The Intimate Stranger [Finger of Guilt] *** (1956, Richard Basehart, Mary Murphy, Mervyn Johns, Constance Cummings, Roger Livesey, Faith Brook) – Classic Movie Review 7066

Director Joseph Losey’s steadfast 1956 British noir thriller The Intimate Stranger is based on the novel Pay the Piper by Peter Howard [Howard Koch] and stars Richard Basehart as Reggie Wilson, a US film director working in a British studio, who is married to Lesley (Faith Brook), but is haunted and stalked by a beautiful blackmailing woman, Evelyn Stewart (Mary Murphy), hysterically claiming to be his one-time mistress.

Wilson (Basehart) has no knowledge of it. Lesley (Brook) happens to be the boss Ben Case (Roger Livesey)’s daughter and Wilson’s current star Kay Wallace (Constance Cummings) is an old lover. Mervyn Johns, as Ernest Chaple, completes the six-star line-up.

Turning into a deadly cat-and-mouse game, the film is rather ponderously paced and obviously low budget. But the unusual mystery plot, Losey’s sharp, cinematic eye and the emotional heat still manage to keep it quite riveting, while the Fifties film background helps to boost the interest.

Blacklisted American director Losey was then working in England under an alias or front as Joseph Walton or as Alec Snowden. The director credit here was given to producer Alec C Snowden. The screenplay written under the name Peter Howard is by Howard Koch, who had also been blacklisted.

Also in the cast are Vernon Greeves as George Mearns, André Mikhelson as Steve Vadney, David Lodge as Police Sergeant Brown, Basil Dignam as Dr Gray, Jay Denyer, Katherine Paige, Frederick Steger, Wilfrid Downing, Edna Landor, Jack Stewart, Michael Ward, Grace Denbigh-Russell as Mrs Lynton, Garfield Morgan as Waiter, Marianne Stone as the Secretary Miss Cedrick, Peter Veness as the Policeman, and Frederic Steger as the Barman.

Losey has a cameo as a film director.

The Intimate Stranger (also known in America as Finger of Guilt) is directed by Joseph Losey, runs 95 minutes (the TCM print runs only 84 minutes), is an Anglo-Guild Productions, Merton Park Studios production, is released by Anglo-Amalgamated, is written by Peter Howard [Howard Koch], is shot in black and white by Gerald Gibbs, is produced by Alec C Snowden and is scored by Trevor Duncan. It was filmed at Shepperton Studios, Surrey, England.

It is one of the least well known of all Losey’s films, but then it is arguably also one of the least too, though far from negligible.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7066

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