Stranger on the Prowl

Last updated
Imbarco a mezzanotte
Stranger on the Prowl.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Joseph Losey
Screenplay by Ben Barzman
Based onthe story
"La bouteille du lait"
by Noël Calef
Produced byNoël Calef
Starring Paul Muni
CinematographyHenri Alekan
Antonio Fiore
Edited by Thelma Connell
Music byGiulio Cesare Sonzogno
Production
companies
Riviera Films
Tirrenia Film
Distributed by United Artists
Release dates
  • March 12, 1952 (1952-03-12)(Italy)
  • November 9, 1953 (1953-11-09)(US)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryItaly
LanguageItalian

Imbarco a mezzanotte (internationally released as Stranger on the Prowl, also known as Giacomo and Encounter) is a 1952 Italian drama film directed by Joseph Losey and featuring Paul Muni. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

The picture was the first to be made abroad by any blacklisted Hollywood director. [4] Due to the political blacklist, Losey was credited for the story and direction under the name Andrea Forzano. [5] [6]

Muni traveled to Italy to star in the film partly as an act of solidarity and support for blacklisted friends living there in exile.

Plot

A disillusioned vagrant (Paul Muni)kills a shop owner, and is joined by a rebellious youngster in his flight from apprehension. [7]

Cast

Retrospective appraisal

“Stranger on the Prowl, made at the end of the neorealist revolution in Italian cinema, has the grainy texture and the naturalistic mood of the films by De Sica or Rosellini. Since it tells the story of a man and a boy, it contains echoes of De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief (1948). - Film critic Foster Hirsch in Joseph Losey (1980) [8]

Film historian Foster Hirsch considers the Stranger on the Prowl deserving of “more attention than it has received.” [9]

The film is clearly influenced by Italian neorealism and consequently is “markedly different” in its mise-en-scene from Losey’s previous Hollywood, and his subsequent British produced film, notably lacking in their claustrophobic “closed qualities.” [10] Hirsch writes:

The film is set in the cavernous, bombed-out of a severely depleted post-war Italian slum…as in the major neo-realist films, Losey frames his action with a sense of the ongoing flow of life. The screen is almost always filled with background movement…Losey’s film “redeems” physical reality with its “open compositions.” [11]

Hirsch reserves special mention for American film star Paul Muni, who brings pathos and genuine dignity to the impoverished outcast and fugitive he portrays. [12]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Imbarco a mezzanotte at IMDb.
  2. ↑ Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 157-158: Filmography
  3. ↑ Hirsch, 1980 p. 234: Filmography
  4. ↑ Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 9: In 1952, Losey “directed in Italy… the first film to be made abroad by a blacklisted artist…” And: See her for repercussions of HUAC investigations and blacklists on Hollywood filmmakers.
  5. ↑ Hirsch, 1980 p. 60: “Because of the Hollywood blacklist, Losey wrote and directed the film under the name of Andrea Forzano.”
  6. ↑ Callahan, 2003: See here for repercussions from blacklisting. “he never shot another film in the USA.”
  7. ↑ Hirsch, 1980 p. 58: Plot sketch.
  8. ↑ Hirsch, 1980 p. 58
  9. ↑ Hirsch, 1980 p. 60: “...the film is rarely shown…”
  10. ↑ Hirsch, 1980 p. 59-60
  11. ↑ Hirsch, 1980 p. 59: Ellipsis for brevity, clarity: meaning unaltered.
  12. ↑ Hirsch, 1980 p. 60

Sources


Italy film clapperboard.svg

This article related to an Italian film of the 1950s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Losey</span> American theatre and film director (1909–1984)

Joseph Walton Losey III was an American theatre and film director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Wisconsin, he studied in Germany with Bertolt Brecht and then returned to the United States. Blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s, he moved to Europe where he made the remainder of his films, mostly in the United Kingdom. Among the most critically and commercially successful were the films with screenplays by Harold Pinter: The Servant (1963) and The Go-Between (1971).

<i>Accident</i> (1967 film) 1967 British film by Joseph Losey

Accident is a 1967 British drama film directed by Joseph Losey. Written by Harold Pinter, it is an adaptation of the 1965 novel Accident by Nicholas Mosley. It is the second of three Losey–Pinter collaborations; the others being The Servant (1963) and The Go-Between (1971). At the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, Accident won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury award. It also won the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association.

<i>The Servant</i> (1963 film) 1963 British drama film by Joseph Losey

The Servant is a 1963 British drama film directed by Joseph Losey. It was written by Harold Pinter, who adapted Robin Maugham's 1948 novella of the same name. The film stars Dirk Bogarde, Sarah Miles, Wendy Craig and James Fox.

<i>M</i> (1951 film) 1951 American remake of Fritz Langs film of the same name directed by Joseph Losey

M is a 1951 American film noir directed by Joseph Losey. It is a remake of Fritz Lang's 1931 German film of the same title about a child murderer. This version shifts the location of action from Berlin to Los Angeles and changes the killer's name from Hans Beckert to Martin W. Harrow. Both versions of M were produced by Seymour Nebenzal, whose son, Harold, was associate producer of the 1951 version.

<i>Secret Ceremony</i> 1968 British film by Joseph Losey

Secret Ceremony is a 1968 British drama-thriller film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow and Robert Mitchum.

