Movie  1946
 I See a Dark Stranger      Back      Home
Bridie Quilty: I'm 21; I'm me own mistress.
Woman: That's an occupation that could change hands overnight.
Man in Bookshop: You've got your papers for England, I take it?
J. Miller: Yes, I've an Argentine passport. I'm going to Britain to buy bulls, apparently. I could have thought of happier excuses; I don't like bulls.
Man in Bookshop: Bulls will be the easiest part of your business. Did you ever meet Oscar Pryce?
J. Miller: Yes, in Leipzig last autumn.
Man in Bookshop: Did you know that he was in England?
J. Miller: No.
Man in Bookshop: At the moment he's awaiting trial in an military prison, at a place called Wynbridge Vale, in the West Country.
J. Miller: Bad luck. Well?
Man in Bookshop: Pryce has vital information. We have to know what it is.
J. Miller: How?
Man in Bookshop: You must get him out of their prison.
J. Miller: I see what you mean about the bulls.
Manx Hotel Manageress: I hope this doesn't mean that someone has escaped from the internment camp and is staying at the hotel.
Lt. Spanswick: If the food I've had here is anything to go by, they're more likely to escape from the hotel and beat it for the internment camp.
Lt. David Baynes: Where'd you get this? D'you realize you can go to prison for forging an identity card? What made you do it?
Bridie Quilty: It's nothing to do with you; it's my business.
Lt. David Baynes: It's my name! Small point, perhaps.
Bridie Quilty: Oh, isn't it like an Englishman to niggle about a thing like that?
[Bridie's thoughts as she sizes up her compartment-mate on a train.]
Bridie Quilty: His hair is going grey, but it looks very nice the way he has it brushed. He's a faraway look in his eyes... a poet maybe. No, he's much too clean. And he puts his trousers under the mattress like Terence Delaney. Hasn't he the lovely nails? He's a gentleman, I think. I don't like being alone with a strange man at this time of night. He doesn't look that sort of man, of course, but how can you tell? Mr. McGee didn't look that sort of man, and Mr. Clogherty... was a terrible shock to me. Hmm, he's a traveller from abroad. Miller, Miller, that can't be an Irish name... he's English! Of all of the compartments of this train, I have to get into one with an Englishman. Why, I might have known it! Will you look at him, will you look at the cruel set of his jaw! You could mistake him for Cromwell!
Usher: We don't get many young people here these days. They, they seem to prefer the pictures. Old Tim Kelly there, he, he was a great one for the pictures, until they started talking. So now he comes here for his nap.
J. Miller: You should visit England one day. You may change your mind.
Bridie Quilty: There's no need. I've an aunt there who has told me all about it. She says the upper classes are cringing and always moaning about their troubles, and the lower classes are arrogant and think they own the Earth.
J. Miller: I thought it was the other way round.
Bridie Quilty: My aunt runs a servants' registry office.
J. Miller: Ah!
Bridie Quilty: There's no "ah" about it. She hates the whole lot of them, and so do I. My father fought for Ireland against the English in 1916, and if I ever get the chance I shall do the same.
J. Miller: For a subject of a neutral country, aren't you being a little belligerent?
Bridie Quilty: There's nothing belligerent about it. It's entirely a question of which side I'm neutral on.
Bridie Quilty: Will there be anything else you require, please? It's me half-day.
Lt. David Baynes: No, I don't think so, thank you.
Bridie Quilty: Thank you.
Lt. David Baynes: Oh, I suppose you wouldn't know anyone who could show me around the town this afternoon, by any chance?
Bridie Quilty: I would not.
Lt. David Baynes: No, I... I only wondered.
Bridie Quilty: You're awful quick, aren't you?
Lt. David Baynes: Sorry. I've been working very closely with the American Army.
Amazon.com
You know Deborah Kerr as the finely regal actress of her later career; you may not know the vibrant, sexy redhead of younger days. I See a Dark Stranger should rectify that. (But do also see the Powell-Pressburger triumphs that bookend it, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and Black Narcissus.) This delightful picture comes from the deft duo of Frank Launder and Sydney Gilliat, who excelled at comic suspense. Kerr plays Bridie Quilty, an Irish lass bred to loathe the English, who ends up spying for the Germans during World War II (only because they're against the English and the IRA wouldn't take her). This curious premise leads to delicious intrigue, as Bridie finds herself dumping a body off an English seacoast cliff and chasing around the Isle of Man with two bald policemen named Goodhusband and Spanswick. Trevor Howard tags along, but this is Kerr's show, and she is smashing. --Robert Horton