Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)
It’s an odd movie. I identify with Peter Lorre, and that’s a problem. Stranger on the Third Floor was influenced by German expressionism and most certainly influenced Orson Welles. There’s an extended dream sequence in which the hero John Maguire imagines he is unjustly accused of murder and can’t seem to convince anyone of his innocence — it’s all crooked rooms and dark shadows. Stranger on the Third Floor is sometimes credited with being the first film noir, and one can see why, as it seems archetypically so; more concerned with light and dark than anything else. John Maguire sends a man to jail through his testimony on the stand, but the accused cries out ‘I am innocent’ — sending Maguire into a shame spiral. Then Maguire sees an odd man opening a door on the third floor of his rooming house, who he begins to think is the murderer. That odd man is Peter Lorre — who is always the most sympathetic of villains; not unlike myself. He would be difficult for anyone to love, with his heavily lidded eyes, fleshy lips, and silky, heavily accented voice. In Stranger on the Third Floor one also notices the spaces between Lorre’s teeth for some reason (I also have spaces between my teeth) making him even creepier. And then there’s the scarf. He sports a white scarf, and keeps flinging over his shoulder with a kind of abandon — this becomes the distinguishing characteristic with which he is identified. I can imagine having such a scarf, and throwing it over my shoulder in such a way. Then there are his final words — “The only person who was kind to me was a woman, and she’s dead now.” Perhaps these words appeal to me because of my bizarrely close relationship to my mother, or perhaps they are in fact simply chilling (Nathaniel West wrote the final screenplay.) Peter Lorre is me, because I’ve always been odd. Imagine then, that I am a murderer. It won’t be so hard, knowing of my recent profligate lifestyle in Montreal during the ‘pandemic.’ But imagine that — for some reason — I have captured your sympathy, or perhaps there has been a glimmer of recognition in your eyes? And like Prospero you too, admit to yourself — if only for a moment — “this thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.” I was looking through some old letters to my father (I found them in a bag in the basement). They are stamped with the imprint ‘The Guy Sky’ and are relentlessly cheerful; how I hated myself back then. Mostly it seemed, I would send my father gushing reports of my success, and go on about my loving relationship with my girlfriend (who I was only trying to love). There’s also a newspaper interview with me from 1981 in which I am described as ‘a very fidgety young man.’ It strikes me that I am often unaware of the impression I make. Apparently I never look anyone in the eye, and do have mannerisms —some of them effeminate of course — which are fiercely and objectionably inconsistent with my large body, my broad back; I am a creature who seems to channel brute force through my thick neck and lumbering build (drunks always used to challenge me to fights) and yet I am possessed of carelessly wayward, meandering hands, and a voice that betrays weakness, and even perhaps hints at cowardice. I am a ‘creature;’ not unlike Peter Lorre, and I recently had my back tattooed with an Aubrey Beardsley drawing of the Greek comedian Bathyllus (known for his obscene pantomimes). Why do I thus exponentially increase such grotesquerie? Because I cultivate my oddness, because there really doesn’t seem to be anything else to do. When COVID-19 appeared — and people avoided me on the street — which of course they did to everyone — I’m so self-obsessed and paranoid that I took it personally. Am I exaggerating my oddness — stretching it into evil? Well I don’t believe in COVID-19. That is, I believe there is an illness out there, but that it only kills a very small percentage of the older population, mostly people who are very ill anyway, which I know sounds callous. But is it not true that if we finally reach 80 years of age, we are then living on borrowed time? I will be 80 in 13 years— if I live that long — and I firmly believe it would be selfish of me — at that juncture — to complain about dying, Of course I would prefer that those — already gravely ill — people would not die; I would prefer that no one ever does . But that is not a likely — or perhaps even a desirable — world to live in, is it? And so not only do I think we are being held hostage because people — who were going to die anyway soon — are dying, but we are quite unjustly accused of being unloving, uncaring people for being perplexed that our lives have been yanked to a full stop because of it. So, now — do you not agree that I am odd, and perhaps even evil? And then to top it off— and this seems like the worst sin of all; I’m desperately in love (I say desperately because it is an extreme relationship, one which offers almost weekly melodrama, and shouting, and kissing, and making up, and confessions of love, and confessions of resentment and vulnerability and truth-telling and whatnot) — and though I am emotionally consumed by this relationship — or perhaps because of that — I seek sex with strangers, and depend on the kindness of them; and have depended on the kindness of thousands of them, throughout my lifetime, in fact. (And if I told you how many people I’ve actually screwed you would probably faint at the possibility that such end-of-Rome-style depravity exists.) On the positive side, back when I was famous, some drunken guy saw me on the street and turned to his friend to say something like: “Well if Sky Gilbert can stand here, you can dance.” So the extremity of my debauchery has at least been utilized as a means of persuading at least one shy human being to go out there and have a good time. That could be the positive side of being a ‘stranger here myself.’ Or perhaps I am just openly admitting that the world itself is not benign or loving, but actively hostile to us as human beings, and being odd is the only honest choice one can make. And, frankly learning to love or at least tolerate someone as repellent as myself, might — in a best case scenario — perhaps, do you — or even the world, — some good? But of that — and so much else — I am never sure.
