The Stranger

[after Meineke's body is dug up] I knew darn well it was the same feller. 'Course, he's changed some. Uh, being buried in the earth does it.

The Stranger (1946 film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Professor Charles Rankin: You're not much changed. Put you back in your old uniform, you'd look very much the same. Konrad Meinike: Franz, I am a different man than before. Professor Charles Rankin: I, too. I, too, am different, Konrad. You know how I gathered and destroyed every single item in Germany and Poland that might have served as a clue to my identity. Well, guess what I'll be doing at 6:00 tonight. Standing before a minister of the gospel with a woman's hand in mine, the daughter of a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, a famous liberal. The girl's even good to look at. Yes, the camouflage is perfect. Who would think to look for the notorious Franz Kindler in the sacred precincts of the Harper School, surrounded by the sons of America's first families? And I'll stay hidden... till the day when we strike again. Konrad Meinike: Franz! There will be another war? Professor Charles Rankin: Well, of course.

The Stranger (1946 film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Mary Longstreet: [about Prof. Charles Rankin] Hello, father. Has anybody seen my brand new husband? Judge Longstreet: Don't tell me he's deserted you already. Mary Longstreet: Yes, it looks as if, the brute.

The Stranger (1946 film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Mr. Wilson: Do you know Germany, Mr. Rankin? Professor Charles Rankin: I'm sorry, I...I have a way of making enemies when I'm on that subject. I get pretty unpopular. Mr. Wilson: Well, we shall consider it the objective opinion of an objective historian. Professor Charles Rankin: Historian? A psychiatrist could explain it better. The German sees himself as the innocent victim of world envy and hatred, conspired against, set upon by inferior peoples, inferior nations. He cannot admit to error, much less to wrongdoing, not the German. We chose to ignore Ethiopia and Spain, but we learned from our own casualty list the price of looking the other way. Men of truth everywhere have come to know for whom the bell tolled, but not the German. No! He still follows his warrior gods marching to Wagnerian strains, his eyes still fixed upon the fiery sword of Siegfried. And in those subterranean meeting places that you don't believe in, the German's dream world comes alive when he takes his place in

The Stranger (1946 film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Mr. Wilson: Forepaw's muddy. No mud on hind. Dry leaves mixed with the mud. Red must have been digging somewhere in the woods. Noah Longstreet: Have you any idea what for, Mr. Wilson? Mr. Wilson: A body, I think. Meinike's.

The Stranger (1946 film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Mary Longstreet: Why are you packing? Are we going somewhere? Professor Charles Rankin: We aren't, dearest. I am. Mary Longstreet: What are you talking about? Professor Charles Rankin: As a rule, men leave their wives because they don't love them, but...I must leave you because I do. Oh, you won't object once you know the kind of man you've married. Mary Longstreet: But you are the man I've married, and that's all that matters. Darling, I meant it when I said for better or for worse. Even to... Professor Charles Rankin: To killing Red? Mary Longstreet: You couldn't have. It was an accident. Professor Charles Rankin: No, I meant to kill him. Murder can be a chain, Mary, one link leading to another until it circles your neck. Red was digging at the grave of the man I killed. Yes, your little man. Mary Longstreet: You killed him? Professor Charles Rankin: With these hands. The same hands that have held you close to me. Now are you satisfied to let me go?

The Stranger (1946 film), CC BY-SA 4.0