The Stranger

The Stranger is a 1946 American thriller film noir directed and co-written by Orson Welles, starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young and Orson Welles. Welles's third completed feature film as director and his first film noir, it centers on a war crimes investigator tracking a high-ranking Nazi fugitive to a Connecticut town. It is the first Hollywood film to present documentary footage of the Holocaust. The film was nominated for the Golden Lion (then-called the ‘Grand International Prize’) at the 8th Venice International Film Festival. Screenwriter Victor Trivas received an Oscar nomination for Best Story. The film entered the public domain when its copyright was not renewed. Plot Mr. Wilson is an agent of the United Nations War Crimes Commission who is hunting for Nazi fugitive Franz Kindler, a war criminal who has erased all evidence which might identify him. He has left no clue to his identity except "a hobby that almost amounts to a mania—clocks."