Joseph L. Mankiewicz had an amazing run in Hollywood during the late 1940s and into the 50s. Aside from his HUGE misfire later in life ("Cleopatra"),he had an incredible string of successes--one brilliant film after another. Just think about it--he directed "A Letter to Three Wives", "House of Strangers", "No Way Out", "All About Eve" and "People Will Talk" all one after the other! Any one of these films would make a director proud--and yet Mank also wrote these films! Wow.

"House of Strangers" is unusual for me because I rarely watch a movie more than once (this could explain part of how I've reviewed so many movies). But, because I loved it so much the first time, I thought I'd watch it again. The film was remade only a few years later as "Broken Lance"--also a good film but not in the same league as "House of Strangers". It was also remade only a few years after that as "The Big Show". Obviously, it was an awfully good script.

The film begins with one son (Richard Conte) arriving at his huge family home. It seems he'd just completed a stretch in prison. Why he went to prison and what's happened in this family unfolds slowly through the course of the film. I really like this style. Instead of telling a straight sequential narrative, this approach increases the suspense greatly.

As for the rest of the cast, the film is filled with some great talents. Edward G. Robinson is at his best as a manipulative and dictatorial family patriarch--and proves he was much more than a one-note actor who played gangsters. Luther Adler, Susan Hayward and even a young Efrem Zimbalist Jr. are on hand to round out the cast. And, although I mentioned him earlier, Conte is great--and it's one of his best roles (along with the highly underrated "Thieves' Highway").

The bottom line is like the best of Mankiewicz's films, it's all about PEOPLE and ACTING. You don't watch a Mankiewicz film for spectacle or action (thus the failure of "Cleopatra") but for dynamite acting, great characters and dialog--fantastic, fantastic dialog. For example, watch the scene where Hayward and Conte first meet--it's brilliant and memorable. Also, the ending is just great--very tense and very brutal--sort of like a 'family noir' picture!

A pretty good gangster movie from 1949. The interesting part of the tale is told in flashback and benefits from a typically larger-than-life performance from Edward G. Robinson playing a kind of kingpin. The familial relationships that make up the crux of the story are handled in an interesting way, and it's nice to see Richard Conte given a bigger role than usual to get his teeth into. Involving stuff.

HOUSE OF STRANGERS is another classic from the Noir vaults of 20th Century Fox and is one of their very best. Under the guiding hand of the brilliant director Joseph L. Mankiewicz the film emerged in 1949 and remains to this day a remarkable piece of cinema! All credit must go to the excellent screenplay by Philip Yordan, the masterful low key black & white cinematography of Milton Krasner and the atmospheric score by the Russian composer Daniele Amfitheatrof.

The stellar cast is headed by the great Edward G. Robinson. Fresh from his wonderful Johnny Rocco in Houston's "Key Largo" Robinson plays Gino Monetti, the Italian immigrant who runs the bank he founded in New York's lower east side. He runs it with an iron fist as he does his family of four sons who work for him. Three of whom are resentful of him because of the poor wages he pays them and the domineering way he treats them. Robinson's Gino Monetti is a deftly crafted and skillful piece of acting and with just the right Italian accent the actor once again demonstrates that he was one of the finest players in American cinema. Watching him here one can't help but think what a fine Corleone he would have made had he been around (he died in 1972 the year "The Godfather" was released)

Richard Conte, in one of his best parts, plays the loyal and favoured son Max Monetti with his trademark serious look and in his best oppressed hero style. The other siblings are played by Luther Adler as the oldest and meanest, Efrem Zimbalist as the ladies man and Paul Valentine excellent as a slow witted amateur pugilist. Romantic interest is supplied by the ever lovely and vivacious Susan Hayward whose star at this time was about to start its rise. But it is Robinson's movie from the moment he comes into it - you simply cannot take your eyes of him!

Five years later the studio re-fashioned Yordan's screenplay (itself loosely based on Shakespeare's "King Lear") and turned it into a splendid western called "Broken Lance" with Spencer Tracy. This fact is strangely omitted from any text on the DVD?

A curious footnote: At the end of the picture we don't hear Amfithetrof's finale music! What we get instead is the end title from Alfred Newman's score for "The Razor's Edge" (1946). Why and how this should be is anybody's guess! Apart from this sloppy denouement it is still a fine movie in a fine package which has a commentary,a trailer and a good behind the scenes still gallery.

Classic line from "House Of Strangers".......... When one of Robinson's errant sons declines to help his father during his trial - "I'm sorry pop I don't want to stick my neck out" to which Robinson wryly inquires "Why - what's so good about your neck".