Love From A Stranger (1937)

Love from a Stranger is an early (1937), film adaptation of one of Agatha Christie’s short stories, Philomel Cottage. The short story told of a woman who wins quite a large amount of money on a French lottery. Intending to travel, she puts her flat up for rent, and is promptly swept off her feet by the handsome stranger who is interested in renting her flat. They marry and move to a idyllic cottage in the middle of nowhere, seemingly to live ‘happily ever after’ in a life of bliss. But her new husband is not all he seems, and has a few shocking secrets of his own.

The film adaptation takes it cues from the Frank Vosper play that was based on the original short story. It is pretty faithful to the story, and is full of tension that even the creakiness of the production cannot hide. It also has a pretty great cast including the wonderful Ann Harding as Carol (changed from Cecilly in the play/story), a real elegant actress who had a steely edge, and a brilliant, pre Sherlock Holmes Basil Rathbone as the romantic, albeit psychopathic leading man. 

Love from a Stranger is a slight thriller, but it does very well in the atmospheric states, with clues to Gerald’s (Rathbone’s) character, from his gift of a silk scarf to Carol, to the book on serial killers with a page ripped out, and the secrets of Gerald’s darkroom in the cellar of the house. The tension, and creepiness is built up slowly and carefully, and leads to a lovely shocking ending, leaving at least a question or two on what has really taken place.

Frank Vosper, the man who wrote the play version of Love From A Stranger had an interesting life, and a strange death that could’ve come from the pages of Agatha Christie herself. He was a writer and actor who had starred in the original version of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much‘ and often appeared in character roles. In 1937, Frank and his partner Peter were returning to England from New York on the SS Paris.

The West Hampstead Life, who wrote about the case in 2017 reported:-

In the early hours of that Saturday morning, just before the ship was due in to Plymouth, Frank was reported missing. Just over two weeks later, his body was found more than 200 miles away near East Dean in Sussex.

The question was, did he slip and this was a tragic accident, or did he jump? You can read more about this mysterious death here https://westhampsteadlife.com/2017/09/20/the-beauty-queen-and-a-mysterious-maritime-death/20514

But I digress! You can check out Love With A Stranger on youtube at the moment, and it is definitely worth a look for Agatha fans and completists.

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