Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Robert J. Maxwell It's strange because in 1949 we were on cozy terms with Cuba. American Fruit and the Mafia were notoriously friendly with the government in those pre-Castro days, and here we have a movie lauding the efforts of Cuban citizens to overthrow a thuggish dictator in Havana.The six strangers are rebels who come together in the house of Jennifer Jones with the intention of digging a tunnel to a point at which the corrupt El Presidente is supposed to make an appearance -- then blowing up him and his cronies, including his piggish Police Chief, Pedro Armendariz.One of the rebels is John Garfield. Of course he and Jones fall for each other. Strenuous digging takes place throughout the middle of the movie, as well as a lot of talking, some of it rambling.It's an unusual movie, too, because director Huston paid so much attention to details. Imagine the final shoot out, in which the surrounded Garfield and Jones are fending off the police. Garfield has a tommy gun. Ordinarily, the weapons wielded by the heroes never need attention. Here, Jones hides in the kitchen and feeds Garfield magazines for his gun, which she has filled, round by round. And, in digging under a cemetery, the rebels must wear masks to protect them from the clouds of cadaverine they unleash.It's strange to see Jennifer Jones in a small-budget movie. She was Mrs. David O. Selznick and mostly appeared in lavish productions especially designed for her. (In her next vehicle she was Emma Bovary.) She looks sleek and sexy in her Latina make up, though her accent admittedly sometimes strays into Russian territory or maybe Urdu.None of the acting is outstanding. The script does go on. And the rendering of Spanish into "English without contractions" places an additional burden on the performers. "I can not leave without you." "Let us go now and begin the tunnel." If it has its weaknesses, and it does, it isn't a failure either. These poor guys have their necks on the chopping block. They're digging this tunnel, sweating away, while the cops know that they're up to something and are putting pressure on Jones to squeal. All that work -- and then the tunnel fails. You can smell the despair of the characters.Sadly, at the final moment, Garfield is mortally wounded and then the revolution takes place. It lasts about 30 seconds, the fastest revolution in the history of man or beast. At the end of that time, the church bells ring out, El Presidente is dead, and Armendariz is strung up like Benito Mussolini.So all that work on the tunnel was for nothing. It's a little like Hemingway's Cubano fisherman who works like hell only to lose his noble marlin to the sharks.

MartinHafer Although this film isn't exactly true in the way it portrays history (the ending wasn't quite accurate), then this is a pretty exciting film about a group of revolutionaries in 1930s Cuba--well before the days of Castro and Batista.The film begins with the government suspending basic freedoms. In response, a group of students spread fliers demanding an end to the dictatorship. Shortly after this, a couple of these students (including the brother of the character played by Jennifer Jones) are killed by the police. This event propels Jones to the side of the revolutionaries. The leader of this group is played by John Garfield--who is supposed to have emigrated to the US years before (though, oddly, he hasn't a trace of a Cuban accent). The group comes up with a bold plan--to tunnel under the cemetery and blow up most of the government officials during a state ceremony. All they need to do is dig a tunnel from Jones' basement and arrange to have an important member of the Senate killed in order to provide this funeral. There's more to it than this as well as a romance. However, I don't want to say more and spoil the suspense.The film is very good all around despite the odd casting of Garfield (without accent) and Jennifer Jones (though she did a pretty good job). What I liked about the film was the tense and intelligently written script. While not perfect (especially because I didn't find the romance all that believable), the film is interesting and unique--how many other Hollywood films deal with this period in Cuban history?

writers_reign It's probable that this enterprise planted the seed that became White Hunter, Black Heart, throwing as it did screenwriter Peter Viertel and John Huston together several years before The African Queen. I seem to be in a minority here as most comments are highly favourable. I concede that it was brave in the extreme to make a pro-revolution movie at the time they did but other than that I find it on the dull side. Garfield especially is muted virtually throughout which goes completely against his screen persona of the virile, vitriolic short-fused hero and there is virtually no chemistry between him and Jennifer Jones, who comes close to reprising her Duel In The Sun shoot-out in the last reel. Gilbert Roland takes what acting honours there are in what for me is a curio rather than a lost gem.

dbdumonteil "We were strangers" is considered a minor film among all Huston's masterpieces of the era:"treasure of the Sierra Madre" "Key Largo" "Asphalt jungle'' or "African Queen" .But many of this director's works are sleepers :"a walk with love and death" "Heaven knows mister Allison" or " Reflections in a golden eye" -which was an accurate rendition of McCullers' novel- are good examples ,sometimes more praised abroad than in America."We were strangers " is in the center of Huston's work:one of his permanent features was failure ("treasure" "asphalt" "misfits" ).the heroes of "strangers" are in a way ,misfits:they do not mix with the people and they do not feel that history is moving faster than they do.Forget the political background which may seem,to some,naive and vague :sometimes we wonder whether the heroes themselves are believing in what they are doing:hear this little ditty one of them sings as a leitmotiv ("we are digging all day,we are digging all night" "We were strangers" shows Huston's fascination for death: it would reappear in the overlooked "walk with love and death" ,in the dance macabre at the beginning of " under the volcano" and it is even more glaring in the director's final opus "the dead' where one of the characters ,still alive,appears on her deathbed.Fighting against the tyrants is one good thing:doing so by digging a tunnel to get to a graveyard to kill one of the men of the dictatorship,Huston challenges realism!"there are two parts in the cemetery,says Jones ,one for the poor,one for the rich" even in death...Jones ,some kind of romantic passionnaria (the part was tailor made for her- and Garfield an idealist American are part of the odd couples who are numerous in Huston's work:"African queen" "Heaven knows..." or "Roots of heaven" or "the Barbarian and the geisha" or "Annie" or...you name it...a Huston which should not sink into oblivion....