Rackets à New York

I found "Never Love a Stranger" on YouTube and decided to watch it as it is the first credited movie appearance by Steve McQueen. He doesn't star in the film, but he is an important character in the story.

When the movie begins, a woman dies in a rooming house...leaving a brand new baby behind. With no other options, the boy is sent to be raised in a Catholic orphanage. While he's there, Frankie (John Drew Barrymore) makes friends with a Jewish teen, Marty (McQueen), and his family. He also makes friends with the local mob boss...a guy who likes what he sees in Frankie.

Some time later, the folks at the orphanage discover that Frankie's dead mother was Jewish...and they make arrangements to send him to a Jewish orphanage. Frankie doesn't want to go and disappears for seven years.

In the interim, Marty goes to law school and obtains a job with the District Attorney's office. When Frankie returns, he goes back into business with the mob boss...and soon is able to wrangle his way to the top of the mob empire! As a result, Marty is given a new job by the DA....to get Frankie and make sure he goes to prison! This is made all the tougher as they were friends AND Marty's sister, Julie, is in love with Frankie. What's next? See the film.

While this is generally a very good film, I think all the narration could have been removed and the film could have been a bit better. It's just too schmaltzy and unnecessary. Apart from that, it was an entertaining crime film....not noir, as it lacked the camerawork, glib dialog and violence you'd expect in noir.

"Never Love A Stranger" was taken from an early Harold Robbins book and gave Steve McQueen his first significant role in films. Unfortunately, it is sub-standard in all respects and I would only recommend it to fanatic McQueen fans intent on seeing any and all of his film appearances. The budget must have been minuscule, since the production looks like it would have been cheap even for 50's television. The lighting, sets, and sound are all inferior. The writing is laughably bad and the direction has no sense of pace and certainly no dramatic depth. The lead is John Drew Barrymore, son of the Great Profile and father of Drew. He's not awful, and does what he can with the role, but he and all the other actors are weighed down by the dreadful script and direction. McQueen does not do much better. He is miscast, playing a nice Jewish boy...yes, Steve McQueen plays a nice Jewish boy, you read that right. Not only that, but he begins the film having to be taught how to box and defend himself by Barrymore. Then he grows up to be the noble, honorable district attorney out to get his gangster childhood friend. More astute future casting directors would eventually discover that McQueen's true forte was as the tough rebel and loner, not the goody two-shoes. Moreover, he is given no chance to shine, no scenes to dominate. Its all Barrymore's picture and McQueen is strictly there in support. Lita Milan is also in the picture as Barrymore's girl, and she's awful too.

I came to own and watch this film because the score was written by musician and inventor Raymond Scott. The acting is very wooden. but fans of Steve McQueen might get a kick out of seeing him in an early role, not to mention the Buddy Holly glasses!

It's a Harold Robbins story and production, and it's a very interesting story. A mother gives birth to an orphan and dies, the orphan is taken to a catholic orphanage and brought up a catholic. 16 years later he runs away for personal reasons. Before that he has made friends with Steve McQueen and his sister, who becomes his love, but his employer is a gangster, which brings complications and ultimately turns him into a hard knuckles gangster too. Of course it doesn't pay in the long run, but what about his relationships with his best friends, Steve McQueen who turns into his chief prosecutor and his sister, who never let him down? It's a great and fascinating set-up and story, and although it is not quite convincing as a noir, the interesting story remains a lasting curiosity, as the catholic-jewish orphan actually goes through all the worst dregs of life to finally reach - what? That is the question.

I can understand those who award this film full ten points, and those who discard it with a 1. But John Drew Barrymore makes a good job, and Steve McQueen in his first full length movie is already here the reliable character he always was. Even one of the gangsters turn human in the end, but it's too late to stop the tragedy... Raymond Scott's music also contributes to the effort of making it a convincing noir, and almost succeeds...John Drew Barrymore's charming smile doesn't help him much, but he makes the best of it, in this bitter story of a bitter destiny......

Never Love a Stranger (1958)

You might be most impressed by the early appearance of Steve McQueen, who shows a spark and intensity that makes him rise above the rest of the cast, who are really rather good in all. It says something about star power, which isn't all smoke and mirrors. You might also get a kick that the leading male (McQueen is secondary) is played by John Drew Barrymore, son of the famous John and father of the famous Drew. Sadly, this man of the generation in the middle was troubled and had a mixture of leading roles, never achieving greatness or fame.

If the plot is a familiar one about two slum kids in New York growing up into opposite roles, one a thug, the other the area's district attorney (there are several of these films), there is another theme that makes the movie singular. That is the issue of being Jewish, and at times downright anti-Semitism, though handled with kid gloves. The fighting between Catholic boys and the one Jewish kid (McQueen) is standard clan rivalry, with a religious twist. But when the other character, raised in a Catholic orphanage, discovers he is actually Jewish, his first reaction is rebellion. And the movie carries this theme throughout, adding a good if forced second level to work with.

I'm not sure it matters, but it's interesting, at least, that McQueen and Barrymore are both not Jewish as far as I know (McQueen in particular doesn't fit the stereotypes, but that's probably okay by itself), nor was the director, Robert Stevens the American (as opposed to the more famous Robert Stevens the Brit). Even more interesting, the book the movie draws from was written by Harold Robbins, whose parents were Jewish immigrants, but when he was a child he claimed (falsely) to have been raised in a Roman Catholic orphanage. For whatever reason, then, the theme is handled with a kind of detachment that makes it odd, and not nearly as affecting as, say, some of the European films that really attack the issue of "passing" for Goy when the Nazi rampage was on (Louis Malle's "Au revoir les enfants" possibly the best). The Barrymore character never does quite accept of address his heritage.

Now to be clear, the movie lacks a directorial touch to keep it alive and pertinent. It's a decent if uninspired effort, but the exceptions will make it worth a close look for some.