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The story was scripted by Director Huston and Peter Viertel from an episode in the novel Rough Sketch by Robert Sylvester. It concerns the hard-jawed heroics of a young Cuban-American revolutionist (John Garfield), who recruits a handful of assistant revolutionaries, including a slant-eyed girl named China Valdes (Jennifer Jones). Garfield puts his crew to work digging a tunnel from the cellar of Jennifer's home to a nearby cemetery. His lurid plan: to blow the dictator and his cabinet to smithereens as they stand about the family tomb of a bigwig senator whom Garfield has already earmarked for assassination.
Brightest spot in this murky yarn is the clear, vigorous, imaginative camera work. There are beautiful shots of Havana's buildings rising like white frozen fountains at the end of receding alleys, and some brilliant bits on the revolution in full swing. There are also good performances by Jennifer Jones, David Bond, Gilbert Roland (as a calypso-crooning conspirator), and onetime silent-star Ramon Novarro (as a middle-aged plotter).
Strangers' occasional virtuosity cannot conceal its flaws. As a Cuban Gestapo man, Pedro (The Pearl) Armendariz gives a fine performance. But when he starts making bestial passes at Jennifer Jones while Garfield hides in the cellar, he is only one jump ahead of old-fashioned horse opera. Another kernel of corn: Garfield's big death scene, highlighted by Gilbert Roland's brokenhearted requiem in calypso rhythm and some highfalutin dialogue delivered by Miss Jones. Never for a moment a dull movie, Strangers is often too facile or too far away from strict artistic honesty. Coming from the man who made Treasure of the Sierra Madre, it is a disappointment.