L'étrangère intime

This film is one which I saw on TV many many years ago on Yorkshire and eventually obtained an American copy a few years back. Directed by Joseph Losey this film has great atmosphere and some great stars too. Unusual for the time there are good location shots and realistic studio backgrounds too. My copy "Finger of Guilt" is the edited version which was distributed by RKO but in spite of this I love the twists and turns of the plot and if you get the chance watch it vote on it too. This film is a high-spot in the history of Merton Park and shows what can be done on a modest budget with actors who know their stuff. Richard Basehart is brilliant as he struggles to solve the question "was it true" and Roger Livesey is believable as the studio boss. Look out to for a host of Merton Park regulars such as Andre Mikhelson who plays a designer in this film.

Reggie Wilson (Richard Basehart) is worn out and recounts his story to his doctor. His Hollywood career ended after an affair with his boss's wife. He decided to pick up the pieces and move back to England. He married Lesley, daughter of a film producer and he's back in the game. It is all under threat when he starts receiving blackmail letters from a woman whom Reggie claims not to know.

I really like the premise. I don't like the progression of the last act. I don't get the pub meeting. I don't get their conversation. I don't get him for that section. There are obvious possible answers to the mystery woman. I kept waiting for him to get there. I don't like him discovering her with him on that set and redoing the dialogue. I'm not impressed with the reveal. I would redo the whole third act.

This is a stylish and engrossing noir. The music seems a bit dated but the use of background sound is inventive and seems to presage Godard's. Is this Joseph Losey's best? No. "Time Without Pity," a year later, is far more powerful and less predictable. Not at all predictable, actually, and this one is. The resolution is not a surprise, exactly, but it is powerfully presented and moving.

Mary Murphy played a good bitch. I haven't seen her in many movies but it seems that she often was cast in this was. Losey uses the clattering of her high heels effectively. Actually, she is not a thoroughly bad character. She feels remorse.

Constance Cummins is excellent as the star imported for the main character's big project. Her helping him out of his predicament is touching. And Richard Basehart: One of the best American actors, he is superb here. He did not win the conventional awards but will long be remembered, if only for his beautiful playing in "La Strada" (and for his mousy pharmacist in what I consider the perfect noir: "Tension.")

Richard Basehart has moved on from his womanizing days in the US to steadier waters in the UK with wife Faith Brooke and now works as a successful producer for his wife's father Roger Livesey. During the production of his latest project, which stars one of his former flames Constance Cummings, he receives several letters from a person he doesn't know, claiming they had an affair. Initially thinking it's an attempt at blackmail, he shrugs it off. But when his wife also receives a letter, they decide enough is enough, and they visit the woman, Mary Murphy. When she persists in her story, even in front of the police, Basehart starts to have doubts. Could he really have forgotten?! Soon things start to fall apart for him, as Murphy's story, fabricated or not, starts to threaten his marriage as well as his career.

Released in the UK as 'The Intimate Stranger' and 'Finger Of Guilt' in the US, this movie starts off as a marital drama (told in flashback by Basehart), and slowly moves into thriller territories before culminating in a pretty exciting final 20 minutes inside a studio set. Written and directed by 2 men blacklisted by Hollywood, Joseph Losey ('The Prowler') and Howard Koch ('Casablanca'), the story can be easily seen as a metaphor for what they endured. But the movie never becomes self-righteous or preachy. Most of the movie is filmed in a matter-of-fact type of way, focusing squarely on Basehart ('He Walked By Night'), leaving the viewer guessing about Murphy ('The Desperate Hours') and the truth. Basehart is solid as a man who's confronted with a past he's forgotten about, or has he? Murphy however is great, she manages to come off as both lying and telling the truth at the same time, shrugging of his questions with ease, which in turn confuses him even more. The rest of the cast are also good, thankfully, as the movie is dialogue-heavy and has a pretty slow pace, especially in the first half.

Visually the movie combines 2 opposites. The opening scene as well as the climax are shot imaginatively, appealing to noir heads. The rest of the movie however is shot in a mostly shadow-less, almost TV-like, manner. Having said that, DoP Gerald Gibbs ('No Orchids For Miss Blandish') does a nice job. The climax inside a studio set is beautifully shot, with some creative shots and angles, including a fist fight that moves in and out of a light illuminating a projection screen used for dailies, projecting a shadow fistfight. It stands in stark contrast with the rest of the movie but it also makes the climax more effective. All in all, it's a good drama/thriller that skirts into noir territories. 7/10

Finger of Guilt, aka The Intimate Stranger, might have been made by the great duo of Losey and Koch, but it was a huge disappointment and the longest 85 minutes I can remember. Every scene is overplayed, every scene is too long, and the film has a stilted, unnatural aura. The first 60 minutes are especially weak. Mary Murphy is alluring and convincing as a seductive temptress, but the other performances feel wooden. Many reviewers are sympathetic to the backstory of Losey's and Koch's estrangement from Hollywood and betrayal by the top studio bosses during the anti-Communist witch hunts. They celebrate this story of studio betrayal as payback. It is plausible to me that viewers who know that story before seeing the film are much more inclined to like the film and find meaning in the long and boring early scenes. But Losey and Koch made a fatal error. They did not start the story with any hints of rivalry or jealously or suspicion; these were all revealed at the end. But that means that viewers with no perspective on the "big meaning" of the film have no way to see that or feel it until the "big reveal" at the end.