For Agatha Christie's fans. Based on her play "Philomel Cottage."
From the book called Agatha Christie: A to Z...
The story appeared in the short collection, The Liserdale Mysery, published in 1934 by Williams Collins Sons and Company, Ltd., in London.
The story was adapted in 1936 into a play named Love from a Stranger, which opened in London at the New Theatre on March 31, 1936. In 1937, a film dramatization under the same name, starring Ann Harding and Basil Rathbone, was released by United Artists in England, the first film to be made of an Agatha Christie work in England.
In 1947, Eagle Lion Studios in Hollywood remade the film, using a new screenplay written by American mystery writer Philip MacDonald. The film, which starred John Hodiak and Sylvia Sidney, was renamed A Stranger Walked In.
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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 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 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."
One review from IMDb: This is the definitive movie version of the story. The later movie version pales by comparison. The casting is terrific. The plot is plausible. The pacing is perfect. The settings were simple yet convincing. The acting is right on the button. Basil Rathbone is extraordinary in what may be one of his finest performances. Hitchock could not have directed it any better. The psychopathology is presented in a valid way, eschewing melodrama. This version is uncompromisingly true to the meaning and the tone of Christie's creation. Just as importantly the dialogue does not insult your intelligence. The final scene is intense yet controlled and makes one yearn for these well-done black and white movies in contrast to the melodramatic, syrupy Technicolor endings we get nowadays.
And another one: Ah, I had the pleasure of seeing this for the first time today. I was very impressed! In my truly humble opinion, this movie is one of the best adaptations of an Agatha Christie mystery. Unfortunately, it's probably the most underrated one as well.
The movie is about a woman who marries a man who she barely knows. After they are married, she begins to suspect that he is not what he seems to be. This type of plot has been used in a number of classics (The House on Telegraph Hill, Rebecca, both versions of Gaslight, Undercurrent, The Two Mrs. Carrolls), but this particular story has its own special Agatha Christie twist to it. Plus, I felt that Basil Rathbone was better as the mysterious hubby than most of the other actors who have portrayed such a character.
If you do see this, be sure to see Joan Hickson in a supporting role. Fifty years after this came out, she portrayed Miss Marple in the Marple series.
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no pass
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