THREE STRANGERS stake their future fortunes on the whims of Kwan Yin, an ancient Chinese goddess.<br /><br />The original story behind this tidy little thriller was originally conceived by John Huston as a sequel to THE MALTESE FALCON (1941). That not proving possible, it was shaped into its present form with help from the writer Howard Koch and turned over to the noted director Jean Negulesco.<br /><br />The film stars Sydney Greenstreet & Peter Lorre in one of their several pairings. Greenstreet, huge and implacable, plays a desperately duplicitous solicitor. Spooky-eyed Lorre, who gets to play a rare romantic role, is a petty criminal on the lam from the police. Their actual screen time together is sparse, but they make the most of it--the nervous little fellow playing perfectly off of the rumbling fat man. Greenstreet, especially, overacts magnificently, descending into melancholia and, eventually, madness, to the delight of the viewer.<br /><br />Geraldine Fitzgerald is pure vixen as the third member of the trio, a woman so consumed by jealousy, and obsessed with the supposed powers of the goddess Kwan Yin, that she has ceased being influenced by natural love & affection. Every man's nightmare, she is unadulterated malice.<br /><br />The supporting cast includes the sprightly Joan Lorring as Lorre's loyal girlfriend; Alan Napier as Fitzgerald's estranged husband; Rosalind Ivan as a widowed dowager still in communication with her deceased husband; Arthur Shields as a stern prosecutor; and the always competent Doris Lloyd as Lorre's slovenly landlady.<br /><br />Movie mavens will recognize an unbilled Ian Wolfe as a London barrister.