The Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)
- Starring:
- Peter Lorre, John McGuire, (more)
- Director(s):
- Boris Ingster
Synopsis of The Stranger on the Third Floor
Though he doesn't speak his first line of dialogue until the film's final ten minutes, Peter Lorre spiritually dominates the fascinating RKO melodrama Stranger on the Third Floor. The plotline is carried by John McGuire, playing Ward, a newspaper reporter whose courtroom testimony sends the hapless Briggs (Elisha Cook Jr). to the death house. Ward is certain that he saw Briggs leaving the scene of a murder, but as the days pass, he is tortured by guilt and doubt -- especially during the film's surrealistic knockout of a nightmare sequence. When another murder is committed, Ward finds himself as much a victim of circumstantial evidence as the unfortunate Briggs. The reporter's girlfriend (Margaret Tallichet) tries to clear Ward....and that's when she first makes the acquaintance of Lorre, who is heard ordering a pound of raw meat! Stranger on the Third Floor was a "film noir" long prior to the genesis of that cinematic movement. Long ignored or trivialized by film historians, this 7-reel quickie has in recent years graduated to classic status. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Complete Cast of The Stranger on the Third Floor
- Peter Lorre - Stranger
- Margaret Tallichet - Jane
- Elisha Cook, Jr. - Joe Briggs
- Ethel Griffies - Mrs. Kane
- Oscar O'Shea - Judge
- Otto Hoffman - Police surgeon
- James Farley - Policeman
- Don Kelly - Policeman
- Charles Judels - Nick
- Max Hoffman, Jr.
- Frank Hammond
- Bessie Wade - Charwoman
- Robert Weldon - Reporter
- Frank Yaconelli - Jack
- Ralph Sanford - Truck driver
- Lee Phelps - Cabdriver
- Bud Osborne - Bartender
- Paul McVey - Lt. Jones
- Lee Bonnell
- Ray Cooke - Drug Store Attendant
- Lynton Brent - Cabdriver
- John McGuire - Mike Ward
- Charles Waldron - District Attorney
- Charles Halton - Meng
- Cliff Clark - Martin
- Alec Craig - Defense attorney
- Bobby Barber - Italian grocer
- Donald Kerr
- Jane Keckley - Landlady
- Gladden James - Reporter
- Dell Henderson - Detective
- Greta Granstedt - Housekeeper
- Betty Farrington - Stout Woman
- Frank O'Connor - Policeman
- Herb Vigran - Reporter
- Henry Roquemore - Mr. McLean
- Emory Parnell - Detective
- Broderick O'Farrell - Minister
- William Edmunds - Gardener
- Harry C. Bradley - Court Clerk
- Robert Dudley - Postman
- Jack Cheatham - Detective
- Director(s):
- Boris Ingster
- Writer(s):
- Frank Partos
- Producer(s):
- Lee Marcus
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