Dir: John Huston | Cast: Jennifer Jones John Garfield, Pedro Armendariz, Gilbert Roland | US political thriller
It’s well known that John Huston played an acting role as ‘White Suit’ in ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’, but most people are unaware that shortly afterwards he also briefly appeared in an unbilled bit as a bank clerk in ‘We Were Strangers’ since so few have seen it.
One of the subjects frequently favoured by Huston was the activities of a North American abroad finding himself a fish out of water (a role in which he memorably cast Humphrey Bogart) combined in ‘We Were Strangers’ with the usual depiction of Latin America as riven with revolutions.
Later dismissed by Huston as “pretty frail material”, while attacked by the ‘Hollywood Reporter’ as “a shameful handbook of Marxian dialectic…and the heaviest dish of Red theory ever served to audiences outside the Soviet Union”. Despite Russell Metty’s usual exemplary photography the fundamental artificiality of the piece shows in the regular use of process work and casting John Garfield and Jennifer Jones – good as they both are – as a Cuban and a Mexican; although mitigated by the presence in supporting roles of authentic Latinos like Pedro Armendariz, Ramon Novarro and Gilbert Roland.
@RichardChatten
TALKING PICTURES TV | 2024