Strangers When We Meet

Viewed February 4, 2021.

974

Adult drama in the style of Douglas Sirk or John Stahl, mostly believable (except for Matthau's action at the end) but lacks the poetic quality that elevated Sirk's best works.

a little like sirk doing TWO LOVERS, and both sirk and gray would be proud of the shot of novak walking out of the house, dougles left framed through the doorway. not just for how moving it is in and of itself but for how elegantly it visualises all of the subtext.

Star Rating: ★★★★

An exploration of infidelity in 1960, it was believable and intense. However, the story was told mostly from the male point of view, with just enough insight from the female side to move the story.

My first impulse was to call this "Sirkian" but I worry that I might fall into a trap of labelling ANY melodrama "Sirkian". Sometimes a soap opera is just a soap opera. And this is pretty soapy... it certainly didn't have any of the transcendent quality of Sirk. Predictable suburban infidelity romance, nothing at all noteworthy about it (except that it's rather steamy for 1960). I didn't hate anything about it, but it didn't do much for me.

Excellent writing, with complex characters that are noticeably better than the actors portraying them, and lush dialogue that differentiates between mindsets rather than binding lines to the linearity of plot progression. There is certainly a little bit of Sirk in this.

961

Solid Hollywood melodrama about an affair between characters played by Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak. It's ultimately not anything special, but it's well done and doesn't have any big flags. Pretty predictable with no real surprises, but if you like this kind of story it's a fine instance of it.

#999