User Reviews

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".

Pretty interesting story, and adult too. Robinson is Pa Minetti, an Italian immigrant, formerly a penurious barber, now the prosperous president of his own bank. He has three older sons -- Luther Adler, Valentine, and Zimbalist. And he favors his youngest son, Max (Richard Conte), who is a lawyer and has his office in Pa's bank.

All kind of cozy, like the warm Italian family in The Godfather. But there's a problem. Robinson has brought his old-world ways to the new world. He's not only the president of the bank, but president of the family too, and nobody elected him. Someone calls him "Il Duce." (Kids, that was the title of Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator in the 1930s and the early 1940s, when his subjects hung him out to dry.) But Pa has, in fact, absorbed some of the ways of the new world, only it's the wrong philosophy. The philosophy can be summarily described as, "Dog Eat Dog." Boy, does Pa browbeat his three older sons, both at work and at home. He has Luther Adler, his first born, working in a teller's cage. Efram Zimbalist, Jr., has some menial position too. And the biggest and strongest, Paul Valentine as Pietro, wears a guard's uniform. He's constantly ordering them to get back to work. And he refers to Valentine as "dumbhead" repeatedly. Even at the weekly family dinners, when the sons bring their families over for Ma's spaghetti dinners, he plays opera on the phonograph -- and LOUD, so nobody can hear anybody else. And Pa makes everyone wait at the table until Conte arrives. "Nobody's eat untilla Max gets ahere." The three elder sons don't care much for the kind of humiliation that Pa is dishing out, though he's rarely mean about it. He just takes it for granted that they know they'll inherit the bank one day when he's gone, and meantime they'll have some notion of what he himself went through, as they crawl on their bellies like dogs and can't afford decent apartments for their wives and kids.

How does Conte treat all this? With aplomb. He speaks up for his brothers when they ask him to but he doesn't take it all too seriously. I mean, what the hell, he's a lawyer and Pa's favorite son.

A run on the bank (this is 1932) exposes a few weaknesses in Pa's book keeping. He doesn't know the meaning of the word "collateral." He lends money based on his reckoning of whether he'll get it back, accompanied by usurious interest. He keeps money stashed in a cigar box and writes his records on napkins, things like that. So he's brought to trial and is about to be convicted. The older brothers don't care. Pa's just getting what he deserves. But Conte is representing him in court and, seeing the guillotine blade about to fall, interferes with a juror and is sent to prison for seven years. The cops were tipped off by the other brothers, which annoys Conte no end.

So when Conte is finally released from jail he intends to take care of them but, due to the seasonal interposition of an adventitious girl friend, Susan Hayward, he decides not to because that would have represented the worst of Pa's desires. A free man, he leaves with Hayward for San Francisco and the brothers get the bank. So long, Pa.

Joseph L. Mankievicz directed it efficiently and the script is occasionally very keen. An example of what I mean. Susan Hayward calls Conte and tells him to come to her place; it's a legal emergency. Well, it isn't. She just wants to have some fun with him. He turns her offer down but she says, "Let's go to dinner. I'll get my wrap." Conte walks to the door and opens it, then looks back at her. She drops the wrap on the couch and they stand there silently. Fade out. There's a marvelous scene in a seedy bar. Mankievicz's camera glides along from booth to booth, passing one in which a fat, older man with a cigar is sitting next to a frozen young lady. Neither says a word. A few minutes later, Conte and Hayward look up from their drinks when they hear a slight sob, and there is a cut to the other couple. The girl has covered her face with her hands and the fat man is looking around self consciously. A vignette whose character we can fill in with our imaginations.

I said it was an adult movie but that hint of premarital intercourse isn't why. The characters are ambiguous, as people in real life would be. In some ways, for instance, Pa is a lovable old patriarch, but he's also monstrously insensitive to the feelings of others. And the murderous resentment of the older kids is made understandable too. And Richard Conte's character is aggressive and domineering at the beginning, just as a spoiled youngster might be, but he develops into a Mensch by the end of the tale. Hayward develops too, from a whimsical high-end nympho to a woman mature enough to settle for one man, even if he's broke.

I don't know why this had to be an Italian family, though. The Italianate elements seem superimposed on the family dynamics, like one of those nude celebrity photos in which the face of the actress or model has been placed on a fake body. Sure, they eat spaghetti and Pa listens to The Barber of Seville. So what? The writers have resorted to stereotypes. I hate stereotypes. Furthermore, no Italian boy has ever been named "Max". They are all named "Tony" and when born are not wrapped in swaddling clothes but dressed in iddy biddy suits of rubbed silk.

But that's a small thing in this big, complicated, and largely successful tale of power and jealousy.

Edward G. Robinson, who in my opinion can be hammy at times, really nailed this role as the controlling Italian patriarch. This is a psychologically straightforward film that is nevertheless satisfying on more than an entertainment level.

Conte and Hayward, both fine, have some snappy noirish dialog, and their relationship, like most of what occurs in the plot, is on a visceral emotional level, without any deep explanation except "this is what the heart makes people do." And as the film shows it is often to their own pain.

The height of this is what happens to Conte after an act of extreme (though extremely misguided) loyalty to one he loves, which ultimately makes him pay a great price.

