When Strangers Marry (1944)

A Masterpiece!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

"House on Haunted Hill" director William Castle's murder & mystery "Where Strangers Marry" is a good crime thriller with a great surprise reversal in the final moments. By now, everybody knows that Castle cribbed from Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps" when the maid took the mask off the dead man and the editor cuts to a train with a screaming whistle. All I can say is that it works for Castle as well as it worked for Hitchcock. Performances are above-average in this hypnotic tale of deception with Dean Jagger cast as a shady salesman who has just gotten himself hitched to sweet, innocent heroine Kim Hunter. When our heroine suspects that her husband, Paul Baxter (Dean Jagger of "Bad Day at Black Rock") may be a notorious 'silk stocking' slayer, she runs to another salesman, Fred Graham (Robert Mitchum of "The Night of the Hunter") for advice. Paul fails to show up at a hotel in New York City, so Fred takes her to see a homicide detective, Lieutenant Blake (Neil Hamilton of TV's "Batman), where he played Commissioner Gordon of Gotham City. Throughout "When Strangers Marry," Jagger casts a crooked shadow. He is downright anti-social. Furthermore, he lies to his newly wed bride and she catches him in a lie. Neither Castle nor his scenarists, Oscar-winner Philip Yordan for "Broken Lance" and Dennis J. Cooper of "Fear," working for a story by George G. Moskov of "Green Fields," telegraph the revelation during the closing moments. Everything about "When Strangers Marry" is polished. Clocking in at a nimble 67 minutes, Castle never loiters, and the last minute train scene hearkens back to an earlier one.

Back in the forties, it happened more often than not. People were quick to make their wants and themselves known and didn't mince words. Marriage was one of those subjects and comes up in the older movies. It was easier to go through life married making things more affordable if both continued to work and of course eliminate being lonely instantly. Meeting someone was no problem as eligible were all over the place. Using that as the story line, we got a nice clever who done what to whom and why movie going here. Nice to see the actors making their trade and this movie does a good job of capturing the viewer right to the end. The ending is delightful and caused me to laugh out loud in a most pleasing way for its originality and of course upbeat ending. Its a nice quick to the point little drama mystery. Settle in with your favorite candy and a tasty drink as we glimpse what life was like in the forties. Worth mentioning is a slice of the black culture back then as the actors visit a part of town and bar that caters to the black community. Little bit of history captured there as movies usually didn't do this but this one did. BTW...People were naive, simpler and easier going believing what they were told until they had reason to doubt otherwise. If you were burned back then, you became hard and stayed that way which is depicted in the movie in one of the scenes involving renting a room. Today, people doubt first and hesitate making for trust a hard thing to come by...

When Strangers Marry (AKA: Betrayed) is directed by William Castle and written by Philip Yordan and Dennis J. Cooper. It stars Dean Jagger, Kim Hunter, Robert Mitchum and Neil Hamilton. Music is by Dimitri Tiomkin and cinematography by Ira H. Morgan.A compact William Castle noir that finds Hunter marrying a man she barely knows (Jagger), only to find he may be a murderer. Robert Mitchum is on hand for help and advice…Well put together by Castle who keeps things brisk and simple whilst keeping the mystery element high, that in turn does justice to the decent script. There's plenty of noir touches, from expressionistic photography and up-tilts, to cool montages and feverish scenes. Some odd characters add to the psychological discord, while Tiomkin blends jazzy dance strains with "he's behind you" type rumbles.Cast performances are more solid than anything spectacular, but Mitchum serves very early notice of what a presence and icon he was to become. Some sequences look cheap, which for a Monogram cheapie is to be expected, and this type of pic has been done far better by others, notably Hitchcock and Lewton, both of whom Castle doffs his cap towards. But this never outstays its welcome and there's plenty here for the noir lover to get hooked on. 7/10

Check out that unsettling scene in the lonely police waiting room. Little guy Houser (Lubin) sits on one side and vulnerable newly-wed Millie (Hunter) sits on the other with a big empty space between. It's a great visual metaphor for the danger facing our young stranger in the city. A hostile world appears on one side and poor Millie all alone on the other. Even little things work against her in the big, impersonal surroundings—the unhelpful news guy, streetlights suddenly going out. Then too, those spare sets from budget-minded Monogram fairly echo with undefined menace.From such atmospheric touches, it's not hard to detect the influence of Val Lewton's horror classic The Seventh Victim (1943). At the same time, the movie's director William Castle was a moving force behind the brilliantly unconventional Whistler series from Columbia studios. So the many imaginative touches here, like the lunging lion's head that opens the film, should come as no surprise.Despite the overall suspense, I had trouble following plot convolutions—who was where, when, and why. But then the screenplay did have four writers, which is seldom an asset. Still, the mysterious husband (Jagger) and Millie's suspicions does generate core interest. In my little book, the main appeal is in the players and the atmosphere, such as the winsome young Hunter, a virile young Mitchum, and the jazzy Harlem nightclub. All in all, the sixty-minutes remains a clever little surprise from poverty row Monogram.