The Passionate Stranger

Sydney and Muriel Box wrote and Peter Rogers (of Carry On fame) produced this experimental film, which doesn't quite work, the bit in the middle is too long. An authoress employs a driver for her husband paralysed by polio. Then the film switches to colour when it replays the novel she writes about the driver when he reads it. This bit is very wooden and corny, and goes on for so long you think that's all there is to the film.

This is one film in which one can see the better title given it on release outside of the UK. There it was called "The Passionate Stranger." It's a real stretch to see that in the main character, Carlo and Mario, played by Carlo Giustini. It's much easier to see something sinister in both of his characters, but not at first. That's in his real person of Carlo, and then in his fictitious character of Mario, whom he assumes from reading the script of Judith Wynter's novel.

Where the author titles her novel, "The Passionate Stranger," movie audiences see him as not passionate, but lecherous and with evil in his heart. Carlo imagines the affair of the novel to be a real portrayal of how Mrs. Wynter feels. But moviegoers know that not to be true, yet he changes his persona and pursues the married wife of his employer. Clearly, the affair was just in the novel and not real - ergo, the much better title for the film.

That this movie was billed as a comedy is really something. I would bet that nine out of 10 people who watch it would see it developing as a real crime story. Indeed, with the sudden change in Carlo's character, I couldn't help but think of and liken this film to "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." In the Robert Louis Stevenson story, Dr. Jekyll takes a potion that turns him from a gentle soul into a murdering madman. In this movie, Carlo speed reads a novel that turns him from an affable, polite and decent chap, into a lecherous predator.

The idea for this story and film is clever, but not entirely new. And, the film seems awfully slow. The sinisterness of the novel plot, which takes up about two-thirds of the film, casts a pall on what little humor there is. Not until the end of the film, is there any humor - and that mostly between Ralph Richardson's Roger Wynter and his wife, Judith. That doesn't qualify "A Novel Affair" as a comedy by any stretch of the imagination. No, this was an experimental plot, it seems, that just didn't work.

It was most difficult for me to stay with it to get past the enactment of the novel within the story. I'm glad I finally did, or I would have rated this 1 or 2. Most movie fans today, I would guess, would also find this movie hard to sit through. Although it's fine for those who like to nap during movie times.

All of the cast do well, but Richardson and Leighton have very little screen time and so few lines. The best performance is clearly by Patricia Dainton as Emily and Betty.

This film is really hard going,particularly the fantasy sequence.The only noticeable feature being the number of dress changes by Margaret Leighton.I watched the trailer after the film on the DVD only to be very surprised to see that the film was sold as a powerful drama,relying only on the colour sequences,without mentioning that they were a fantasy.In fact it has to be said that the black and white bookends are far better than the interminable colour sequence.

Though there are one or two flaws in the construction of this comedy-drama, I found them quite easy to overlook, disarmed by the charming performance from Margaret Leighton. She works so well with Ralph Richardson, though they had acted together before on stage and screen. A reliable supporting cast too, including Carlo Giustini whom I hadn't imagined had his voice dubbed. I wonder if the use of both black and white and colour photography was inspired by A Matter Of Life And Death, only in that case Colour signified the vividness of real life whereas here it is used to express the heightened reality of melodrama.