Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Borgarkeri A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

david-546 In some ways rating this film an 8 out 10 is generous. It's a B film and throughout it feels like a B film. Outside of Peter Lorre who gets top billing even though he is only in the film for a short time the rest of the cast are unknowns who largely stayed that way. Okay Elisha Cook Jr. has a key supporting role as well and he went on to a long film career often appearing in noir films. The film was made apparently for around $175,000. The film has all the elements of noir. The wrongly accused man, voice over, paranoia, lots of heavy shadows, those low camera angles up the stairs, the Brooklyn setting but the pièce de résistance was the dream sequence that has to be seen to be believed.If any complaints the couple played by John McGuire and Margaret Tallichet were a bit cutesy and the happy ending was a bit schmaltzy. But it doesn't take away from the overall effects of the film. Peter Lorre is downright creepy as the stranger and Elisha Cook Jr. is his usual wide eyed self as a wrongly accused. McGuire did his best to channel that later B actor Tom Neal of Detour (1945). Well since McGuire came first maybe it was Tom Neal channelling McGuire. As to Tallichet who had a brief film career and went on to marry the director William Wyler (Ben Hur amongst others) well she was that lovely girl next door you always fall in love with. The rest of the cast is peppered with fine character actors especially the landlady and the pain in the neck neighbour of McGuire. The film is compact and tidy coming in at a swift 64 minutes giving it a TV film feel. Overall a nifty if jagged little film. So remember 'They put you in a shirt with long sleeves, and they pour ice water on you'

LeonLouisRicci If you want an in your face Film-Noir expressionistic look with a style yet realized, this embryonic exhilarating movie is it. For students it can unleash an against the grain production that is not prototypical and has some other great flourishes that make this a grand experience.This tight little thriller is cynical ("there are too many people in the world") and strange. It takes on suppressed courting rituals (the rather risqué romantic interlude in the apartment) notice the gleam in his eye as he peels off her stockings in their "warm and cuddly" retreat from the rain. There is so much to look at in the dream sequences and flashbacks with the audacious use of distortion and shadows and bizarre character posturing, that this short film is packed with enticement and extremes that are as loopy and lamenting as anything in film.There are the yet to be Film-Noir standards and icons such as guilt, paranoia, geeks, false accusations, hallucinations, slimy dwellings with close quarters and staircases, diners, rain-soaked streets, trench-coats, mental illness and brutal violent acts. It's all here formulated with a minuscule budget and is a cloistered mini-masterpiece of movie potentials and artistic exuberance.

bkoganbing For only a few minutes work in this B picture Peter Lorre got top billing playing a bug eyed character who escaped from an asylum and has taken root in the lives of John McGuire and Margaret Tallichet a pair of 20 somethings young and in love and looking to get married.The Stranger On The Third Floor opens with reporter McGuire giving testimony at a murder trial of Elisha Cook, Jr. who is accused of murdering and robbing a store owner in a gruesome fashion. McGuire found him standing over the body, but Cook swears he didn't do the deed.Nevertheless Cook's pleas of innocence shake the star witness McGuire. Later on he spots Peter Lorre coming out of his fellow boardinghouse roomer Charles Halton with whom McGuire had quarreled with earlier. When Halton who is a nasty little sort is similarly gruesomely dispatched the cops are thinking that McGuire might have done both the crimes.It's up to Tallichet to find a guy who looks like Peter Lorre and clear the boyfriend.The Stranger On The Third Floor is a neat and economical thriller taken from a radio play. Lorre is his usual menacing self and Tallichet proves to be a regular Nancy Drew in tracking down the culprit. Note another nice performance by Ethel Griffies as the landlady for McGuire and Halton. They make a really great matched pair of creeps.Check this one out if you like Peter Lorre.

jrmontalvo3 Boris Ingster's Stranger on the Third Floor is an incredible drama film that has you always trying to question and figure out who might be the killer, keeping you interested in the movie. The film takes place with a newlywed couple Michael and Jade who are grabbing breakfast before the trial of Joe Briggs. At the end of Joe's trial, the movie starts building in suspense by having Michael second guessing weather Joe's trial was innocent or guilty, later throughout the night Michael starts to have nightmares that he is actually in Joe's place. Once Michael finds himself seeing an unfamiliar face walking out of a neighbor's house, they find another person has been murdered, this time instead of Joe becoming blamed for the crimes in the murder; it is place in Michael's hands. The cops think that Michael is the man behind this murder accusing him of killing the innocent. Finally, the true killer is found, and Michael and Joe will both be allowed to be released from going to jail for crimes in which neither one of the two committed. This movie brings in a lot of suspense and has the viewer trying to spot which person might actually be telling the truth and who might have actually been the killer, until you find out the killer was actually a total stranger, which unlike most movie's where it's either of the two, this movie brought in a whole separate character who wasn't even a suspect for being the murderer.