wes-connors "Talk About a Stranger" is a much, much better film that you might expect. Despite the credits order, it stars Billy Gray (as Robert "Bud" Fontaine Jr.). Mr. Gray would, later, become best known as another "Bud", on the TV series "Father Knows Best". In this film, he plays a boy who adopts a stray dog, which he names "Boy"; then, he finds the dog has been poisoned. Gray suspects a mysterious new arrival in town, Kurt Kasznar (as Matlock). Mr. Kasznar acts, and looks, very much like an outsider; and, he seems to dislike "Boy", and children… Gray does a fine job in a difficult role; he has to play the boy as both unlikeable, and likable. The character "Bud" is redeemed (or, made sympathetic) by his caring for his dead "Dog"; and, the film effectively captivates, with its plot developments. Kasznar is great, as usual; he keeps the performance from going in a direction not in tune with the film's ending. Top billed George Murphy and Nancy Davis (as parents Robert and Marge Fontaine) are ordinary; undoubtedly, they are better appreciated in other films. Later, Ms. Davis was, of course, wonderfully cast as the second Mrs. Ronald Reagan. The film's weaknesses might have been arrested by strengthening the "Fontaine" family.The other players in "Talk About a Stranger" are terrific. Lewis Stone is at least as "fatherly" as Mr. Murphy; he plays the newspaperman (William J. Wardlaw) Gray runs to for help. Teddy Infuhr has a great little part as a boy who lives near a "Haunted House" Gray visits; watch for their scene in the "San Sala" house. The film is full of weird scenes; and, Gray's trip to "San Sala" is one. Note, also, that Gray is picked up hitchhiking by motorcycling sailor Alvy Moore, who immediately asks Gray if he has a sister! Mr. Moore will, later, become best known as "Hank Kimball" on the TV series "Green Acres". You also get to see Kathleen Freeman, Burt Mustin, and some others…Cinematographer John Alton is the film's most valuable player. Mr. Alton, David Bradley (director), Cedric Gibbons (art director), and Eddie Imazu (art director) make "Talk About a Stranger" a great looking film. For this, and its cast, "Talk About a Stranger" is well worth watching. ******** Talk About a Stranger (1952) David Bradley ~ Billy Gray, Kurt Kasznar, Lewis Stone

whpratt1 Enjoyed this story concerning a family who lived in an orange growing community in California. The father was George Murphy, (Robert Fontaine Sr.) and his wife Nancy Davis, (Marge Fontaine) and they had a son Bud Fontaine,Jr. (Billy Gray) who was a bratty kid. Bud Fontaine had a little dog who followed him everywhere he went and one day this dog was found dead by poisoning and Bud immediately accused a stranger in the neighborhood of killing his pet. This man was Paul Mahler,(Kurt Kasgnar) who lived in an old dark looking house that all the children called a haunted house. Bud spreads rumors among the local town about Mr Paul Mahler killing his dog and he is advised by the police to prove what he is saying and to bring them the proof of his accusations. George Murphy moved on in life to become a United States Senator and Nancy Davis married Ronald Regan. Great little film.

David (Handlinghandel) This movie is creepy. To a small degree it's creepy in the way it intends: It does seem as if Harper Lee may have seen this before writing her lovely "To Kill A Mockingbird," also about children (here just one child) wrongly suspicious of an odd neighbor.In that novel, and the movie made of it, the children are very likable. Billy Grey is not, though possibly he was at the time. Maybe if I ha been a little boy seeing this at the time I would have identified.The fact is, though, the boy at the center of this is very troubled, constantly near the brink of hysterics. When he is acting like a boy, he is shooting a toy gun or making gun sounds. In a time capsule, this aspect would be interesting indeed but today it is distasteful.The original may well have had to do with the boy's worries about his mother's pregnancy. Would a new little girl (the whole thing seems very misogynistic) or little boy take away all her attention? Something, for sure, has made his kid a bundle of nerves.Nancy Davis has a thankfully small role and so does George Murphy. Kurt Kazsner as the eponymous stranger is good, as are the supporting players.The fifties gave us some fine music and art but a little item like this serves to remind, or show someone unfamiliar with that decade, what an unpleasant time it was, also.

Eric Chapman Rather surprising that the director here, David Bradley, would go on to make some notoriously awful films. There isn't quite enough to the story and the ending is a timid disappointment, but the film boasts some unusually powerful, even unforgettable imagery. The kind that, if you see this movie as a child, will probably stick with you for a lifetime.Bradley does a wonderful job conveying a sense of how alien and intimidating the world must look through the eyes of a ten year old, especially when that ten year old ventures outside the safe, protected space that is his every day environment. (An environment that seems relatively harmless during the day but hostile and terrifying at night.)What images. The boy's head framed against the backdrop of the huge, sinister house next door where the mysterious, ill-tempered man resides. The boy sprinting through a fog-enshrouded orchard toward a raised, judgmental camera. Hitch-hiking on the side of a lonely highway as headlights bear down. A motorcyclist appearing like a ghost. Getting a ride through the dark in the cold night air, the biker's affable ramblings distant, dream-like. A mesmerizing montage of the boy watching his dedicated dad scrambling to heat his orchards on a night when the temperature drops below freezing, lighting flame after flame after flame. A subtle, unsettling sequence set in an abandoned home on the ocean where a creepy older boy scares the living daylights out of him."Father Knows Best" brat Billy Gray plays the lonely boy and he is an odd, atypically intense child actor. At times he is effective, at others he is simply obnoxious. He is one moody little actor in a moody little film. He would probably even unnerve that red-headed demon from those unfortunate "Problem Child" movies. Nobody else in the cast makes much of an impression, though everyone is adequate. George Murphy is the decent dad. Nancy Davis (actually not a bad actress at all) is hardly on screen and when she is she's playing the least pregnant looking pregnant lady you'll ever see. Kurt Kasznar is the strange neighbor, though he's not as ghoulish or ghastly looking as you're supposed to think he is. The child actress who plays Gray's nemesis/sweetheart, a girl named Anna Glomb, looks remarkably like Denise Richards must have looked like at the same age.A not-so-distant cousin of "To Kill A Mockingbird". Bradley was clearly a uniquely gifted film-maker, though this may be the only evidence of that talent. What happened?