Ormai ti amo

Returned earlier this year to watching more classic/golden era films. Especially film noirs, mystery thrillers and silent film. There are always two common reasons for seeing any film or television series for this reviewer. One is if the premise sounds promising, 'Walk Softly Stranger' applies here. The other is if there is a talented cast, again this applies here, having seen Joseph Cotten and Spring Byington in other things and liking their work. The genre also appeals.

'Walk Softly Stranger' is another one of those recent discoveries long put in my watchlist but only got round to watching recently. It's another one that left me mostly impressed if not jumping out of my chair in rapture. For what it is, it is well done and executes almost all its components more than solidly. But it also misses out on having the extra something. Definitely recommended and another film that doesn't deserve its seldom seen status, just not quite an essential.

It is a long way from perfect. Did feel that it is melodramatically scripted at times, especially later on, and that it could have done with more momentum.

There are not an awful lot of surprise and the suspense isn't as strong in the final act. Coming off worst is the ending, which is very mawkish and completely at odds with the rest of the film (pretty much too much like it was lifted out of another).

However, what particularly makes 'Walk Softly Stranger' is the acting, which is very good. Cotten is beautifully restrained and amiable and Byington is solid support in a type of role she always played well. Best of all is poignant, sympathetic Alida Valli as the most fleshed out character that goes from one main personality to another as the character evolves seamlessly and gains our sympathy from start to finish.

It is filmed with a good sense of slick style and moody atmosphere and is crisply directed. The music and sound quality don't get over-bearing and suit the mood very well. The script is tight and gritty as ought and the story compels and has the right amount of intricacy. Some nice tension too and while the drama is rather subdued it did have me invested.

Overall, good but not great. 7/10.

On the run gambler, con man Chris Hale Joseph Cotton inveigles his way into a small All- American town to lie low for awhile. He charms his way into the good graces of locals and begins a relationship with a local shoe titan's wheel chair bound daughter (Valli). While he envisions starting anew in this town he can't resist making one more big score by ripping off a vicious thug. The theft is cleanly pulled off and Hale disappears back to his small community where he has assumed another identity. Unfortunately his unstable partner in the robbery tracks him down and from here things begin to unravel.

Fresh from their Third Man pairing Joseph Cotton and Valli made this stylish little noir that at times evokes masterworks of the genre such as Shadow of a Doubt and Out of the Past. It has some tightly edited and well filmed suspenseful moments and Cotton as always gives a strong understated performance. Valli on the other hand is still in her post war Vienna funk so enigmatic in Third Man but dull and lifeless here. Upbeat Spring Byington and especially surly and troubled Paul Stewart provide effective opposite examples of the human condition that pull at Hale's conscience.

Unfortunately in it's final scene, Walk Softly Stranger takes advice from its title and signs off with a mawkish tacked on ending that obliterates the impact of the previous scene which is infinitely more compatible to the overall doomed mood of story and character.

This forgotten gem was of interest for a number of reasons.

First, it's directed by Robert Stevenson, the man responsible for a superb thriller, To the Ends of the Earth (1948) with Dick Powell in the lead. Steveson, however, has a long list of fine films to his credit, beginning (for me) with Tom Brown's Schooldays (1940), all the way to The Love Bug (1968) and Herbie Rides Again (1974) – if you like fantasy comedy...

But second, this film echoes the matching of Cotton and Valli in The Third Man (1949), arguably one of the best film-noir made (directed by Carol Reed, of course). Reading the additional information about this film, however, I learnt that it was actually made before The Third Man but keep on ice for two years.

In this narrative, however, Cotton as Chris Hale breaks the mold of the bashful, loyal and trustworthy good guy he was known for in so many previous movies. That is, while this is certainly another of the film-noir genre, it doesn't have a femme fatale: Chris Hale is the homme fatale – the man with the fatal flaw in his past, and the one that catches up with him.

In contrast, Valli as Elaine Corelli is the broken rose: a woman of substance and great beauty but, because of a tragic accident, unwilling to expose herself to potential failure again, especially in matters of the heart. When Hale turns up, however, she is drawn to him, despite her misgivings at first.