The production values of this film are very fine; the forward narrative motion of the story held my interest to the very end. And even though there seemed to be a bit of trimming of exposition -- with the introduction of the Hayward character here and there being a bit awkward and lacking explanation and motivation -- there were enough superior moments to raise the film above the ordinary.

And Luther Adler's performance as brother "Joe" was fantastic.

This is a darn good movie. Thought provoking on many levels. If you've ever worked for a family owned business you know that the internal struggles are often deep and can cause mayhem. Conte is a fine actor and in the beginning you'll think he will be the heavy throughout since that is his metier. Not a big fan of Susan H but I like her here. I thought EGR was too over the top but I got the point. Zimbalist stayed in the background so much he might as well have been left on the cutting room floor. Maybe he was just there to explain what happened to Conte's fiancee, Debra Paget. As is often the case the character actors were very good such as the bartender. I felt the middle act moved too slowly and we saw too much of the developing relaltionship between Conte and Hayward. Other than one kiss I never saw a relationship between Conte and Paget. Overall a fine film and the print off You Tube is top notch. Almost HD.

Edward G. Robinson played many ethnic types in his career, including sinister Chinese types in THE HATCHET MAN and Greek seamen in TIGER SHARK. But he played many Italian - Americans, mostly involved in criminal activities. Best known is his Rico Bandello in LITTLE CAESAR, but he also did Remy Marko in A SLIGHT CASE OF MURDER. And there is the more respectable, but still illegal gentleman in this film, Gino Monetti. Living in the middle of Little Italy in a mansion, Monetti started out as a barber, living in a single room with his wife Theresa (Esther Minciotti), and his four sons. They grow up to be Joe (Luther Adler), Max (Richard Conte), Tony (Efrem Zimberlist Jr.), and Pietro (Paul Valentine).

Monetti's views of his Italian heritage and his adopted land's culture are mixed. He loves the music of his homeland - he's frequently playing opera (Rossini's THE BARBER OF SEVILLE sung by Lawrence Tibbett is heard at one point on his record player). He does have a sense of tradition: every Wednesday Theresa cooks a big dinner for the family, and everyone has to come (including Max's fiancé Maria Domenico - Debra Paget - and her mother Helena Domenico - Hope Emerson - and Joe's wife Elena - Diana Douglas). Gino will talk about how different life in America is, where a man does not have to forever be in the same job as his father, or where cities grow upward due to skyscrapers. But he treats three of his sons as servants. Joe, who is his oldest, is asked to scrub Gino's back in the bathtub, or has to chauffeur his father around, and is only a clerk in the bank (although called first Vice President). Pietro is referred to as "dumb-head" because he likes to work on a boxing career rather than an office job. Tony is a lady's man, always quiet and well dressed, and dismissed by his father as a weakling. Only Max has gained the old man's respect - he became an attorney (and a pretty good one).

The bank itself is a mixed concern. When Frank Puglia asks for a $150.00 loan to buy a horse, he only gets $120.00 as $30.00 is taken off the top as interest on the new loan (later the loan has escalated to being $280.00). A poor woman needing money, however, gets the money without any interest being given. It later develops that Gino is lousy with bookkeeping, and resents government interest in his bank, but he is an intelligent banker, on the whole a decent guy, but he occasionally turns into a usurer.

Max, although engaged to Maria, meets a socialite named Irene Bennett (Susan Hayward), who initially hires him to help an ex-boyfriend who robbed her. They gradually get into an affair, which threatens the engagement to Maria. Hayward's jealousy eventually leads to a break in it. At just that time, government actions close the bank and lead to a trial for Gino on serious fraud charges. Max tries to defend him, but he finds Gino too hot-tempered on the witness stand. He talks about the case with Joe (who is not too interested in whether the old man goes to jail or not), and says that possibly if they bribe a juror they can save Gino. Joe refuses to help. Max tries to bribe the juror, but finds himself arrested instead. It results in his disbarment and seven years in prison. Gino is not sent to prison, but finds the bank reorganized by Joe, Tony, and Pietro, and he is put out to pasture. Still Gino encourages hatred in Max to his brothers, pointing out that Joe probably tipped off the police about the bribery attempt.

So Max leaves prison to confront his three siblings, and to see if he can resume life with Irene. And Joe, Tony (who has married Maria), and Pietro wonder if Max is going to be a troublemaker.

The film captured an aspect of life on the lower East side rarely shown in films - how did banks work in those immigrant enclaves? This was before major banks had branches around the cities, and small local banks (like Monetti's) were common. And were run in the same haphazard manner until the Depression made the government take a closer look. The film, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, crackles with good dialog (and steamy lines too - particularly between Conte and Hayward). Robinson's Gino is memorable - not a really bad man, but one who forgot certain simple family rules regarding his sons. Even minor characters have good moments: Hope Emerson's fury at Conte's flaunting his affair with Hayward leads to a confrontation scene, and the dinner at the Monetti's reveals how Diana Douglas (Kirk's wife) is a non-Italian mainliner that Luther Adler married, who barely likes her in-laws (she can't stand spaghetti dinners, and wants him to have a promised raise so she can entertain HER friends). It is a rewarding movie about social mobility and it's pitfalls in the urban immigrant circles.

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.