Name: A Stranger in the Kingdom
Start: 2025-09-26T19:00:00-04:00
Location: Bennington Museum

Bennington Museum presents a special screening of Jay Craven’s award-winning 1997 film, “A STRANGER IN THE KINGDOM,” based on the novel by Howard Frank Mosher. The picture stars David Lansbury (Michael Clayton, Scent of a Woman), Martin Sheen (Badlands, Apocalypse Now), Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, Oz), Henry Gibson (Nashville) and Jean Louisa Kelly (Mr. Holland’s Opus) and will screen at 7pm, Friday, September 26th in the Paresky Center at Bennington Museum. Director Craven will introduce the film and lead a post-screen Q & A. Tickets are $12 for Bennington Museum members and $15 for not-yet-members and available for purchase at benningtonmuseum.org.
A STRANGER IN THE KINGDOM tells the story of a small Vermont town whose veneer of peace and tranquility is shattered when a Black minister arrives as the town’s new pastor and, soon after, finds himself charged with adultery and the murder of a French Canadian waif passing through town on her way to pursue her Hollywood dream. Young rascal lawyer Charlie Kinneson, the local favorite son, tricks the young Canadian girl into town under false pretenses but he decides to defend the minister, placing himself at odds with family, friends, and a vanishing way of life. The film – and Mosher’s novel – were inspired by the true events surrounding the infamous 1968 “Irasburg Affair.”
Film critic John Bowman at the Santa Fe New Mexican wrote that the film ”Conveys the richness you experience in the literature of writers like Faulkner and Eudora Welty. Set in the 1950’s, “A Stranger in the Kingdom” seamlessly blends rollicking comedy with morally-charged drama and taut suspense. The film is, by turns, lyrical and haunting, hilarious and hard-hitting. Filmmaker Jay Craven revels in the pastoral setting even as he exposes the hypocritical wrinkles in its craggy inhabitants.”
The Boston Globe said the film is “Riveting. A delight to see.”
The Austin (Texas) Chronicle added that the film is “A delightful reminder that the term “independent” still can say as much about a film’s content as its financing and distribution.”
Rick Kisonik at Seven Days called “Stranger” – “A rollicking powerhouse of a picture.”