The Stranger's Hand

For the album by Jerry Goodman, Steve Smith, Howard Levy, and Oteil Burbridge, see The Stranger's Hand (album).

The Stranger's Hand (Italian: La mano dello straniero) is a 1954 British-Italian thriller drama film directed by Mario Soldati and starring Trevor Howard, Alida Valli and Richard Basehart. An international co-production, it is based on the draft novel with the same name written by Graham Greene.^[2] The plot follows the son of a British MI5 agent kidnapped in Venice by agents of Yugoslavia as he searches for his father.

The Stranger's Hand
Directed by	Mario Soldati
Written by	Giorgio Bassani Guy Elmes
Based on	The Stranger's Hand by Graham Greene
Produced by	Angelo Rizzoli Graham Greene Peter Moore John Stafford
Starring	Trevor Howard Alida Valli Richard Basehart
Cinematography	Enzo Serafin
Edited by	Tom Simpson Leslie Hogdson Leo Catozzo
Music by	Nino Rota Alessandro Cicognini
Production companies	Milo Film Rizzoli Film Independent Film Producers
Distributed by	British Lion Films
Release date	20 January 1954 (1954-01-20)
Running time	85 minutes
Countries	Italy United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£164,200[1]

The first two chapters of The Stranger's Hand had been entered by Greene anonymously under a pseudonym to a competition in the New Statesman to write a book in the style of Graham Greene – a competition in which Greene was amused to win second prize. Soldati had seen the chapters and persuaded Greene to complete the novella to make the basis for a film. Greene expanded it to 30 pages of a "film story", on which Giorgio Bassani and Guy Elmes completed the screenplay.^[3]

Cast

• Trevor Howard as Major Roger Court
• Alida Valli as Roberta Gleukovitch
• Richard Basehart as Joe Hamstringer
• Richard O'Sullivan as Roger Court
• Eduardo Ciannelli as Dr. Vivaldi
• Arnoldo Foà as Commissioner
• Stephen Murray as British Consul in Venice
• Guido Celano as Chief Constable
• Nerio Bernardi as Vincenzo
• Giorgio Costantini as Pescovitch
• Angelo Cecchelin as Luza
• Nino Vechina as First Killer
• Armando Papette as Second Killer
• Giovanni Karuz as Third Killer
• Joan Butterfield as Mrs. Harrington
• Alessandro Paulon as Morgan
• Remington Olmsted as Ramondo