years later in Ten North Frederick. As for Greenstreet, he's a solicitor, an attorney of no great significance in the legal profession, an English version of a man whose name I was once threatened with named Abe Hecht. It's now become a synonym for cheap shysters with me. Anyway Greenstreet's the trustee of an estate he's been dipping into. He wants to make a financial killing real bad because he thinks that money will buy him respectability which he craves like nothing else.The film is like a 90 minute version of a Twilight Zone episode, but that's not a putdown because some really classic stuff was done on that program. The script was written by Howard Koch and John Huston and directed by Jean Negulesco. I'm surprised Huston did not want to direct this one himself, but Jean Negulesco got some of the best performances that members of the cast ever gave on screen, especially from the three leads.Notice no really big movie names are in this cast, no leading men screen legends. That may have been an asset to the film because it concentrates on the story and the characters created. The ironic fates of all three of the sweepstakes ticket sharers could have come right out of the imaginative mind of Rod Serling. And Peter Lorre is actually allowed a little romance in a movie. That alone makes Three Strangers absolutely priceless.Three Strangers is a B picture gem, one of those low budget sleepers that Hollywood puts out to great critical acclaim that turn a profit because of the low budget. And this review is dedicated to that attorney Abe Hecht whom I never met and to his idiot brother-in-law Morris Stetch who threatened me with him back in 1979. To see if Greenstreet obtains the status of a Clarence Darrow and rises from Abe Hechtdom, don't miss Three Strangers.