Based on John Huston’s short story “Three Men and a Girl,” the inspiration for Three Strangers evolved from the screenwriter’s personal experience with a Burmese statue he purchased from an antique shop in England. Huston conceived the story of three strangers purchasing a lottery ticket and signing it with the name of an icon to inspire good luck. The unlikely trio—the lonely housewife Crystal (Geraldine Fitzgerald), crooked lawyer Arbutny (Greenstreet), and small-time crook Johnny (Lorre)—meet on the eve of the Chinese New Year and together buy equal shares in a lottery ticket, dedicating it to Kwan Yin, the Chinese goddess of fortune and destiny. The prosperous hopes of the threesome quickly unfold into a series of ironic misfortunes. Although Three Strangers did not achieve notable box office success, critics took note of Lorre’s exquisite performance in a sympathetic role after portraying crooked sidekicks in both The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942).