Bernard Vorhaus was an American film director of Austrian descent, born in New York City. His father was born in Kraków, then part of Austria-Hungary. Vorhaus spent many decades living in the UK. Early in his career, he worked as a screenwriter, and co-produced the film The Singing City. He was blacklisted in Hollywood for his communist sympathies, and returned to England, where he resumed his career. Known, alongside Michael Powell, for his quota quickies, Vorhaus also worked in Europe.

<i>The Prowler</i> (1951 film) 1951 American film noir thriller film by Joseph Losey

The Prowler is a 1951 American film noir thriller film directed by Joseph Losey that stars Van Heflin and Evelyn Keyes. The film was produced by Sam Spiegel and was written by Dalton Trumbo. Because Trumbo was blacklisted at the time, the screenplay was credited to his friend, screenwriter Hugo Butler, as a front.

<i>The Big Night</i> (1951 film) 1951 film by Joseph Losey

The Big Night is a 1951 American film noir directed by Joseph Losey, that features John Drew Barrymore, Preston Foster and Joan Lorring. The feature is based on a script written by Joseph Losey and Stanley Ellin, based on Ellin's 1948 novel Dreadful Summit. Hugo Butler and Ring Lardner, Jr. also contributed to the screenplay, but were uncredited when the film was first released owing to his Hollywood Ten conviction.

<i>Modesty Blaise</i> (1966 film) 1966 British film by Joseph Losey

Modesty Blaise is a 1966 British spy-fi comedy film directed by Joseph Losey, produced by Joseph Janni, and loosely based on the popular comic strip Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell, who co-wrote the original story upon which Evan Jones and Harold Pinter based their screenplay. It stars Monica Vitti as "Modesty", opposite Terence Stamp as Willie Garvin and Dirk Bogarde as her nemesis Gabriel. The cast also includes Harry Andrews, Michael Craig, Alexander Knox, Rossella Falk, Clive Revill, and Tina Aumont. The film's music was composed by Johnny Dankworth and the theme song, Modesty, sung by pop duo David and Jonathan. It was Vitti's first English-speaking role.

<i>Boom!</i> (1968 film) 1968 film by Josph Losey

Boom! is a 1968 British drama film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Noël Coward. It was adapted by Tennessee Williams from his own play The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore.

<i>The Boy with Green Hair</i> 1948 American fantasy-drama film

The Boy with Green Hair is a 1948 American fantasy-drama film in Technicolor directed by Joseph Losey in his feature film directorial debut. It stars Dean Stockwell as Peter, a young war orphan who is subject to ridicule after his hair mysteriously turns green, and is based on the 1946 short story of the same name by Betsy Beaton. Co-stars include Pat O'Brien, Robert Ryan, and Barbara Hale.

<i>The Criminal</i> (1960 film) 1960 British film by Joseph Losey

The Criminal is a 1960 British neo-noir crime film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Stanley Baker, Sam Wanamaker, Grégoire Aslan, Jill Bennett, and Margit Saad. Baker plays Johnny Bannion, a recently-paroled gangster who is sent back to prison after robbing a racetrack, with both the authorities and the criminal underworld looking for the money.

<i>A Dolls House</i> (1973 Losey film) 1973 British film by Joseph Losey

A Doll's House is a 1973 drama film directed by Joseph Losey, based on the 1879 play A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. It stars Jane Fonda in the role of Nora Helmer and David Warner as her domineering husband, Torvald.

<i>Eva</i> (1962 film) 1962 French film

Eva, released in the United Kingdom as Eve, and in the United States as The Devil’s Woman a 1962 Italian-French co-production drama film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Jeanne Moreau, Stanley Baker, and Virna Lisi. Its screenplay is adapted from James Hadley Chase's 1945 novel Eve.

<i>The Assassination of Trotsky</i> 1972 film by Joseph Losey

The Assassination of Trotsky is a 1972 British historical drama film directed by Joseph Losey with a screenplay by Nicholas Mosley. It stars Richard Burton, Romy Schneider and Alain Delon.

<i>The Damned</i> (1962 film) 1962 British film by Joseph Losey

The Damned is a 1962 British science fiction horror film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Macdonald Carey, Shirley Anne Field, Viveca Lindfors and Oliver Reed. The screenplay was by Evan Jones, based on H. L. Lawrence's 1960 novel The Children of Light. It was a Hammer Film production.

<i>Figures in a Landscape</i> (film) 1970 British film by Joseph Losey

Figures in a Landscape is a 1970 British film directed by Joseph Losey and written by star Robert Shaw, based on the 1968 novel of the same name by Barry England.

<i>King and Country</i> 1964 British film

King and Country is a 1964 British war film directed by Joseph Losey, shot in black and white, and starring Dirk Bogarde and Tom Courtenay. The film was adapted for the screen by British screenwriter Evan Jones based on the play Hamp by John Wilson and a 1955 novel by James Lansdale Hodson.

<i>The Lawless</i> 1950 film

The Lawless is a 1950 American film noir directed by Joseph Losey and featuring Macdonald Carey, Gail Russell and Johnny Sands.

<i>The Gypsy and the Gentleman</i> 1958 British film by Joseph Losey

The Gypsy and the Gentleman is a 1958 British costume drama film directed by Joseph Losey. It stars Melina Mercouri and Keith Michell.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.