seymourblack-1 There's a profound sadness that runs through "Walk Softly, Stranger" as it features a con man who is trying to escape his past, whilst also targeting two women who are both vulnerable in different ways. The result is a drama in which the atmosphere is mostly downbeat and never gets lifted much by its action sequences, its romantic interludes or its relatively few moments of humour. It's probably for this reason that the movie flopped so badly at the time of its initial release and has only gained a limited amount of appreciation in the years since.Armed with a new identity, gambler, thief and con man Chris Hale (Joseph Cotten) chooses the small town of Ashton, Ohio as the place where he feels he can make a new life for himself. After driving up to a suburban house and checking the information in his notes, he introduces himself to Mrs Brentman (Spring Byington) who he knows is a widow and the owner of the property. He asks to see inside the house which he claims he used to live in as a boy and the trusting Mrs Brentman readily shows him what she feels certain, must have been his room years earlier. He plays along with this and agrees to the old lady's suggestion that he should become her lodger. As Chris is unemployed, Mrs Brentman puts in a good word for him with her friend Mr Morgan (John McIntire) who's a foreman at the Corelli Shoe Factory which is the town's biggest employer.That night at the Ashton Country Club, Chris encounters the rich and beautiful Elaine Corelli (Alida Valli), who's sitting on her own away from the partying club members and tells her how, years earlier as a newspaper delivery boy, he'd had a crush on her but hadn't felt able to approach her because of her social status. He also shows some knowledge of her life in the years that followed which Elaine recognises must have been gleaned from reports of her activities in the society columns. It's only after they've been talking for a little while that Chris sees that she's in a wheelchair and she tells him that she'd become paralysed as a result of a skiing accident.Next day, when Chris reports for work at the shoe factory, he's immediately asked to report to the owner, A.J. (Frank Puglia) who's ready to offer him a higher status job in sales or advertising because his daughter had asked him to but also because he was so grateful that someone had brought some interest into her life for the first time in ages. Chris respectfully declines the offer but continues to call on Elaine who enjoys his visits.When the weekend comes around, Chris tells Mrs Brentman that he's going to see a friend in another city and flies off to reunite with his old criminal associate Whitey Lake (Paul Stewart) and together they steal a large sum of money from the owner of a gambling joint and afterwards share the cash between them. Chris then heads back to Ashton, intent on leaving his criminal life behind and pursuing his relationship with Elaine. Things suddenly get complicated, however, when Whitey arrives at Chris' new home after having spent all his share of the money and going on the run from the gambling joint owner and his heavies who are on his trail and out for revenge.Joseph Cotten, as Hale, is tremendously unassuming and it's this quality that makes his character seem so plausible to the residents of Ashton. He's also skillful in the way that he ingratiates himself to others. Examples of this are seen in the way that he deals with a young woman who is furious about the way that he stood her up on a date and also how he deliberately loses a game of poker against Mr Morgan. Probably his most skillful move is seen when he doesn't take one of the higher paid jobs offered by A.J. This enables him to keep his profile low, demonstrate clearly that he's not acquisitive and also, by telling the caring father that he'd explain his reasons for doing so to Elaine, reassures A.J. that his daughter will know the he'd done all he could to fulfil her wish.Cotten's performance makes the different sides of Hale's character understandable and Alida Valli is terrific as the depressed heiress who knows more than she lets on. Similarly, the members of the supporting cast are all consistently good.

robert-temple-1 This moderately successful film noir was directed by Robert Stevenson, who is best known for his famous hit MARY POPPINS (1964). He also directed DISHONORED LADY (1947, see my review) and THE WOMAN ON PIER 13 ((1949, see my review), not to mention 59 other films. The film was billed as a kind of successor to THE THIRD MAN (1949, see my review) of the same year, simply because the same two leads were cast together, namely the alluring and fascinating Alida Valli and Joseph Cotten. But the magic is not there. Valli does her best, but Joseph Cotten seems tired, detached, and there is no chemistry between them this time. (Maybe they had ceased to get along?) So the producers were trying to build on the previous success of these two people, and with such clearly exploitative motives, such projects generally fail. When I was 16 years old, I knew Manny Seff, joint author of the story upon which the film was based. It was his last film. He was such an amusing, whimsical man who liked to make jokes. He was very good company, though rather quiet and unassertive in his manner. The film concerns a beautiful young woman, played by Valli, who has been paralysed because of a skiing accident and is confined to a wheelchair. She is naturally deeply depressed, and all the men who had been chasing her have lost their interest in her. Three years earlier, the film BEWARE OF PITY (1946), based on the famous novel by Stefan Zweig, had proved that a film about a beautiful young woman in a wheelchair (Lily Palmer in that instance) could be a commercial success. So the producers must have felt it was OK to put Valli in one, as all would be well. As far as Valli's part of the story went, all was well. She was wholly convincing and elicits our sympathy without demanding pity. But the rest of the film which swirls around her does not really work. Joseph Cotten is a very unsuitable candidate for playing a compulsive gambler and card shark, turned thief, who is on the run. That is just not 'him'. From the very beginning of the film, as we watch the calculating Cotten assume a false identity in Valli's home town, we just do not believe the film at all. His attempts to appear cold and calculating merely make him seem wrong for the part, which he was. Any man spending all that time with the beautiful Valli simply could not behave with such indifference to her obvious charms, especially when she keeps looking at him like that and tells him that she loves him. The film is ruined by being hopelessly unconvincing. Good try, shame about that.

st-shot On the run gambler, con man Chris Hale Joseph Cotton inveigles his way into a small All- American town to lie low for awhile. He charms his way into the good graces of locals and begins a relationship with a local shoe titan's wheel chair bound daughter (Valli). While he envisions starting anew in this town he can't resist making one more big score by ripping off a vicious thug. The theft is cleanly pulled off and Hale disappears back to his small community where he has assumed another identity. Unfortunately his unstable partner in the robbery tracks him down and from here things begin to unravel. Fresh from their Third Man pairing Joseph Cotton and Valli made this stylish little noir that at times evokes masterworks of the genre such as Shadow of a Doubt and Out of the Past. It has some tightly edited and well filmed suspenseful moments and Cotton as always gives a strong understated performance. Valli on the other hand is still in her post war Vienna funk so enigmatic in Third Man but dull and lifeless here. Upbeat Spring Byington and especially surly and troubled Paul Stewart provide effective opposite examples of the human condition that pull at Hale's conscience. Unfortunately in it's final scene, Walk Softly Stranger takes advice from its title and signs off with a mawkish tacked on ending that obliterates the impact of the previous scene which is infinitely more compatible to the overall doomed mood of story and character.

The_Void Walk Softly, Stranger may not be the most memorable slice of classic cinema of all time, but even so; Robert Stevenson's film offers an interesting tale of redemption and retribution, despite not being at all innovative. The film stars Joseph Cotten as a man who travels to a town called Ashton. He quickly becomes friendly with the locals, and tells them that he once lived there as a boy. His friendship with a young wheelchair-bound lady named Elaine Corelli, daughter of a successful factory owner, proves his most fruitful. But people's pasts have a habit of catching up them, and the man's gambling exploits are his weakness. The fact that this film stars Joseph Cotten was my main reason for seeing it. The man has a great screen presence that blends excellently with film noir. His performance here isn't one of his best, but he does well at hinting at a sinister side to his character just below the surface. He is joined by classic actress Alida Valli, who is most notable to me for the fact that she was one of the leads of Dario Argento's masterpiece 'Suspiria'. The plot flows well throughout, and while it's never too full of surprises; and the ending doesn't live up to the beginning, the film still offers 80 minutes of decent entertainment.