We Were Strangers

In 1933 Cuba, after her brother is killed by the secret police, a woman (Jennifer Jones) joins an underground plot hatched by an American expatriate (John Garfield).

We Were Strangers is an interesting, but fatally flawed, blend of the political thriller, film noir, and romance genres from director John Huston.

Looking at it in the context of Huston’s career, it’s clear We Were Strangers was something of a bridge between the film that preceded it, Key Largo, and the film that followed it, The Asphalt Jungle, with Huston retaining the romantic drama of Key Largo, but introducing the stark black and white photography and criminals-as-protagonists elements would feature so prominently in The Asphalt Jungle.

That said, the film just doesn’t work. It stumbles early, with a long and rather talky opening before finally finding its footing once John Garfield shows up and gets things rolling. Jennifer Jones is passable as the supposedly Cuban lead, but her accent slips more than once, as it does with many of the other Americans posing as Cubans, lending an aura of incredulity to the whole proceedings.

But worst of all, We Were Strangers never engages the audience. It’s an ambitious film that tries to be a little bit of everything, but succeeds at nothing, resulting in a film that, aside from some great cinematography during the finale, has little to recommend it.