Stranger on the Third Floor

Is the real central message of this film really ‘don’t drink coffee before going to bed’? Because its wrong, coffee is for any time, but also, it’s a weird choice. But then this is a film of weird choices and I do mean that in a complimentary way because when this goes…

Lexzilla

The shadows of German expressionism encroach upon the many blind alleys of America, including its justice system, in “Stranger on the Third Floor.” A work often cited as being the first noir of the classic era, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther derided “Stranger” as a…

theriverjordan

Girl talking about a murder suspect, “I didn’t know he was so young. He looks like a kid.” *Cuts to a 37 year old man. Nice to see Peter Lorre show up for 6 minutes at the end to make the movie interesting

JayShmoney

Cinematic Time Capsule 1940 Marathon - Film #65 "The only person who ever was kind to me was a woman. She's dead now" Will the real first noir, please stand up… Much like an innocent man, this film has been accused of being the official first noir of the classical…

📀 Cammmalot 📀

I can understand why this film is professionally cited as the first film noir, even though there are a handful of examples I can pinpoint from the previous decade. Stranger on the Third Floor employs a most sincere form of consequence by focusing on the American justice…

Ziglet_mir

Tracing the film noir back to its progenitor is maybe as murky and dark as the alleys often are in these films, but some have pointed to STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR (1940), a stylish low-budget crime thriller about what else an innocent man trying to prove that innocence…

Jon Peters

This was a very fun (pre?) film noir that dealt a lot with the questioning of witnesses to a murder and wanted to focus on the John Q. Public's safety in being helpful in a murder case and what could backfire and be his own indictment. It plays well on these elements and…

pirateneckbeard

“My son, there’s murder in every intelligent man’s heart.” Even if Stranger on the Third Floor wasn’t a contender as the first film noir, it would be worth seeing as a nifty minor thriller. We know from the beginning that reporter Michael Ward (John McGuire) will find…

noir1946

Sweaty paranoia, weird dream logic, and Peter Lorre being naturally unsettling without even trying. Everybody in this film looks two seconds away from a breakdown, lol. The whole thing genuinely felt like a lost episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents before that show even…

iamjelena