Love from a Stranger | |
---|---|
Directed by | Richard Whorf |
Screenplay by | Philip MacDonald |
Based on | the play Love from a Stranger the short-story "Philomel Cottage" by Frank Vosper Agatha Christie |
Produced by | James J. Geller |
Starring | John Hodiak, Sylvia Sidney Ann Richards |
Cinematography | Tony Gaudio |
Edited by | Fred Allen |
Music by | Hans J. Salter |
Color process | Black and white |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Eagle-Lion Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 81 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1.1 million [1] |
Love from a Stranger is a 1947 American historical film noir directed by Richard Whorf and starring John Hodiak, Sylvia Sidney and Ann Richards. [2] The film is also known as A Stranger Walked In in the United Kingdom. It is based on the play of the same title by Frank Vosper, inspired by a short story by Agatha Christie, which had previously been turned into a 1937 British film Love from a Stranger starring Basil Rathbone.
A woman fears her new husband will kill her.
The movie was one of the first from the newly formed Eagle Lion Productions. Arturo de Cordova was announced as the star. [3] Margaret Lockwood was wanted for the female star. [4] Eventually the female lead went to Sylvia Sidney and John Hodiak was borrowed from MGM for the male lead.
Filming was meant to start 15 January 1947 [5] but was delayed until March. Anne Richards had just made Lost Honeymoon for Eagle Lion.
Variety called it "a fair thriller, without novelty or any particular "viewpoint," with little suspense, surprise or excitement, and only moderate boxoffice prospects." [6]
Thomas M. Pryor, the film critic at The New York Times , gave the film a lukewarm review. He wrote, "It may well be that some will find a modicum of excitement in Love From a Stranger. But the average moviegoer is a pretty 'hep' customer and the chances are he will be so far ahead of the story that its climactic scene will explode with all the thunder of a cap pistol." [7]
Critic Craig Butler also had problems with the film, mostly the script. He wrote, "A moderately entertaining mystery flick (the story of which was better served when it was originally filmed in 1937), Love from a Stranger is an adequate but unexciting way to spend an hour and a half or so. Stranger wants to be a clever thriller, and it starts out well. Unfortunately, about halfway through it becomes rather obvious, and so the necessary suspense is simply lacking." [8]
Louis Jourdan was a French film and television actor. He was known for his suave roles in several Hollywood films, including Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947), Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Gigi (1958), The Best of Everything (1959), The V.I.P.s (1963) and Octopussy (1983). He played Dracula in the 1977 BBC television production Count Dracula.
John Hodiak was an American actor who worked in radio, stage and film.
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Eagle-Lion Films was the name of two distinct, though related, companies. In 1944, UK film magnate J. Arthur Rank created an American distribution company with the name to handle his British films. The following year, under a reciprocal distribution arrangement with Rank, the U.S. company Pathé Industries, which already owned the small Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) studio, established an Eagle-Lion Films production subsidiary, while Rank's American business dropped the name. PRC, with its existing distribution exchanges, handled releases in the U.S. When PRC shut down in 1948, its distribution exchanges were assumed by Eagle-Lion Films. In 1950, Pathé merged Eagle-Lion with an independent reissues distributor, Film Classics, to create Eagle-Lion Classics. The latter was acquired by and merged into United Artists a year later. Rank also released films in the United Kingdom through Eagle-Lion Distributors Limited.
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Love from a Stranger is a 1936 play based on "Philomel Cottage", a 1924 short story by British mystery writer Agatha Christie.
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.
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