We Were Strangers

"We were strangers" is considered a minor film among all Huston's masterpieces of the era:"treasure of the Sierra Madre" "Key Largo" "Asphalt jungle'' or "African Queen" .But many of this director's works are sleepers :"a walk with love and death" "Heaven knows mister Allison" or " Reflections in a golden eye" -which was an accurate rendition of McCullers' novel- are good examples ,sometimes more praised abroad than in America.

"We were strangers " is in the center of Huston's work:one of his permanent features was failure ("treasure" "asphalt" "misfits" ).the heroes of "strangers" are in a way ,misfits:they do not mix with the people and they do not feel that history is moving faster than they do.Forget the political background which may seem,to some,naive and vague :sometimes we wonder whether the heroes themselves are believing in what they are doing:hear this little ditty one of them sings as a leitmotiv ("we are digging all day,we are digging all night" "We were strangers" shows Huston's fascination for death: it would reappear in the overlooked "walk with love and death" ,in the dance macabre at the beginning of " under the volcano" and it is even more glaring in the director's final opus "the dead' where one of the characters ,still alive,appears on her deathbed.

Fighting against the tyrants is one good thing:doing so by digging a tunnel to get to a graveyard to kill one of the men of the dictatorship,Huston challenges realism!"there are two parts in the cemetery,says Jones ,one for the poor,one for the rich" even in death...

Jones ,some kind of romantic passionnaria (the part was tailor made for her- and Garfield an idealist American are part of the odd couples who are numerous in Huston's work:"African queen" "Heaven knows..." or "Roots of heaven" or "the Barbarian and the geisha" or "Annie" or...you name it...

a Huston which should not sink into oblivion....