MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Touch of Stranger’ Wastes Winters

Watching Shelley Winters in “Touch of a Stranger” (AMC Century 14), is a bit like seeing strong liquor poured into a tissue paper cup and then trying to get a sip before it explodes or dissolves. Winters pours out heart and guts in a role that’s a pale, blowzy pastiche of everything she has done before--a sort of Shelley-shally.

Her role as the reclusive Lily isn’t real, despite all Winters’ efforts. And neither is her antagonist; magnetic, surly young Jet (Anthony Nocerino), who suddenly collapses on her weathered doorstep, a bullet in his side, a gun in his hand, pain in his eyes.

The movie is a chamber drama in an ersatz ‘60s vein, with two lovable misfits stuck together in a dark house and a low budget. Nocerino, an ex-acting student of Winters’, plays Jet quizzically.

Co-writers Roslyn Barnes and Brad Gilbert and director Gilbert don’t impose any vision on this material, beyond a sort of flabby, sentimental sense that these victims of society can only understand each other. But stories like “Touch of a Stranger” (rated R for language and mature themes) usually only succeed when they’re partly hard-edged, a little dark, and when there is a real collision of values and personalities involved.