RACHEL AND THE STRANGER has the kind of quiet charm that LORETTA YOUNG always possessed and benefits from the more rugged screen presence of its leading men--WILLIAM HOLDEN and ROBERT MITCHUM. Loretta is an indentured servant who becomes the wife of William Holden and must prove herself worthy of the affections of Holden and his young son.

 

There really is very little in the story that is original and the outcome can be predicted from scene one. It's clear that Loretta, as Holden's second wife, will have a hard time replacing his winsome wife who was a woman of modest talents and dearly loved by husband and son (GARY GRAY). Not unexpectedly, they both warm to her and so does Holden's "stranger" friend, ROBERT MITCHUM, who does a nice job raising his voice in song accompanied by guitar.

Mitchum gives his usual laid back performance, nicely understated. The story may be a little too slow moving for some tastes since it's more of a character study of a widower and his new wife than it is a western.There's no real excitement to the story until the Indian attack which comes late in the story, but the film depends on the central performances of Young, Holden and Mitchum to hold interest as the three of them have some amusing interactions throughout the story.

 

Nicely photographed in outdoor settings photographed in crisp B&W, it's a film full of simple charm without anything pretentious about it.Only drawback: Overuse of the phrase "I reckon" to give the dialog a bucolic flavor. Its use is way overdone and actually becomes irritating when the script has the phrase repeated every few seconds by everyone in the cast.