Stranger on the Prowl

For the Indian song, see Ek Ajnabee.

Imbarco a mezzanotte (internationally released as Stranger on the Prowl, also known as Giacomo and Encounter) is a 1952 Italian drama film directed by Joseph Losey and featuring Paul Muni.^[1][2][3]

Imbarco a mezzanotte
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Joseph Losey
Screenplay by	Ben Barzman
Based on	the story "La bouteille du lait" by Noël Calef
Produced by	Noël Calef
Starring	Paul Muni
Cinematography	Henri Alekan Antonio Fiore
Edited by	Thelma Connell
Music by	Giulio Cesare Sonzogno
Production companies	Riviera Films Tirrenia Film
Distributed by	United Artists
Release dates	March 12, 1952 (1952-03-12) (Italy) November 9, 1953 (1953-11-09) (US)
Running time	90 minutes
Country	Italy
Language	Italian

The picture was the first to be made abroad by any blacklisted Hollywood director.^[4] Due to the political blacklist, Losey was credited for the story and direction under the name Andrea Forzano.^[5][6]

Muni traveled to Italy to star in the film partly as an act of solidarity and support for blacklisted friends living there in exile.

Plot

A disillusioned vagrant (Paul Muni) kills a shop owner, and is joined by a rebellious youngster in his flight from apprehension.^[7]

Cast

• Paul Muni as The Stranger With A Gun
• Joan Lorring as Angela, a lonely woman
• Vittorio Manunta as Giacomo, a small boy
• Luisa Rossi as Giacomo's Mother
• Aldo Silvani as Peroni, the junk dealer
• Arnoldo Foà as Inspector-in-Charge
• Alfredo Varelli as The Neighborhood Patrolman
• Héléna Manson as Grocery Store Clerk
• Enrico Glori as Signor Pucci
• Linda Sini as Signora Raffetto

Retrospective appraisal

“Stranger on the Prowl, made at the end of the neorealist revolution in Italian cinema, has the grainy texture and the naturalistic mood of the films by De Sica or Rosellini. Since it tells the story of a man and a boy, it contains echoes of De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief (1948). - Film critic Foster Hirsch in Joseph Losey (1980)^[8]

Film historian Foster Hirsch considers the Stranger on the Prowl deserving of “more attention than it has received.”^[9]

The film is clearly influenced by Italian neorealism and consequently is “markedly different” in its mise-en-scene from Losey’s previous Hollywood, and his subsequent British produced films, notably lacking in their claustrophobic “closed qualities.”^[10] Hirsch writes:

The film is set in the cavernous, bombed-out [word missing] of a severely depleted post-war Italian slum…as in the major neo-realist films, Losey frames his action with a sense of the ongoing flow of life. The screen is almost always filled with background movement…Losey’s film “redeems” physical reality with its “open compositions.”^[11]

Hirsch reserves special mention for American film star Paul Muni, who brings pathos and genuine dignity to the impoverished outcast and fugitive he portrays.^[12]