House of Strangers

Richard Conte and Susan Hayward

I was inspired to watch this chestnut after reading not one, but two, rave reviews on one of my favorite film blog sites, the Gallic Shangols. I often disagree with the (mostly) French writers, but I enjoy their lively commentary just the same. While I certainly do not think that House of Strangers is a great film, the scenario is extremely hoary, I do find it interesting enough to recommend. I think it is one of the better cast films of the era. Richard Conte (born in Jersey City), Susan Hayward (born in Brooklyn), Edward G. Robinson (born in Bucharest, but immigrated to New York at the age of ten), Luther Adler (born in New York), and Efrem Zimbalist (born in New York) are all perfectly chosen for this saga of a modern Italian-American banking titan and his family based in the lower east side of Manhattan. Robinson spouts a little too much verbal linguini at times, but he is supposed to be an over blown and operatic character, he blasts arias during family dinners, so the grandiosity is appropriate. It is one of his many little Caesars.

The film starts in 1939 with Conte a free man after seven years in the slammer. We learn that Dad (Robinson) has passed away in 1934 after Conte's brothers (Adler, Zimbalist, and Paul Valentine) had wrested control of the bank the patriarch founded. Conte also feels his brothers are responsible for his incarceration. He visits an old flame (Hayward) who still holds a torch. Then he visits the old family manse, now abandoned, and a flashback to 1932 ensues. We see Conte's brothers resentment at his favored son status and the way they chafe at their padre's domineering leadership at the bank. Conte, a lawyer, is living the life of Riley. He is engaged to one woman (Debra Paget, under utilized) while squiring another (Hayward) around town. However, his world comes tumbling down after his father is prosecuted for predatory lending. Conte takes up his defense, but ends up getting busted for jury tampering after Adler finks on his bro. After a viewing of Robinson's casket, we return to 1939 and, presumably, Conte's revenge.

Edward G. Robinson and Hayward

The scenario for House of Strangers, penned by Philip Yordan and Mankiewicz and based on Jerome Weidman's novel, is overly rhetorical and redundant. Three times we get to hear the same grievance, that Robinson has gained the world but lost his soul, recited in turn by his sons, wife, and Hayward. The details of the financial chicanery in the film are never properly explained. Mankiewicz, never the most dynamic director, is mostly content to construct static verbal tussles in drawing rooms and nightclubs. He does employ two tracking shots, but scenes containing a run on the bank and a boxing match are undynamic and visually dull. I did like his touches in a Greenwich Village checkered table speakeasy that revealed the joint's seam underbelly: a man passed out and a young chick casually brutalized by her much older date. However, such little touches are rare in this film. The film contains some location shooting, then gaining currency in Hollywood, but it is poorly integrated with the footage on the Columbia backlot.

I do think Mankiewicz deserves praise for what is Conte's finest performance. There is a delicacy and exactness to his work here that I haven't encountered anywhere else. Just see what Conte does with his fingers here, whether he is eating popcorn or examining Hayward's powder puff. There is more to this character than the numerous hood roles Conte was saddled with. Speaking of which, Bosley Crowther, in his New York Times review of the film, noted correctly that Robinson's banking career is a fig leaf for organized crime. Even after the Kefauver and McClellan hearings in the 1950s shed light on organized crime, Hollywood film producers were wary of alienating Italian-Americans. As late as 1971 when The Godfather was in production. producer Albert Ruddy did a bit of fence mending by reaching an agreement with the Italian-American Civil Rights League to not use the words mafia and Cosa Nostra in the film. The League had been masterminded as a PR move for the Mob by Joseph Colombo, then boss of one of America's five mafia families.

