| When Strangers Marry | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | William Castle |
| Screenplay by | Philip Yordan Dennis J. Cooper |
| Story by | George Moskov |
| Produced by | Frank King Maurice King |
| Starring | Dean Jagger Kim Hunter Robert Mitchum Neil Hamilton |
| Cinematography | Ira H. Morgan |
| Edited by | Martin G. Cohn |
| Music by | Dimitri Tiomkin |
Production company | King Brothers Productions |
| Distributed by | Monogram Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 67 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $75,000[1] or $50,000[2] |
When Strangers Marry (rerelease titleBetrayed) is a 1944 Americansuspense film directed byWilliam Castle and starringDean Jagger,Kim Hunter andRobert Mitchum.[3][4]
A rich drunk man is murdered in a hotel in Philadelphia. Millie Baxter, a naïve woman, comes to New York City from her hometown in Ohio to be with her salesman husband Paul Baxter, whom she had met only months before. Before she can find him, she learns that the police think he is the murderer. She is helped by Fred Graham, a friend from Ohio. Eventually she finds Paul, but he is acting suspiciously and living under a false name.
The film was originally known asLove from a Stranger and thenI Married a Stranger.
ProducersFrank and Maurice King likedThe Whistler, a film that directorWilliam Castle had made, and borrowed him fromColumbia Pictures for $500 a week. Castle later said that the script originally offered to him was "horrible", the story of a gangster who is killed, rejected from heaven and returned to earth. Castle had previously directedChance of a Lifetime from a script that he disliked and did not wish to repeat the experience. He advised the King brothers that they should not make the film, and they agreed. The brothers introduced Castle to writerPhilip Yordan, with whom he devised a new story idea that the Kings liked.[5] Yordan gave the story to aspiring novelist Dennis Cooper, but Yordan later rewrote Cooper's work. Cooper and Yordan were given joint screenwriting credit in the film.[6]
With only seven days and a budget of $50,000,[5] filming took place in June 1944.Neil Hamilton andKim Hunter were borrowed fromSelznick International.[7] Castle persuaded the leads to rehearse without pay and on their own time.
When Strangers Marry markedRhonda Fleming's film debut in a small role. Fleming later claimed that she had been cast when Castle saw her walking through the backlot and said "you'll do." She also said that she was not paid for her role.[8]
Robert Mitchum's role is among his earliest, and he had previously appeared inJohnny Doesn't Live Here Anymore for the King brothers. The Kings later claimed that they had Mitchum under a multi-picture contract and tried to enforce it, but he made no further films for them.[9]
Castle was slated to next directDillinger for the King brothers but instead accepted an offer to direct theBroadway playMeet a Body.[10]
Variety's review was positive: "Only thing wrong with this film is its misleading title. Tag,When Strangers Marry, suggests another of the problem plays of newlyweds when in reality pic is a taught (sic) psychological thriller about a murderer and a manhunt full of suspense and excitement."[11]
In a contemporary review of the film,Orson Welles wrote: "It isn't as slick asDouble Indemnity or as glossy asLaura, but it's better acted and better directed ... than either."[12] Welles would later work with Castle onThe Lady from Shanghai.
James Agee later wrote: "The story has locomotor ataxia at several of its joints and the intensity of the telling slackens off toward the end; but taking it as a whole, I have seldom, for years now, seen one hour so energetically and sensibly used in a film".[6] Agee continues: "Bits of it, indeed, gave me a heart-lifted sense of delight in real performance and perception and ambition which I have rarely known in any film context since my own mind, and that of moving-picture making, were both sufficiently young."[13]
The film was adapted for an episode ofLux Video Theatre as "I Married a Stranger."[14]