Cinema: The Stranger

It is now more than a quarter of a century since Albert Camus wrote The Stranger, perhaps still the best modern novel of alienation and despair. Though Camus steadfastly refused to allow it, or any of his other books, to be made into a movie, his widow finally sold the film rights to Italian Producer Dino De Laurentiis on condition that the director be Luchino Visconti (The Leopard, Rocco and His Brothers).

Visconti has tackled his responsibility with the same fanatical concern for factual accuracy that Richard Brooks demonstrated in making In Cold Blood (TIME, Dec. 22). He had authorities in Algiers...