"Never Love A Stranger" is a badly directed movie with very poor dialogue, and an off-screen narrator pompously intoning meaningless platitudes.. The basic story is borrowed from several better films, and consequently has few surprises for the audience. However the film is of interest for other reasons.
The first major turning point in the story is based on an extraordinarily racist idea. A mother had died giving birth to a baby who is brought up in a Catholic orphanage. When the child is in his teens, it is discovered that his mother was Jewish. Although the boy has been raised from birth as a Christian, it is decided that he should be removed from the orphanage because it is felt that his parentage prevents him from being a Christian! Can any student of the Catholic Church in America confirm or deny that this kind of racist nonsense ever occurred?
Steve McQueen gives an early career performance, and already it is strikingly obvious that he has a rapport with the movie camera. Interestingly, so too has John Drew Barrymore, which raises the question of why did his movie career not prosper. Lita Milan has a strong and interesting face that is not conventionally beautiful. Thanks to Lee Garmes' lighting and to her heavy eye shadow, she seems better looking than she really is. R. G. Armstong comes in late in the movie, playing a hired assassin. Wearing glasses and city clothes, he is almost unrecognisable from the westerners he played in Sam Peckinpah's movies. Only his eyes remind the audience that they have seen him somewhere before.
The IMDb states incorrectly that Dorothy Collins is not given a screen credit, Yes she is, and so too is lyricist Lawrence Elow.
It is regrettable that "Never Love A Stranger" is such a weak movie. Buried beneath the shoddy dialogue and implausible characterisation is a workable story, struggling to emerge.
