House of Strangers (1949) on Netflix
NR19491h 41mCrimeDramaThriller
Gino Monetti, an Italian-American banker in New York City, faces charges over his questionable business practices. Three of his four sons refuse to help him; Max, a lawyer, stays loyal.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.3/104,687 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes71%
Trailer
Plot summary
Gino Monetti came up from nothing to run a bank in New York City, and the questionable methods behind that rise bring criminal charges against him. His grown sons Joe, Tony and Pietro will not stand with him when he goes on trial. Joe is ambitious and supports a wife with expensive tastes, Tony is a playboy, and Pietro is a prizefighter. All three resent a domineering father who dismisses them. Max, a lawyer, is the son who stays loyal. He argues that his father's conduct does not merit a prison term and takes on his defense. With the case pending, Gino transfers the bank into his wife Theresa's name as a safeguard.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about House of Strangers (1949)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Philip Yordan wrote roughly 75 pages of the adaptation before he was fired; Joseph L. Mankiewicz then finished the script from Yordan's treatment and rewrote all the dialogue. The Screen Writers Guild arbitrated that the credit be shared, but Mankiewicz refused, so Yordan was granted sole screenplay credit.
- The corrupt banker Gino Monetti was loosely based on Bank of America founder Amadeo Giannini, a comparison that drew the ire of the real Giannini family.
- Sol C. Siegel's first choice to play Max Monetti was John Garfield, but Garfield left the role, and Edward G. Robinson was cast as the patriarch Gino Monetti in October 1948.
- Producer Sol C. Siegel claimed that Twentieth Century-Fox president Spyros Skouras gave House of Strangers only limited distribution because of the film's parallels with Skouras's own family history.
- Producer Walter Wanger was in such financial disarray that he sold the last two years of Susan Hayward's seven-year contract to Twentieth Century-Fox.
