Stranger on the Third Floor 03/03/26

The stylized visuals in this RKO mini-masterpiece are more extreme than any of the German expressionist classics said to have influenced it. A cub reporter experiences a nightmare of crazy injustice, a psychological payback for his own testimony that convicted a killer on circumstantial evidence. The pale and forlorn face of Peter Lorre haunts this very strange melodrama, pitched somewhere between horror and a new style yet to be identified: film noir. Lorre is great, but so are the leading players Margaret Tallichet, John McGuire and especially Elisha Cook Jr.. On Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
03/03/26