L'étranger dans la cité

This one features a typically restrained performance by Cotton, a strong depiction of his weasly partner and moral antithesis by Paul Stewart and, as always, good supporting work by the ebullient Spring Byington. The star, however, is Valli, who moves from a vulnerable cripple to a radiant smile as some kids sing a Christmas carol to her through the window of Cotton's wonderful Packard convertible. The film may end unconvincingly, as some auditors argue, but at least it ends in a minor key. The effective opening 3/4 may have earned that ending. But see it for Valli, who (as someone suggested) should have gotten an Oscar for this one.

Walk Softly, Stranger may not be the most memorable slice of classic cinema of all time, but even so; Robert Stevenson's film offers an interesting tale of redemption and retribution, despite not being at all innovative. The film stars Joseph Cotten as a man who travels to a town called Ashton. He quickly becomes friendly with the locals, and tells them that he once lived there as a boy. His friendship with a young wheelchair-bound lady named Elaine Corelli, daughter of a successful factory owner, proves his most fruitful. But people's pasts have a habit of catching up them, and the man's gambling exploits are his weakness. The fact that this film stars Joseph Cotten was my main reason for seeing it. The man has a great screen presence that blends excellently with film noir. His performance here isn't one of his best, but he does well at hinting at a sinister side to his character just below the surface. He is joined by classic actress Alida Valli, who is most notable to me for the fact that she was one of the leads of Dario Argento's masterpiece 'Suspiria'. The plot flows well throughout, and while it's never too full of surprises; and the ending doesn't live up to the beginning, the film still offers 80 minutes of decent entertainment.

Ever wonder what happened after Anna walked past Holly Martins in the final shot of the 1949 masterpiece The Third Man? Well, apparently, Holly followed her and broke her legs...

In Walk Softly, Stranger, Joseph Cotten plays a crook who assumes a new identity in a small town in order to start a new life. Gangsters whom he robbed are after him, and with the money he stole he believes that he can live a peaceful life. In this town, he meets a young paraplegic woman played by Valli. She was also a gambler, but her wild days were over after she took a tragic spill while skiing. The two begin to fall in love. It's probably the only time a disabled character ever had a major role as a love interest in classical Hollywood. Heck, if someone were to play the same role today, she'd probably win an Oscar! Soon, Cotten's old partner turns up in the town broke, begging for more money. He accidentally let spies track him.

The film is very low-key. In fact, it may be too low-key. The romance between Cotten and Valli is effective. It's difficult to know whether or not he is just taking her for a ride for a long time (she's wealthy). The dialogue is sometimes quite clever (and, then again, it's also sometimes too clever). It's the crime part of the picture that's particularly pedestrian. And the end is kind of lame. All in all, it's only 80 minutes long, and it's entertaining enough to maybe sustain that. Valli and Cotten were so much better in The Third Man, but fans of that film might delight in seeing the two as a couple here. Still, with the way that The Third Man ends, it's actually a little disappointing seeing the two actors on screen. The final scene of that film should have been the final word. 6/10.

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.

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.