Love from a Stranger (film)

"Love from a Stranger" is the name of two films based on the 1936 play of the same name by Frank Vosper. In turn, the play was based on the 1924 short story "Philomel Cottage", written by Agatha Christie, which was included in the short story collections "The Listerdale Mystery" (1934 in the UK) and "Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories" (1948 in the US).

Love from a Stranger (1937)

Infobox_Film
name = Love From a Stranger


image_size =
caption = original movie poster
director = Rowland V. Lee
producer = Max Schach
writer = Story:
Agatha Christie
Play:
Frank Vosper
Screenplay:
Frances Marion
starring = Ann Harding Basil Rathbone Binnie Hale Bruce Seton Jean Cadell Bryan Powley Joan Hickson Donald Calthrop Eugene Leahy
music = Benjamin Britten
cinematography = Philip Tannura
editing = Howard O'Neill
distributor = United Artists
released = April 18, 1937 (US)
runtime = 92 min.
country = UK
language = English
amg_id = 1:30341
imdb_id = 0029171The first film was released in 1937. It was produced by Trafalgar Films in the UK and directed by "Rowland V. Lee". The film starred Basil Rathbone and Ann Harding and remains notable for an early appearance by Joan Hickson in the role of Emmy, the maid. Ms Hickson would many years later play the acclaimed title role in the BBC TV series Miss Marple.

The film was known in the US as "A Night of Terror"

The film was reviewed by C. A. Lejeune in "The Observer" of January 10, 1937 when he said that it, "was a bit slow in getting started, but once the extra characters of the early scenes are dropped and the film gets the two leading players alone in their Kentish farmhouse, it becomes a hair-raiser of the first order." He concluded that, "Ann Harding and Basil Rathbone…overplay a little in the final conflict, but I'm not at all sure that it isn't what is wanted for the picture. The whole treatment of the climax is strained, overwrought, and hysterical; on the border-line between laughter and madness. There is one shot, when the wife throws open the last door to escape and finds her husband standing dead-still on the threshold, that hasn't been equalled for horror since Cagney's body fell through the doorway in "Public Enemy". A woman in front of me let out a scream like a steamship siren at this point in the first performance. That scream was the natural voice of criticism testifying to the film's success." ["The Observer" January 10, 1937 (Page 14)]

"The Scotsman" of June 22, 1937 started off its review by saying, "Suspense is cleverly created and sustained in this film version of the late Frank Vosper's play." The reviewer continued, "The suspicion that she has married a murderer is cunningly built up; his homicidal mania, strangely mixed up with greed and sadism, is made plausible and eerily convincing; and the closing sequence, in which the wife, sensing his murderous intention, seeks frantically, almost despairingly, for some escape, achieves dramatic suspense of an intensity only occasionally encountered on the screen. Much of the effect is due to the acting. Ann Harding brings a strong, yet restrained emotion to her part, even when it trembles of the verge of melodramatic insanity, and Basil Rathbone terrifyingly combines sensitiveness and insanity in a polished and persuasive performance." ["The Scotsman" June 22, 1937 (Page 17)]

Love from a Stranger (1947)

The film was remade in 1947 by Eagle-Lion films in the US and directed by Richard Whorf. This version starred John Hodiak and Sylvia Sidney

In the UK the film was released under the title of "A Stranger Walked In".

References

External links

*imdb title|0029171|1937 film
*imdb title|0039586|1947 film