An extraordinarily entertaining thriller. The acting is melodramatic, and rightly so. A clever plot by Agatha Christie (how could it be otherwise?) keeps things moving along at a rapid clip. Two wonderful players -- Basil Rathbone and Ann Harding -- give bravura over-the-top performances that are breathtaking in their high-wire daring. Ann Harding especially was a revelation -- a gorgeous blonde with poise and class who had beautiful diction -- an American mid-Atlantic "Seven Sisters" voice that was as melodious as a cello. Basil Rathbone never ceases to amaze. Here, he is frightening and charming simultaneously. And two cheers for the Art Deco furnishings that grace one scene. Were those Lalique glass-paneled doors?

Ann Harding (as a mysteriously-American-accented London typist) is top-billed in the opening credits -- but when explaining the nature of my cinema visit later, it was as "a film with Basil Rathbone and Binnie Hale" that I instinctively described it. Rathbone has been praised (and rightly so) in other reviews: for an actor best known as the swift-quipping villainous fencing master of the swashbuckler genre, or the alert and cerebral Sherlock Holmes, he puts on an astonishing act here as a charismatic seducer, while his theatrical training is clearly to the fore when he carries off his set-piece speeches about moonlight over the Taj Mahal... and manages to make them sound compelling instead of merely false. (Miss Harding doesn't manage quite so well when it comes to her turn with the same lines; but then her character is supposed to be merely parroting his.) Binnie Hale, meanwhile -- darling of the West End musical comedy stage throughout the 1920s -- here plays the heroine's unmarried flatmate (frankly, I was hoping by the end that the rejected suitor would find solace in the arms of plain good-hearted Kate) as more or less a 'straight' role, but manages to liven every scene she is in with her tremendous energy and sense of timing. It is not on the face of it much of a part, but Miss Hale makes a good deal out of it and brings the character sympathetically to life.Bruce Seton puts in a rather wooden performance as the admittedly somewhat one-dimensional Ronnie (one of Agatha Christie's standard hearty-but-dim stalwart Englishmen), which does the film no favours; and I felt that an otherwise excellent script, which makes matters apparent without ever explicitly stating them, would have benefited from a little more ambiguity. Rathbone's performance is so good that it seems a pity to make him an obvious villain from so early on, while it makes the heroine seem a fool for failing to see it -- a missed opportunity perhaps for leaving the audience wondering about Gerald's sincerity until a much later point.Miss Harding is not quite up to the standard of her supporting players when it comes to dealing with this sort of material (compare her cutaway 'reaction shots' to those of Rathbone and Miss Hale -- but then to Seton!) and her character comes across at times as somewhat one-note in moments of stress; when Gerald rages at her for entering the cellar, for example, the actress goes immediately into 'maximum shock' mode and stays there. But on the whole she holds her own in a demanding part which requires her to appear in almost every scene, and creates real chemistry with just about every character the heroine interacts with, from the half-wit rustic Emmy to the hypochondriac Aunt Lou, and of course the two men with whom she is seen to be in love. (And keep a look out for those classic 1930s costumes -- especially the demure but at times extremely revealing evening dress of the final scene!)

LOVE FROM A STRANGER sounds like a TV courtroom melodrama, yet it evokes the charm and spontaneity of the British between—the—wars cinema sometimes nostalgically evoked by Hitchcock—a sort of freedom and originality and unpretentiousness. Mrs. Harding—what a delicious woman and actress, what a funny blonde! …And the Hoffmanesque cellar scenes, brightly scored! The score is by Britten; the precarious technique affects the sound's quality, the dialogs are rather badly taken, sometimes hard to understand.Such movies are amusing almanacs of funny bits and small inventiveness.Rathbone was the villainous, threatening version of Flynn. A better actor, one might say.The hypocrisy of men was illustrated in cinema by Grant, Cotten, Mitchum, with roles in movies about women being manipulated and used,of trust betrayed, and Cave sang about the victims of others' malice.Mrs. Harding produces instantly a very good impression, as a most fine person.

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.