Arguably, she should have listened to her head because Hale has a hidden agenda – in fact, that's why he's in Elaine's town where her father practically owns it: Hale wants to stay hiding in plain sight, as a model citizen, because he thinks the guys he robbed a while back – gangsters who ran a casino in another state - will never find him... More fool he, because his ex-buddy turns up to ask for a handout – and so, Hale's cover is blown and it's only a matter of time before the killers follow.

What follows then are Hale's attempts to get clear of the bad guys and redeem himself with Elaine; so, I'll leave you to enjoy that denouement. When you do, watch for the great sight gag that includes the words: "Next time, go by air", a moment of levity that foreshadows an ending that is, if not entirely happy, at least shows promise of hope.

Cotton does an excellent job as a calculating, unflappable and competent con man who gradually sees the need, within himself, to change his ways; Valli once again exudes troubled emotions and repressed sexuality with great finesse; that great character actor, Paul Stewart shines as the craven Whitey Lake, Hale's buddy; and John McIntire appears, for once, as not a cop – as In Psycho (1960) - but as an office manager, Morgan. And, let's not forget Spring Byington who plays...well, Mrs Brentman/Spring Byington, the landlady.

Recommended for all, especially for film-noir fans.

Walk Softly, Stranger is directed by Robert Stevenson and written by Frank Fenton. It stars Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli, Spring Byington, Paul Stewart and Jack Paar. Music is by Frederick Hollander and cinematography by Harry J. Wild.

Chris Hale (Cotton) arrives in Ashton, Ohio, with manipulation and a robbery on his mind. But when he meets wheelchair bound Elaine Corelli (Valli), it alters the course of his future plans…

It's the other Cotton and Valli movie, the one that isn't The Third Man. It's also the movie hat marked the wind of change at RKO as Howard Hughes breezed into the studio and promptly set about putting his own stamp on things, badly as it happens. Walk Softly, Stranger on the shelf for two years and subsequently got released in 1950, no doubt due in part to the success of The Third Man the year previously.

It's a strange blend of romantic melodrama – cum thriller – with some film noir edginess, something which doesn't all together work. It's very slowly paced and settles into a mood approaching disquiet, a femme fatale of sorts is nicely set up, and the whole "just one last job" vibe keeps interest in the story high. Acting from Cotton and Valli is strong, Paul Stewart is as usual good value when playing a twitchy loser bad guy type, and Byington almost steals the film from the leads with an ebullient show as the widow Brentman.

Unfortunately, come the final third the picture fails to deliver on its moody promise, choosing instead to rely on one action set-piece and a waft of optimism for pic's closure. It's not the pay off required or hoped for, a shame because as a production in general it's of good quality. 6/10

A sad little film noir wrapped inside a sad little love story (or vice versa), Walk Softly, Stranger maintains a subdued integrity of tone throughout. You wish it would get a move on, or that the exchanges were snappier, or the rhythms quirkier. But, no, and at the end, you have to admit that, on its own modest terms, it succeeds.

Into the heartland of Ohio drifts grifter Joseph Cotten to settle down in one of those small cities that used to be famous for something – in this case, it's the headquarters of Corelli Shoes, where he wangles himself a job. Cotten lets on that he's returning to the home town he ran away from years before – even taking up room and board with Spring Byington, a widow who now owns what used to be his house. But it's all a lie (or at least seems to be; the script sends mixed messages on this point). He's researched the history of the house and the widow, and also that of the Corelli heiress (Valli; she had dropped the `Alida'), a lonely rich girl crippled in a skiing accident. He hopes to romance her so as to be sitting pretty for the rest of his days – his ultimate con job. But he ends up falling for her.

Cotten's Achilles heel, however, has always been his professional vanity, and he can't pass up one last job – robbing a mob boss of his casino's take. The job succeeds, but his certified loser of an accomplice (Paul Stewart), now down and out, tracks him down and blows both their covers. They're both marked men....

Walk Softly, Stranger, opts for a bittersweet, romantic ending rather than a terminal blow-out, and that's in keeping with all that goes before. But problems remain. Cotten's performance reminds us, in its watered-down way, of his Uncle Charlie in Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt, while Valli has little to do but stay tragically, enigmatically glamorous. (The most memorable performances come from Byington and Stewart, and the movie is notable for preserving one of the few appearances on film of Jack Paar, who was to imprint The Tonight Show with his particular personality in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s). It's a strange, flawed movie whose elegiac tone stays with you.