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| The Stranger Came Home (The Unholy Four) (1954) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 2 2012, 08:58 PM (530 Views) | |
| Laughing Gravy | Apr 2 2012, 08:58 PM Post #1 |
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![]() Well, the big news for 1954 was that Hammer Studios was finally was able to construct… an actual SOUND STAGE at their Bray house! It was soundproof and everything, and the ceiling was high enough to allow them to string lights from the ceiling for the first time. It officially opened at the end of 1953 (just in time to film Five Days), and was dubbed the “New Stage”, imaginatively. Other changes were in store at Hammer that year; for their first production of ’54, The Stranger Came Home, Michael Cerreras contributed his first script, Jimmy Sangster was kicked upstairs to production manager, and Bill Lenny became editor. Along with director Terence Fisher, these gentlemen would be responsible for much of the best of Hammer in the future. The bad news is that The Stranger Came Home is utterly pedestrian, with a walk-through performance by star Paulette Goddard, who is depicted on the poster in a sexy nightgown that she doesn’t come close to wearing anywhere in this film, darn it. It’s not even remotely noir. Fisher does what he can and gives the goings-on what little interest it has. Seems that on a fishing trip abroad four years earlier, Paulette’s husband was clubbed on the head and thrown overboard by party or parties unknown, given up for dead. Well, he’s turned up, recovered from a severe head wound that led to amnesia, and he badly wants to find his assailant. He will, too, from amongst Miss Goddard and his three ex-fishing buddies, but not before some more corpses fall, corpses who stay dead. It's not very mysterious, cerebral, or thrilling, and this is not the film to sample if you want a taste of good Hammer noir, folks. But if you must, it’s on the Hammer Film Noir Double Feature Vol. 7, paired with A Race for Life (a/k/a Mask of Death), with Richard Conte. |
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10:54 AM Jul 11