Love from a Stranger (1937 film)

Love from a Stranger is a 1937 British thriller film directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Ann Harding, Basil Rathbone and Binnie Hale. It is 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. The film was remade in 1947 under the same title.

The film was produced by the independent Trafalgar Films at Denham Studios near London. It is also known by the alternative title A Night of Terror in the United States. The film score was written by Benjamin Britten; it was his only feature film score.

Plot
Carol wins a lottery and becomes very wealthy. She argues with her fiancé Ronald and breaks off her engagement, before going on a European vacation. She is swept off her feet by the charming Gerald, and quickly finds herself married to him and living in a remote house, bought with her money, and without a phone.

Gradually Gerald is revealed as a dangerous fortune hunter. He asks Carol to sign a document turning her entire fortune over to him, and she starts to suspect he intends to murder her. She has to keep one step ahead of his plans, and turn the tables on him.

Cast

 * Ann Harding as Carol Howard
 * Basil Rathbone as Gerald Lovell
 * Binnie Hale as Kate Meadows
 * Bruce Seton as Ronald Bruce
 * Jean Cadell as Aunt Lou
 * Bryan Powley as Doctor Gribble
 * Joan Hickson as Emmy
 * Donald Calthrop as Hobson
 * Eugene Leahy as Mr. Tuttle

Style
Love from a Stranger transitions between comedy and romance in the first half of the film to what Mark Aldridge commented on the film in his book on Agatha Christie film adaptations, describing it as a "tense finale" that "ensures the audience is not fatigued by the straightforward thriller aspects too early on."

Release
Love from a Stranger was released in the United Kingdom in January 1937. The film was released as A Night of Terror in the United States.

Much of the promotion of the film dealt with the costumes and clothing by Ann Harding, the American actress who made her British production premiere with the film. The Daily Express referred to the film as "a most Ritzy thriller. It might be called "The Bride of Frankenstein - Models by Worth" [...] or "Hangman Fashions of 1937!" It was one of the first highly publicized Agatha Christie adaptations but the author was not part of the marketing.

Reception
The film was reviewed by C. A. Lejeune in The Observer of 10 January 1937 when she 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." She 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." On its release, it was the best-received Christie adaptation to date but some critics did not appreciate the transition from comedy. The Daily Express found the change "abrupt" finding the ending an "unrelieved duet in the macabre" and that "at one juncture [...] the loudest scream I have heard in a cinema. That's a tribute." The Times responded positively stating that "suspense is skillfully maintained throughout" while Henry Gibbs, writing for Action magazine stated "Good performances, good story - what more do you want?"

The Scotsman of 22 June 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."

Variety reviewed the film twice, the first declaring it a "Gorgeously photographed and splendidly cut [...] takes front rank with the long list of gruesome films produced in recent years." while a second review felt it contained "a couple of reels of dramatic dynamite. But the rest is inconsequential."

Aldridge commented on the film stating "the most striking aspect of the plot is its surprising lack of mystery." while finding the final half of the film as "necessarily and effectively claustrophobic [...] the film does not feel constrained by its [play] origins."