Lobby card for the film, “The Stranger” (1946)
Extent and Medium
Overall: Height: 11.000 inches (27.94 cm) | Width: 14.000 inches (35.56 cm)
Creator(s)
- Ken Sutak (Compiler)
- Universal-International (Production Company)
- RKO Radio Pictures (Distributor)
Biographical History
The Cinema Judaica Collection consists of more than 1,200 objects relating to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical subjects, from 1923 to 2000, from the United States, Europe, Israel, Canada, Mexico, and Argentina. The collection was amassed by film memorabilia collector Ken Sutak, to document Holocaust-and Jewish-themed movies of the World War II era and the postwar years. The collection includes posters, lobby and photo cards, scene stills, pressbooks, trade ads, programs, magazines, books, VHS tapes, DVDS, and 78 rpm records. Sutak organized these materials into two groups, “Cinema Judaica: The War Years, 1939–1949” and “Cinema Judaica: The Epic Cycle, 1950–1972” and, in conjunction with the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum (now the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York), organized exhibitions on these two themes in 2007 and 2008. Sutak subsequently authored companion books with the same titles.
Archival History
The lobby card was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018 by Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur
Scope and Content
Lobby card for the film, “The Stranger,” released by RKO Radio Pictures in the summer of 1946. Lobby cards are promotional materials placed in theater lobby windows to highlight specific movie scenes, rather than the broader themes often depicted on posters. “The Stranger” tells the story of Mr. Wilson, an American member of the War Crimes Commission, who is searching for Franz Kindler, a dangerous and elusive Nazi. Wilson releases an old associate of Kindler, hoping he will inadvertently lead him to his quarry. He follows him through Latin America to New England, and discovers that Kindler is living under a false identity and has married the daughter of a Supreme Court Justice. Writer Victor Trivas received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Story. Directed by and starring Orson Welles, the film was a detective thriller, rather than a Holocaust film. It was emblematic of a post-war shift from portraying victimization at the hands of the Nazis to more familiar narrative frameworks. This object is one of more than 1,200 objects in the Cinema Judaica Collection of materials related to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical themes.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Restrictions on use. Copyright status is unknown.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Lobby card printed on rectangular, off-white paper with a central background in multiple shades of blue, and a narrow margin on all four sides. On the left side is a canted, rectangular, photographic image outlined in white. The image features a man in a black suit, gripping the arm of a woman in a yellow blouse, who is sitting on a bed. To the right of the image, are three, overlapping black-and-white illustrations of the three principal characters. Spanning the bottom of the card are film credits in black text, and the film title in a red script font. A small compass rose printed in black is in the bottom left corner, and a small line of red text is in the bottom right corner. Copyright and printing information is printed in blue in the bottom margin. The edges of the card are slightly stained and discolored, with ink transfer on the back from another image. Depicted: Edward G. Robinson as Mr. Wilson, Loretta Young as Mary Longstreet, Orson Welles as Professor Charles Rankin
People
- Young, Loretta, 1913-2000.
- Trivas, Victor, 1896?-1970.
- Welles, Orson, 1915-1985.
- Robinson, Edward G., 1893-1973.
Subjects
- Emigration and immigration in motion pictures.
- Women in motion pictures.
- United States.
- Germans in motion pictures.
- Nazis in motion pictures.
- Imprisonment in motion pictures.
- Anti-Nazi movement in motion pictures.
- War criminals--Fiction.
- Thrillers (Motion pictures)
Genre
- Posters
- Object
- Display cards.