I See a Dark Stranger

I See a Dark Stranger
theatrical poster (US)
Directed by	Frank Launder
Produced by	Sidney Gilliat Frank Launder
Written by	Sidney Gilliat Frank Launder (story & screenplay) Wolfgang Wilhelm Liam Redmond (add'l dialogue)
Starring	Deborah Kerr Trevor Howard
Music by	William Alwyn
Cinematography	Wilkie Cooper
Edited by	Thelma Connell
Distributed by	General Film Distributors (UK) Eagle-Lion Films (US)
Release date	4 July 1946 (UK) 3 April 1947 (US)
Running time	112 minutes (UK) 98 minutes (US)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

I See a Dark Stranger – released as The Adventuress in the United States – is a 1946 British World War II spy film with touches of light comedy, by the team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, and starring Deborah Kerr and Trevor Howard.

In May 1944, during World War II, when a nationalistic young Irish woman, Bridie Quilty (Deborah Kerr), turns 21, she sets out to fulfill a lifelong dream engendered by listening to her late father's stories of the Irish Revolution. She leaves her small rural village and goes to Dublin. On the way, she shares a train compartment with J. Miller (Raymond Huntley), but believing him to be English, she is very brusque with him. Once in the city, she seeks out a famous ex-radical her father had supposedly fought alongside, Michael O'Callaghan (Brefni O'Rorke), and asks him to help her join the Irish Republican Army. However, he has mellowed as the situation in Ireland has improved and tries unsuccessfully to dissuade her from her overly romantic notion.

Miller turns out to be a secret agent assigned to break Nazi spy Oscar Pryce (David Ward) out of a British prison in Devon. When, by sheer chance, he runs into Bridie again, he recruits her for his task. She gets a job at The George, a hotel and bar in nearby Wynbridge Vale, and becomes acquainted with a sergeant, who unwittingly provides her with information about the prisoner's impending transfer to London.

This is the opportunity that Miller has been waiting for. However, he is disturbed by the arrival of Lieutenant David Baynes (Trevor Howard), a British officer on leave. Since there is little to attract anyone to the town, he suspects the newcomer of being a counter-intelligence agent. He orders Bridie to distract Baynes on the day of the transfer by persuading him to take her for a day out in the countryside. It turns out Baynes is merely there to gather material for his thesis on Oliver Cromwell, whom Bridie loathes intensely for his conquest of Ireland.