Three Strangers (1946)

THREE STRANGERS  (1946)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Jean Negulesco
    Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Geraldine Fitzgerald
There's a recurring theme that runs through much of John Huston's work, from "The Maltese Falcon" to "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" to "The Man Who Would Be King" to "Moby Dick": the protagonist who sets out after some fabulous prize, becomes obsessed with it and ultimately achieves it, even as the quest itself destroys him. This movie, which Huston cowrote, is another riff on that, telling what happens to three shady characters who sign a pact to share the proceeds from a sweepstakes ticket. Be careful what you wish for, in other words. Lorre's outstanding as the film's resident fatalist, the only one of the three who understands from the start that the deck's stacked against all of them, no matter how the cards are played, and whose only ambition is to get drunk and stay that way till the hangman comes. According to noirmeister Eddie Muller, the role was intended for Humphrey Bogart, and it's not hard to imagine Bogart delivering Lorre's lines.