To me, this movie is perfection.

Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

It's 1944 and Deborah Kerr is Bridie Quilty who has been raised in a remote Irish village on tales of mighty deeds fought against the British occupation army in 1916 by the blatherers in the local pub. Oliver Cromwell's name is a curse.She leaves the town of Ballywally (or whatever it is) and travels to Dublin to volunteer for the I.R.A. Alas for her hopes. The I.R.A. is no more, and she is encouraged to forget all about that stuff. The suave German agent doesn't brush her off. He sweeps her up in a plot to save a German spy and spill the beans about military secrets.But a British officer on leave, Trevor Howard, suspects something is up and when Kerr gets herself into hot water he helps her out of it and after a comic climax he marries her. On their honeymoon night, she stomps out of the hotel. She's discovered that its name is The Cromwell Arms.Katie Johnson, "Mrs. Lopsided" of "The Lady Killers" puts in an appearance on a train. And David Tomlinson, adept at goofy roles, is an intelligence officer who complains about having been stationed in Scotland which was so dull it was "a dead end." He is so right. You can NOT get a decent pizza at four in the morning in John O'Groats.The plot is too twisted to go into in any detail. It's not the dramatic spy thriller you might expect. It has too many light-hearted touches to be taken seriously. And Deborah Kerr, her womanly beauty notwithstanding, projects the wide-eyed innocence of a child. Howard is the harried and puzzled lover/pursuer. Put it this way. If you like Hitchcock's later chase thrillers like "The Lady Vanishes," you'll probably like this, though it struck me as a bit long.If it's not a masterpiece, it's a diverting bit of entertainment, an exciting and amusing story brightened by Kerr's marvelous performance.

Deborah Kerr plays an impressionable Irish gal who can't wait to lash out at Britain, but her first negative, naive traipse through England forces to her grow a bit and reconsider. This movie is three parts Hitchcock, one part noir and one part wartime propaganda. Think of it as "Uppity Irish know-it-all descends 39 steps." The noir aspect is the best stuff here; the cinematography being much, much finer than the script. The camera work is way above average. As with Hitchcock, the shenanigans continue in an arbitrary way, daisy-chaining through an arbitrary number (too many) of arbitrary intrigues, in different (arbitrary) locations, until the thing is long enough to end. The quality of the dramatic engagement is rather low. In the films clumsiest moments, the sequences require a distracting number of Kerr's voice-over "thoughts.' Perhaps the most unusual part of the movie is when ownership of a dead sympathizer falls to Kerr at the worst possible time, and she is forced to devise a ruse which the movie pursues to a rather morbid end.Just how Trevor Howard can make anyone abandon their stereotypes of Britons is a head scratcher. He plays a stiff, humorless, passionless mainstream Brit. He's a complete non-entity. Howard flouncing down a stairway, arms aflutter, is one of the most risible moments ever put on film.I confuse scenes from this with "I Know Where I'm Going" (also about an insufferable traveler, also unsuccessful as to why audiences should identify with/endure its unpleasant heroine) and "A Canterbury Tale" (also about travels through England, with ravishing imagery). It's gone from your mind the second it's over for the usual reason; its conceits are better than its concerns.

Enjoyed seeing how young Deborah Kerr appeared in this picture at the age of twenty-four years. Deborah plays the role as Birdie Quilty who works in her families pub in England and heard all kinds of stories told by people who visited the pub about how Ireland fought against the British years ago and she starts to form a hated toward the English Government. Birdie becomes of age and wants to go to Dublin, Ireland to live and work and she meets up with some very strange people who have listened to Birdie talk about England and they decide to utilize her hatred towards the British Nation for their own benefits. Birdie finds herself in some very difficult situations until she meets up with a British Lt. David Baynes, (Trevor Howard) who seems to fall madly in love with Birdie at first seeing her and on other dates, it becomes serious. However, Birdie has so many dark secrets that she does not want to show any affections towards David and this still does not stop David from following her from one country to another. This is a very great film with plenty of funny moments and at other times can be very dark and mysterious. Enjoy.

(Also known as THE ADVENTURESS) I SEE A DARK STRANGER is a film made for Individual Pictures in 1946. Deborah Kerr (complete with an impressively maintained Irish accent) stars as Bridie Quilty, an Irish girl who hates the English and Cronwell so much she joins the IRA and starts doing espionage work. But things spiral out of control very quickly when Bridie realizes what she has really got into, and starts to fall for an English man (Trevor Howard).I thought Kerr gave an excellent performance in this one. She is very young here and looks absolutely stunning in black-and-white. This film, along with BLACK NARCISSUS, made Deborah a star and she won the New York Film Critics Best Actress Award for her work in both films. The film is quite fast-paced and is competently and creatively directed by Frank Launder. It is Kerr's confident and delicate work with her character that carries the film and prevents it from turning into farce in the second half.I SEE A DARK STRANGER features some great black-and-white cinematography and location shooting. It was actually shot in all the places the narrative covers (no back lot shooting here)- Dublin, Isle of Man and Devon, England. Kerr (complete with voice-over, a nice touch) does a great job of suggesting Bridie's hot-headed stubbornness and desperation. Howard gets less screen time yet he is convincing as the English soldier gradually falling for Kerr. Raymond Huntley is wonderful in support.This film is maybe best known for the famous "body in a wheelchair" sequence, a finely directed and acted moment of suspense. However, there are many great sequences on show here and I SEE A DARK STRANGER is truly a memorable film.9/10.