Totally miserable film dealing with a young boy's suspicion when his dog is found poisoned. The next door neighbor, a disagreeable, nasty and mysterious man is thought to be the killer and the boy goes out of control whenever he sees the man.Nancy Davis, Mrs. Ronald Reagan, played his mother. Her character is outrageously benign here. Even the way she calls out to her son in the film, a mother would be so much more assertive here. As the father, George Murphy is given a poor script to work with. Owner of a fruit orchard, a sidebar theme in this dismal film regards the dropping of temperatures and its affects upon what is being grown.Our mysterious neighbor's transition is sudden and while he becomes a sympathetic figure in the end, it's too much to digest and believe.

Kurt Kaszner who has certainly played his share of villains on the screen has come to settle down in a small California town in the citrus fruit growing area. He's surly, bad tempered, and scares off anyone trying remotely to be friendly to him. Especially young Billy Gray who has a paper route that Kaszner is on. Even Gray's father George Murphy can't get any kind of smile out of him.In a small town, a fellow like Kaszner is bound to raise eyebrows, but no one outrightly accuses him of anything until a dog that young Mr. Gray has adopted is poisoned. Of course there's a lot more to the story, but I won't spoil anything by going farther. Talk About A Stranger can be deadly if you don't know the facts and let the worst impulses in your mind start taking control.Talk About A Stranger is an unpretentious film from MGM's B picture unit which has a simple message and speaks it plainly. Nancy Davis is in this as Gray's mother and Lewis Stone is in this as well in one of his last films.The film has a nice moral lessons about jumping to conclusions before all the facts are in.

A child's pet dog dies of poisoning and young Robert(Billy Gray)points the finger at a mysterious neighbor named "Matlock"(Kurt Kasznar)who lives near where the mutt was found dead. Robert pursues the truth with passion and without restraint no matter the consequences his doggedness brings..but is he correct on his presumption that Matlock committed the deed to start with? Robert didn't see Matlock actually poison the dog, but a few near run-ins with the strange, quiet man who keeps to himself, separated from the little town merely only to drop in for supplies every now and then, motivates his blinded rage for finding the truth against him making up most of this little film. Robert's father(George Murphy) is an orange farmer and when Daddy doesn't charge Matlock for supposedly killing the dog, their relationship is strained. We watch as Robert, Jr. forces his hand around town asking local newspaper publisher William Wardlaw(Lewis Stone)to print the story of Matlock's poisoning the dog. While Wardlaw won't just publish a story based on theory, he does encourage Robert the truth by asking around and fishing for clues. So Robert does, but his anger for the loss of his pet pooch might cause the young lad to make rash decisions he might soon regret.Little film barely runs over an hour and has a simple story regarding the reasons for not storming blindly against someone without knowing all the facts just because the accused seems guilty of the crime presented. The boy is the perfect protagonist for his dangerous mission might not yield the results he built up in his little mind..yet his pursuit often causes him to make irrational decisions which could cause multiple harm to others. And, I'm pretty sure many will point out that this whole dangerous mission is over "just a mutt", but I think to a kid who grown to love it with all his heart, that this film is able to capture that. Still, when the result is shown, the child makes a decision out of hatred, and it could possibly affect the farmers trying to make a living with the frost threatening their crops, that the film comes full circle speaking it's peace(the moral lesson this story had been planning to unleash) about finger-pointing without knowing for sure if the one whose getting singled out is actually the culprit. I think this flick is much ado about nothing, but it does build up some tension considering the child's journey into possible(this is the word I'm trying to emphasize) shark-infested waters. Some fabulous photographic work by John Alton bringing a noirish look that actually heightens the suspense which might dazzle some viewers(there is a cool sequence where little Robert is returning home from a California estate that might've pointed out Matlock as a murderer and appears on the verge of being run over just to watch the headlights split under the fog pointing out a young man on a motorcycle, or the scene where it, at first appears, that Robert is being pursued by Matlock in the orange grove), but the film, in my opinion, isn't that lasting..you'll probably forget it shortly after you've watched it.

I found this film to be quite boring and the plot just plain silly. Once the boy finds his dog dead, with the expertise of a vet, he exclaims, "My dog has been poisoned!, and it was Dr. Mahler!" Even more ridiculous, his father responds, " I wouldn't put it past him!" Then they go to the mysterious Dr.'s house to confront him, only to hear his denial and leave. Definitely a kids movie to teach the morals of not "judging a book by it's cover". But if anyone thinks this is even mildly creepy, you would never survive the Boston subway system. No wonder why the director did not direct any major film for over 8 years after this piece of silliness. Some good camera work, but it still feels like a Leaver it to Beaver episode. Watch it at your own risk.