The Best of 2025

            

 1)    The Shrouds                                         David Cronenberg

 2)    Caught By the Tides                            Jia Zhangke

 3)    Black Bag                                             Steven Soderbergh

 4)    Weapons                                               Zach Cregger

 5)    L'Empire                                               Bruno Dumont

 6)    Miséricordia                                        Alain Guiraudie

 7)    Nouvelle Vague                                    Richard Linklater

 8)    Little Trouble Girls                              Urška Djukić

 9)    Resurrection                                          Bi Gan

10)    Cloud                                                    Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Films I Enjoyed

Vermiglio, Blue Moon,

Frankenstein, The Housemaid,

Song Sung Blue, Peter Hujar's Day,

One Battle After Another, 28 Years Later,

Hedda, Bugonia,

Reflection in a Dead Diamond, Sly Lives!,

Sentimental Value,

The Mastermind, Bring Her Back,

When Fall is Coming, Who By Fire,

The Devil and the Daylong Brothers, The Baltimorons,

L'Accident de piano,

Pavements, Grand Tour,

The History of Sound, Night Call,

Companion, The Gorge, 

Eephus, El Jockey,

Sinners, Materialists, 

My Undesirable Friends Part 1,

Afternoons of Solitude,

Holy Cow, The Ugly Stepsister,

A Minecraft Movie, Dust Bunny,

A House of Dynamite, Dracula, 

Sisu: Road to Revenge, Mickey 17,

Devo, Broken Rage,

Vie Privée, 

K Pop Demon Hunters, The Great Flood,

Final Destination: Bloodlines, Americana,

Hamnet, Chaos: The Manson Murders,

Below the Mendoza Line

Die My Love, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, 

The Decedent, Islands,

Predator: Badlands, Haunters of the Silence,

Caught Stealing, Train Dreams,

Drømmer, Roofman, 

The Monkey, Eddington,

Marty Supreme, Freaky Tales

Highest 2 Lowest, The Toxic Avenger,

Nuremberg, A Working Man,

Father Mother Sister Brother,

Eden, The Smashing Machine,

F1, Knives Out 3,

Vulcanizadora, Warfare,

Becoming Led Zeppelin,

The Phoenician Scheme,

The President's Wife, Honey Don't,

Zero Day, Nobody 2,

After the Hunt, Happy Gilmore 2,

Marshmallow, 

iHostage, Match,

Fixed, The Parenting

Remains to Be Seen

The Chronology of Water, Sorry, Baby,

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, Sirat,

The Secret Agent, The Testament of Ann Lee,

It Was Just an Accident, 

Nirvanna..., No Other Choice

Pillion

                Harry Melling                      

Harry Lighton's Pillion is a good comedy of manners about a BDSM affair between a shy parking enforcement officer and a macho biker. Harry Melling plays Colin, a nebbish who still lives at home with his parents and sings with his Pa in a barbershop quartet. Across a crowded pub, he spies Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) and is instantly smitten. After they have an intimate encounter in a dark alley, the two embark on a relationship based on terms dictated by Ray. Colin is so happy to have landed the hunky Ray that he is quite willing to play slave to Ray's master, fulfilling Ray's shopping request, cooking his meals, and even licking Ray's boots upon request. Ray remakes Colin's image, shearing his curly locks, adorning him with a lock and chain, and gifting him biker togs. As in all relationships, there comes a moment when the initial rush of excitement wears off and things get real. Colin craves an emotional intimacy that Ray cannot provide. He is too emotionally closed to be able to open up to Colin. The film ends with Colin moving on to a new relationship, taking what he has learned from his unsentimental education from Ray.

Pillion is a slight film that works because it is expertly cast. Skarsgård is so lordly handsome and tersely stoic as an actor that he easily inhabits the role of the dominant Ray. Melling has the more difficult role. The film is centered on his character's perspective and Melling is often required to display his character's changing moods through his eyes and posture. He has shown already that he is expert at portraying humiliation in a number of his roles, especially his bravura turn in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. He makes Colin a very abject bottom, all to eager to embrace degradation in order to hold onto his man. Pillion confirms that Melling has emerged as the finest actor of all the Harry Potter tots.