Imbarco a mezzanotte

Paul Muni stowed away on a ship, and has just been thrown off in port. He has nothing but the clothes he wears and a gun. He's tired and hungry. Joan Loring wants to go to see the boy she yearns for fight in the ring, but she has nothing. Vittorio Manunta has lost the money for the milk. Their paths will cross on this dark night.

Joseph Losey was hit with the blacklist, and was in Italy, so he made this dark story about absolute poverty and an uncaring world. It's easy to read something dark and personal into the movie, and I don't think that's incorrect, but although he would explore the same things many times in his career -- alternating with purely commercial stuff like MODESTY BLAISE, this neorealistic effort is pretty raw in its attitudes. Like most of his work, I find it a chore to watch, although there's no denying its excellence.

"Stranger on the Prowl" is an Italian film that seems to be a lot like the Neo-Realist films the country was producing in the years immediately following the Second World War. It mostly stars folks who don't look like professional actors and the setting is the streets of Italy. But it's unlike a true Neo-Realist film because it stars an American actor (Paul Muni) and an American director (Joseph Losey). In Losey's case, he had been blacklisted and needed the work. I am not sure why Muni, an Oscar winner, would be 'slumming it' in such a simple picture.

When the story begins, a man (Muni) is trying to get money for a passage out of the country. You don't know why he feels he needs to leave...but he obviously is desperate. At the same time, little Giaccomo has gambled away the money he was supposed to use to buy milk...and his family is quite poor. To try to keep out of trouble, the boy steals the milk...but thinks he's been spotted. Instead, the stranger has murdered the shopkeeper. Now both are on the run together and the boy thinks the police are after him.

The story is incredibly simple...like such Neo-Realist films as De Sica's "The Bicycle Thieves" and "Umberto D". But as I mentioned above, the film also has Americans starring in the film and directing it. Because of this, you would expect more from the film...but don't really get it. Muni's okay...but that's about all. And as for Losey, he's okay, too...but nothing more. A simple story that really isn't all that interesting overall.

American expatriate Joseph Losey now working in Europe because of the blacklist teamed with star Paul Muni to make Stranger On The Prowl. It's a downbeat story of a man just looking for food and shelter and to earn passage on a ship.

A said combination of circumstances lead to the accidental death of an old woman shopkeeper and Muni is now wanted for murder. He teams up with a small boy Vittorio Manuta who has run away from home.

The story is uneven kind of moves in fits and starts. The best thing it has going for it is the stark cinematography of post war italy in particular Tuscany. Young Manuta delivers a good perforance and works nicely with Muni.

Another American expatriate Joan Lorring has a small role here.

Not one of Losey's best, nor hardly Muni's, but all right.

A great actor remains a great actor even in a small film, and I'm not talking about a short film. I am talking about this film which is not Paul Muni's best film, it is only a modest film in the style of Italian neorealism from the years after the second world war, neorealism perfected by directors such as Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Alberto Lattuada, Carlo Lizzani, Aldo Vergano, Pietro Germi and Luigi Zampa. Joseph Losey acquitted himself of the task in a more than decent way. Likewise, the unique, extraordinary Paul Muni, who didn't have much to do here, to show off his infinite talent. Excellent children, the boy played by Vittorio Manunta, and the girl, his sister, Fausta Mazzucchelli. Luisa Rossi in the role of the mother, Joan Loring, in the role of Angela, Héléna Manson in the role of the victim killed in the store, and a constant collaborator of Federico Fellini, Aldo Silvani, in the role of Peroni, are very convincing.

This is a unique film in many aspects. It is all Italian neorealism with an all Italian acting crew and filmed on location in Livorno after the war in the aftermath of the war with everything in ruins which only the small boys are at home in and can find their way in. But the director is an American, it is perhaps the oddest film by Joseph Losey, and the hunted man at large is Paul Muni perhaps also in his most unusual role, as a poor hungry man just looking for some bread and to get away by a ship. He happens to a small boy, they try to make it together, but justice is blind and after him, in the long run he has no chance, but the boy gets to understand him and actually pleads for him in the end. It is a very moving and human film, Paul Muni's sad looks and tired eyes could make anyone's heart melt, he is always excellent whatever kind of role he plays, and he had a great register, perhaps one of the greatest for an actor in Hollywood. It is a step down from Vittorio de Sica, it is more painful in depth and misery, but it is totally convincing. And all the Italian actors are perfect.