House of Strangers (1949) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by theriverjordan ★★★★ 10

  There is no gulf so wide as between the new country and the old - even when it is a gaping maw that opens up within the home of a single family.

  “House of Strangers” is the rare noir by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, best known for his acidic showbiz masterpiece, “All About Eve.” As in the his best works, “House” relies on the director’s skill in eliciting vivid performances from his actors to augment the stakes of spiritual and moral conflict between characters.

  “House” stars Edward G. Robinson as the first generation immigrant patriarch of an Italian American family. Having worked his way up from barber to banker, his antiquated old county Italian values conflict with the rigid system of…

• Review by Gregor Kreyca ★★★½

  Like “Somewhere in the Night” Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s second Film Noir seems to be a little forgotten and undervalued piece of the genre. This one also hasn’t been released on Blu-ray yet which is kind of a shame because it really is quite an entertaining little film. This one is less about the crimes and thrills but more of a character/family study. I said it before and I’ll say it again, I just love Richard Conte. He only gets third billing here but he is clearly the protagonist and easily carries the movie.

  Edward G. Robinson and Susan Hayward are also great. Robinson clearly has a great time chewing the scenery. He’s the ultimate patriarch and surely not the best…

• Review by Josh Gillam ★★★

  Edward G Robinson, Richard Conte and Susan Hayward star in Joseph L Mankiewicz’s noir about a self-made Italian-American banker who comes into conflict with his sons after a life of shady practises finally catches up to him.

  In making the film, Mankiewicz takes the family interplay and below-the-surface strain of something like The Late George Apley and applies a noirish undercurrent, giving added edge to this King Lear-inspired story of a wealthy father and his fractured relationships with the adult children he lords over.

  After the war, lots of films were interested in turning their conflicts inward, with this and Thieves’ Highway (which also starred Conte) exploring the “respectable” second generation in relation to the rough-around-the-edges working class immigrant parents…

• Review by sakana1 ★★★½ 15

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Spoilers ahead.

  In a story as deeply male as House of Strangers, Irene Bennett (Susan Hayward) was always going to stand out. It's only when she's placed aside the film's other female characters, though, that her singularity is truly revealed. The other women in the movie are either: from an earlier generation, limited to impotently mouthing cliches about the old days, the old country, or both; miserable, shrewish creatures who want nothing but money; submissive and wide-eyed, content to accept anything and everything from the man in their life, simply because he is a man.

  Into this fiercely, comfortably patriarchal world strides Irene, a woman with enough money to secure her independence, and enough belief in herself to be unwilling…

• Review by Jesse Snoddon ★★★

  "A man who throws away money is a big worry...a big problem."

  After serving 7 years in jail, Max Monetti (Richard Conte) comes home to confront the three brothers he had a falling out with after the death of their father.

  House of Strangers has a structure I don't particularly like. It starts in the present with Max meeting the brothers who have become wealthy running the family bank and flashes back to the events leading up to it. Knowing where things wind up can easily sap the interest in getting there, and that happens here.

  Sharp direction, snappy dialogue and Edward G. Robinson doing an Italian accent make this family drama worth watching, but the languid pace and Conte's weak link lead performance keep it from reaching greatness.

• Review by Raphael Georg Klopper ★★★★½

  The 40’s The Godfather, just exchange the Mafia for a bank business (though they made very clear that the mob is around), put Tom in Michael’s place, while all the other brothers are different versions of Fredo, and Vito is an adorable charismatic papa with the soul of a monster. Where values of honor and nurtured blessings such as love in this family runs thin and almost dry as each of the three neglected son’s patience against all the grudge and bitterness saved in the store of a constantly creasing family resentment!

  That’s all to say that the influence Joseph L. Mankiewicz's House Of Strangers must’ve had on Coppola’s testified iconic magnum cinematic classic is a PRETTY OBVIOUS one from…

• Review by 🥀 e m m é 🇵🇸 ★★★★ 4

  I didn't expect to find myself with a riveting, Noir-adjacent familial drama instead of a standard Noir full of crime and gangsters, but I loved it a lot! Richard Conte's magnetic performance anchors the storyand he comes especially alive when trading barbs with Susie Hayward. She is, of course, absolutely electric and a fiercely independent queen, and it's inexcusable how often I forget that I truly adore her. Eddie G. might be rather too stereotypically Italian here, what with singing opera in the bathtub and all. Also, this was Efrem Zimbalist Jr.‘s film debut and I've loved him for ages, so that was quite exciting to me personally.

• Review by Fint ★★★½ 6

  Philip Yordan took a story about tough paternity and filial hatred and wrote a script that became House of Strangers with Edward G Robinson, Richard Conte and Luther Adler. Just a few years later, he re-fashioned it as a western, retitled Broken Lance. This was directed by Edward Dmytryk and starred Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner and Richard Widmark. Call me biased, but the Dmytryk version is better. Call the Academy crazy, but Yordan won an Oscar for Best Original Story for the second film.

  This is a good yarn, told mostly in flashback, tightly controlled by Joe Mankiewicz and dominated by Eddie G. There is enjoyably spiky dialogue between Richard Conte and Susan Hayward, but him I always find fine…

• Review by Channing Pomeroy ★★★½

  I found this an interesting antecedent to The Godfather — an Italian immigrant patriarch with a litter of sons of varying quality struggles with succession issues. Old World atavisms like family loyalty and revenge vendettas clash with New World economic Darwinism.

  A few years later, Philip Yorden lit out for the territory and his script the Western, Broken Lance.

• Review by PUNQ ★★★½

  Felt the ending was a cop out, but there was so much to love about this troubled family dynamic. First off, Edward G. Robinson was really superb as the father. Classic big mouth manipulator who always has to have it his way. Richard Conte was real strong as the independent son being betrayed by his other brothers. Great role for him. If only the ending had been as hot blooded as the rest of the story...

• Review by daniwiller87 ★★★½

  This is probably the 40s Mafia movie that comes closest to the model commonly understood as a Mafia movie - that of the 70s and 80s.
  The moneylander Robinson, as the Italian-American head of the family, recalls The Godfather *, while the magnetic gaze of Conte, his favorite son, has nothing to envy to Al Pacino.
  There is the family, the fame (Robinson's omnipresent portrait), revenge as the engine of everything, sons subjected to their father, and, of course, the cuckolded girlfriend...and lover as an object to be possessed.

  Robinson is condemned to loneliness because of his character but his tyrant aspect hides a romantic streak of those who are convinced they are acting for the good of others but…

• Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🐝 ★★★★

  Summer of Scam: The Summer Crime Season 2

  If you wander into House of Strangers without knowing anything about it and were expecting a fairly standard noir, then you are going to end up pleasantly surprised.

  Because this is a Joseph L. Mankiewicz noir and it's safe to assume that he isn't interested in making it like most of the rest. He IS interested in his usual array of complex characters, some of whom we simply don't know whether to root for or against, and some quite outstanding technical touches that lend an air of added class to it all.

  So what you actually have here is a bit of a King Lear-esque story. I say that although I'm only…