A curious little picture with a running time of only 23 minutes, and a film that I did not know until Talking Pictures showed it a few days ago.

Alan Badel plays the part of an eccentric stranger who comes to town – it was filmed in Windsor – and somehow entrances the people with his bizarre antics and magic tricks – dressed in theatrical attire

It looks as though this was only Alan Badel’s second film – he was only 28 or so when it was made.

Wendy Toye directed the film.


Alan Badel is a peculiar, bearded man with bushy eyebrows and baggy patchwork clothes who shows up one sunny day in a small town. Merrily twirling his umbrella as he prances through the streets wowing the children with showers of confetti and magic tricks.

He manages to turn the heads of everyone he encounters and charms all of the townspeople in a short time.

However this strange man, is actually up to something much more sinister, as he eventually seeks out a wealthy and corrupt banker named Mr. Lathan (Cameron Hall).

It is a short story written by Sidney Carroll; that somehow manages to be both amusing and eerie.

The film certainly packs a lot into its 23-minute run-time – almost more than some feature length films. I

It has a whimsical music score from Muir Mathieson who seemed to feature on the credits of every film we saw at the time

Director Toye and Alan Badel would team up again for the even-better short ‘In the Picture’ (contained in the 1955 THREE CASES OF MURDER) a few years later.

Wendy Toye remade The Stranger for the TV series Tales of the Unexpected in a version which starred Derek Jacobi