Never Love A Stranger (1958) - Region 2 PAL, plays in original English audio without subtitles: Official ArtHouse Media Spanish Region 2 PAL DVD release as pictured. Runtime 91 mins. Frankie Kane is brought up in a Catholic orphanage and befriends Martin Cabell, a Jewish law student whose sister Julie becomes Frankie's sweetheart. At sixteen, Frankie learns that he is himself Jewish and therefore has to be moved to a Jewish home. That prospect proves so awful that he runs away - and goes bad. Years later, he returns to the district and gets involved with a crime syndicate that his old pal Martin, now assistant district attorney, has pledged to clean up. Frankie however, bumps in to Julie again and, finding he still loves her, decides to help the straight-shooting Martin smash the syndicate.
S**K
PREMIER FILM
CE N EST PAS SON MEILLEUR MAIS A VOIR POUR LES FANS DOMMAGE QU IL N EXISTE PAS UNE VERSION FRANCAISE
J**C
GANGSTER STORY WITH A TWIST
Frankie Kane and Martin Cabell meet on the rough streets of New York and become unlikely friends. Orphaned since birth, Kane, played by John Drew Barrymore, is raised in a Catholic Orphanage. In one of his first film roles, Steve McQueen is gives a pleasant but understated performance as as Jewish Martin Cabell. It's a very strong push having Barrymore and Kane start the movie as teenagers. Barrymore obviously is well into his 20's in appearance but he is living in the orphanage trying to earn some extra bucks as a shoeshine boy. It is this job that leads him into the life of mob gangster Silk Fennelli.Enter the beautiful and exotic Julie (Lita Milan) as the Cabell family maid and we have our love story between her and Frankie Kane. If this all sounds cliche, it is certainly is. It's not clear why Julie is a made other than her explaining "there aren't many jobs for a girl like me?" I assume she is Jewish like the Cabell family and this story touches the surface of anti-semitism during this era. Good Catholic boy Frankie Kane eventually learns that he has a devastating secret.Cabell becomes an attorney and special investigator for the city of New York while Kane works his way up the ladder of the mob scene.I had never seen John Drew Barrymore on screen and I can see what potential he had. We also see the potential in Steve McQueen who is the straight-laced attorney before the famous "king of Cool" kicked in.I had never heard of Lita Milan. She had a brief and promising film career until she left acting to marry the son of the Dominican Republic's dictator, but that is another story and a movie in itself.NEVER LOVE A STRANGER is basically disappointing in story and misses its potential. It is worth watching to see John Drew Barrymore, Steve McQueen and Lita Milan. The film combines the mob scene with a story of anti-semitism but neither seem to mesh together.
T**P
Five Stars
great.
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