A Stranger in Town

Previous reviewers of this movie are all over the map. Some really liked it, others were disappointed that Frank Morgan did not reprise his role in the Wizard of Oz. Most don't seem to appreciate the movie for what it had to offer movie goers in 1943. And that's a shame.

This movie was made during the early part of World War II. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor in Dec 1941. We started to strike back in the Pacific, and in Nov 1942 we managed to invade and take control of North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia). That would allow us to prepare for an invasion of what Churchill called *the soft underbelly of Europe*, Italy and eventually southern France. By April of 1943, things were starting to look better for us, but D-Day, and our success there, were still a year and a half away. There were still many isolationists in the U. S. who felt we should not have gone to war in Europe. Others wondered if we would succeed against Germany. But FDR said that we had to defend *the four freedoms* around the world. American values, if you will, but FDR was not so close-minded as to depict them as just American.

That's what this movie is all about, encapsulated in Frank Morgan's speech before the court near the end of the movie. It is every American's duty to defend democratic (with a small d) values. That means fighting locally the sort of small-town corruption and dictatorship that tries to take self-government away from the people. (The romantic lead, who starts off as a weakling, will learn that in the course of the movie, as all Americans, especially isolationists, needed to do.) What the corrupt mayor of that small town was doing was just a smaller version of what dictators around the world were trying to do on a much larger scale. Americans needed to fight such dictators on the home front, just as we needed to fight them on a much greater level.

There are problems with this movie, sure.

The actor who plays the small-town lawyer who must learn to defend democracy, Richard Carlson, isn't up to the task of showing why he is weak to begin with and how he learns to fight with something in addition to - not other than - his fists to win the small-town war against fascism.

The depiction of small-town corruption, presented as unexceptional, suggests that there are worms gnawing away at our great democracy from inside. In the context of this movie, that is disquieting. It might have been more powerful if there had been some effort to link the small-town despots to their equivalent on the world stage.

This movie is never as bone-chilling as masterpieces of the genre like *Mr. Smith Goes to Washington* and *Mr. Deeds Goes to Town*, both of which deal with how corruption in our institutions threaten our democratic way of life. The corrupt small-town powers here hurt two men, but we are not made to feel their pain, or to imagine that their pain could one day be ours. That makes this movie less powerful.

But it's still a lot more than just another romantic comedy. It is another entry in the *Why we fight* series of movies that Hollywood put out during World War II, a series that produced some of the greatest movies ever made.

Oddly, this film stars Frank Morgan as a Supreme Court justice! He's on vacation and runs afoul of a small town's corrupt administration. The crooked judge, mayor and their henchmen don't realize who Morgan is, so he's able to see first-hand their under-handed tactics. Because of their abuse of political power, Morgan decides to stick around and assist a naive young lawyer (Richard Carlson) in his bid to become mayor. At first, they are pretty much ignored, though in time, when the race for mayor seems tight, the old mayor unleashed a wave of dirty tricks--not realizing that Morgan holds the ultimate trump card.

I had a hard time deciding whether to score this one a 7 or an 8. It was very good--particularly for a B-movie. Being a "B", it is a relatively short picture (only 67 minutes) but unlike many Bs it has excellent production values (especially the writing) and is very entertaining. About the only knock against it is that I thought the fight scenes were a bit too "slapsticky" and didn't exactly integrate well into the rest of the picture. Still, it's a dandy performance by Frank Morgan, as he's more restrained (i.e., less "hammy") than in most of his starring vehicles--well worth seeing and a lot of fun--as well as a decent civics lesson.

What makes this one Stand Out from War Years Motion Picture Portrayals of Small Town America is the Realist Portrayal of Corruption. Films of that Era (WWII) Tended to Propagandize the USA as a Utopia of Goodness as its Rally Cry to Ramp Up the Citizenry.

Nothing Wrong with that but it is Refreshing that this Little Movie had the Integrity to Say that Maybe We were not Perfect and some Fighting was needed Right Here at Home. Notice how the Justice Prods and Pokes at Apathy and Cowardice against Inequities and Bullying.

It's all Done in a Lighthearted Manner and is Good Entertainment while Posing Questions and Inspiring to a Greater Good. Certainly Worth a Watch for 1943 Cultural References that are Still Relevant Today.

In "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939), fly-over wisdom solves Washington corruption. In "A Stranger in Town" (1943), Washington wisdom solves fly-over corruption.

Frank Morgan portrays an incognito Supreme Court justice, who during his duck-hunting vacation, is reluctantly drawn into a small town fight against corruption. It is a dramatic change from his usual flamboyant-befuddled performance, and he does pretty well. One discordant note, however, occurs early in the picture. Morgan, while cradling a shotgun, meanders throughout town, into a barbershop, and even a courtroom. Nowadays, he'd have been pounced on, and probably branded a lunatic.

The film's pace is snappy, the romantic leads (Richard Carlson and Jean Rogers) have excellent chemistry, and the supporting cast is fabulous. It includes Robert Barrat, Porter Hall, John Hodiak (in his debut), Donald MacBride, Andrew Tombes, and Chill Wills (later Francis-the-Talking-Mule's voice). Ironically, however, Robert Barrat, who does a fine job playing the oleaginous mayor, had, about a decade earlier, been cast in an opposing role as a bucolic reformer fighting corruption. (His part was in "The St. Louis Kid" [1934], a charming James Cagney vehicle.) Yet, "A Stranger" has two sloppy errors, both of which occur in the same scene. (They should have been caught and corrected.) First, Carlson enters the local hotel and orders a "single room" for the night, but walks away leaving his key behind. Then, the following morning in court, he testifies that the hotel had violated the law by having the twin beds in his room placed less than two feet apart. If his room was a single, however, it wouldn't have had twin beds.

Finally, you might try following-up this film with "The Magnificent Yankee" (1950) if you're into related double features. It is a heartwarming story about Oliver Wendell Holmes, an actual Supreme Court justice, whose tenure would have ended at about the same time Morgan's fictitious one had started.

Absolutely an outstanding movie. "A Stranger In Town" has laughs, fun moments, drama, tension and manages to keep it all lighthearted enough to make it an enjoyable movie for one and all. Frank Morgan (Wizard Of Oz 1939) is excellent as a vacationing Supreme Court Justice who stumbles into a corrupt town's government. Richard Carlson (Hold That Ghost 1941) is just as good as a small town lawyer trying to right a system gone wrong. The supporting cast is equally as entertaining (Jean Rogers, Porter Hall, Robert Barrat, etc...) in this great, great movie. While the director Roy Rowland (Dr. Seuss's The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr.T. 1953) is new to me, it is a marvelous job of direction on his part that also helps to make this an A movie for me.