Strange Intruder (1956)

Review by All Movie Guide
Strange Intruder has one of the more bizarre storylines to grace Hollywood. Certainly, there are very few films that take a returning war hero and assign him the task of bumping off his best friend's children so that the supposedly loose wife cannot provide them with an inappropriate stepfather. This is the kind of premise that has to be handled extremely carefully. In the right hands, it can be dynamite; in the wrong hands, it can blow up in your face. Or more rarely, as in this case, it can do both. Under Irving Rapper's surprisingly inconsistent direction, Intruder has a number of powerful elements and sequences that are balanced by weaker ones and by an inability to fuse the two together. Chief among its assets are Ida Lupino, giving another of her under-appreciated performances that manages to delve beneath the surface aspects of her character; and another solid performance from the dependable Ann Harding. Among its deficits is the insufficiently convincing performance of Edmund Purdom, which severely handicaps the film. Further complicating things are the confusing tone of the work and a lack of focus, which result in a film that careers from being a revenge flick to a soap opera, offering moments of genuine drama followed by moments of laughable melodrama. Just as one is getting engrossed in one of the good stretches, a ludicrous exchange of dialogue rears its head, destroying the momentum. This will be frustrating for many, but there's enough of interest here to warrant watching. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide