We Were Strangers (1949)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Political drama of the initial Cuban upheaval pre-1933. Shown from the vantage point of the revolutionaries and their plot to overthrow the oppressive government in one fell swoop this is an unusual film for it's time period in that it doesn't shrink away from stating that the freedom workers might have to take innocent lives to achieve their goals. Huston's direction is assured and Garfield and Roland acquit themselves well but the picture is marred by two things. First is the overly obvious rear projection shots that occur throughout the film and the larger problem that Jones is miscast in a part that would have fit Katy Jurado like a glove. She seems neither gritty enough, she is consistently glamorous even when digging beneath a cemetery!!, nor even remotely Cuban to be believable. Not a bad film just flawed.

Although this film isn't exactly true in the way it portrays history (the ending wasn't quite accurate), then this is a pretty exciting film about a group of revolutionaries in 1930s Cuba--well before the days of Castro and Batista.The film begins with the government suspending basic freedoms. In response, a group of students spread fliers demanding an end to the dictatorship. Shortly after this, a couple of these students (including the brother of the character played by Jennifer Jones) are killed by the police. This event propels Jones to the side of the revolutionaries. The leader of this group is played by John Garfield--who is supposed to have emigrated to the US years before (though, oddly, he hasn't a trace of a Cuban accent). The group comes up with a bold plan--to tunnel under the cemetery and blow up most of the government officials during a state ceremony. All they need to do is dig a tunnel from Jones' basement and arrange to have an important member of the Senate killed in order to provide this funeral. There's more to it than this as well as a romance. However, I don't want to say more and spoil the suspense.The film is very good all around despite the odd casting of Garfield (without accent) and Jennifer Jones (though she did a pretty good job). What I liked about the film was the tense and intelligently written script. While not perfect (especially because I didn't find the romance all that believable), the film is interesting and unique--how many other Hollywood films deal with this period in Cuban history?

Every once in awhile, I find a film on Turner Classic Movies with a lot of A-list talent that I've never heard of. Usually there's a good reason why I'd never heard of it: it's bad. And when it's a film directed by John Huston, which he co-wrote with Peter Viertel (who collaborated with Huston 2 years later on "African Queen"), and with a cast as good as this...well, it seems even worse because of heightened expectations. There are maybe fifteen good minutes in this film, most of which include the great Pedro Armendariz as a sleazy, scary Cuban Cop. The rest ranges from mediocre to dismal. Heavy handed, didactic dialog is presented in static, stagy tableaux. Characterization -- other than by Armendariz -- is non-existent. One clever plot reversal leads to an unbelievable ending that comes out of nowhere. Story points are suddenly dropped, things happen completely out of convenience or because the director decides they should happen that way, and there is absolutely no sense of tension. Garfield is totally miscast, Jones tries her best, and Roland is a cartoon character. You can read the other positive reviews posted here and think that I must be way off base...but just ask yourself why you've never heard of this movie. If it was any good, you would have.

It's probable that this enterprise planted the seed that became White Hunter, Black Heart, throwing as it did screenwriter Peter Viertel and John Huston together several years before The African Queen. I seem to be in a minority here as most comments are highly favourable. I concede that it was brave in the extreme to make a pro-revolution movie at the time they did but other than that I find it on the dull side. Garfield especially is muted virtually throughout which goes completely against his screen persona of the virile, vitriolic short-fused hero and there is virtually no chemistry between him and Jennifer Jones, who comes close to reprising her Duel In The Sun shoot-out in the last reel. Gilbert Roland takes what acting honours there are in what for me is a curio rather than a lost gem.