Strangers When We Meet

United States

1960

117 Min

Color

2.35:1

English

Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
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CAST Kirk Douglas, Kim Novak, Ernie Kovacs, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau

Larry Coe is a Los Angeles architect who is married with two kids. He has a very bright wife, Eve. She is ambitious for him, but he wants to do work more imaginative than the commercial buildings he’s been designing. He meets with Roger Alter, an author, to discuss building a house that will be an “experiment” and something Coe wants to do more of, something original.

Maggie Gault is one of his neighbors whose son is friends with his. She tells Larry she has seen some of his previous houses and thinks that the more unconventional houses are the best. This encouragement is what he needs from his wife but hasn’t been able to get.

Both Larry and Maggie grow dissatisfied in their marriages. Larry’s wife is too hard-headed and practical and Maggie’s husband isn’t interested in having sex with her. So they have an affair that involves meeting in secret. They both know what they’re doing is wrong, and they are devoted to their children.

Felix Anders is a neighbor who snoops around and finds out about their affair. His leering and insinuations make Larry realize the risks he’s taking. He tells Maggie that they shouldn’t see each other for a while. Felix, in the meantime, makes a play for Larry’s wife. In a way, Felix is a personification of the tawdriness of Larry and Maggie’s affair.

After her near-rape by Felix, Eve wises up and realizes that Larry has been unfaithful. She confronts him. They agree to stay together and move to Hawaii, where Larry has been offered a job to design a city.
Alter’s house is finished but still empty. Maggie drives up to take a look at it. Larry shows up and they talk about how they can never be together. Larry wishes he and Maggie could live in the house and if they did, he would dig a moat around it and never leave it. Maggie says she loves him.
The contractor for the house shows up and thinks Maggie is Larry’s wife. They both take a moment to savor the irony of his remark and Maggie drives away. —Wikipedia

Director

Richard Quine

Richard Quine (November 12, 1920 – June 10, 1989) was an American stage, film, and radio actor and film director. Quine was born in Detroit. He made his Broadway debut in the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Very Warm for May in 1939 and appeared in My Sister Eileen the following year. His screen acting credits include The World Moves On (1934), Jane Eyre (1934), Babes on Broadway (1941), My Sister Eileen (1942), and Words and Music (1948), among others. At MGM he became friends with Mickey Rooney and later directed several of Rooney’s films.

During World War II, Quine served in the United States Coast Guard, He married actress Susan Peters in November 1943. After the war, he tried directing, first as co-producer and co-director on Leather Gloves (1948), with William Asher, before his first solo effort on the musical The Sunny Side of the Street (1951). His directing credits include Pushover (1954), My Sister Eileen (1955), Operation Mad Ball (1957), Bell, Book and Candle… read more

Richard Quine (November 12, 1920 – June 10, 1989) was an American stage, film, and radio actor and film director. Quine was born in Detroit. He made his Broadway debut in the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Very Warm for May in 1939 and appeared in My Sister Eileen the following year. His screen acting credits include The World Moves On (1934), Jane Eyre (1934), Babes on Broadway (1941), My Sister Eileen (1942), and Words and Music (1948), among others. At MGM he became friends with Mickey Rooney and later directed several of Rooney’s films.

During World War II, Quine served in the United States Coast Guard, He married actress Susan Peters in November 1943. After the war, he tried directing, first as co-producer and co-director on Leather Gloves (1948), with William Asher, before his first solo effort on the musical The Sunny Side of the Street (1951). His directing credits include Pushover (1954), My Sister Eileen (1955), Operation Mad Ball (1957), Bell, Book and Candle (1958), Strangers When We Meet (1960), and The World of Suzie Wong (1960).

He also produced such films as the comedy Paris, When It Sizzles (1964) with Audrey Hepburn and William Holden, How to Murder Your Wife (1965) with Jack Lemmon, Synanon (1966), and Hotel (1967).

By the late 1960s, his output fell, and in the 1970s, Quine made only a few disappointing films. Turning to television, he had in the 1954-1955 season created with Blake Edwards the first Mickey Rooney series, The Mickey Rooney Show: Hey, Mulligan, which aired on NBC. Quine later directed three episodes of Peter Falk’s Columbo, including Dagger Of The Mind, an episode set in Britain which some UK fans of that series regard as an embarrassment. He also worked on, another, much less successful NBC Mystery Movie series, McCoy starring Tony Curtis.

His final work was on The Prisoner of Zenda (1979) with Peter Sellers, although he was briefly part of the crew for another Sellers film, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980), for which he received no credit.

His first wife, whom he married on 11 July 1943, was actress Susan Peters, who was crippled from the waist down on a hunting trip with Quine in 1945 with Quine when she reached to the ground for her 22-caliber rifle, and it accidentally discharged. The bullet lodged in her spine. They divorced in 1948, and she died of the effects of anorexia nervosa in 1952, at age 31. On 17 April 1946, the couple adopted an infant, whom they named Timothy Richard Quine.

Quine was later engaged to Kim Novak, but the two did not marry. He also married Barbara Bushman (by whom he had two daughters, Katherine and Victoria), Fran Jeffries, and Diana Balfour.

After an extended period of depression and poor health, Quine committed suicide by shooting himself in Los Angeles on June 10, 1989. —Wikipedia

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