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.
7 Reviews
What is this ?
dsewizzrd-1090618 August 2019
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.
Margaret Leighton is so good!
cassandra20068 May 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Filling in a lazy Saturday watching this on TV. Of course it's pure melodrama and the style of the story-telling is predictable in the lengthy imagined segment but Richardson and Leighton are really splendid as the mismatched married couple. I am now going to seek out more of her performances. Her costume designer for the film was Norman Hartnell who did her proud. She looks magnificent: charming, elegant and sophisticated by turns, but the clothes never dominate her beautifully nuanced performance. Leighton displays her talents for drama, comedy, strength and fallibility. Sadly, the acting chops of the Italian import are not the equal of the other two IMO, though he looks handsome enough to have turned the heads of M'Lady and the maid! Sure, it's a film where the line delivery of the toffs is very much in the rather overblown style of its time, and where the 'lower orders' all sound like people pretending to speak with regional accents but, if you can get beyond that and enjoy it as a good example of British genre film making, I think it will be a couple of hours well spent.
This novel idea is more sinister than funny
SimonJack20 November 2020
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.
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.
Interesting idea but doesn't quite come off
Marco_Trevisiol28 September 2014
Warning: Spoilers
It's a pity 'The Passionate Stranger' isn't better as - by the standards of English 1950's mainstream cinema - it has some interesting and daring ideas.
Having a fantasy sequence (based on a manuscript written by the lead female character) takes up virtually half the film; quite a bold move when the easy option would be to devote 10-15 minutes to it. The fantasy sequence is filmed in colour while the 'real' sequence is in black & white - it's very rare to find a film from any era split in this format.
And the attempts to say something on the contrast between the florid melodrama in romantic literature and how the subtleties of real married life are potentially much richer have great potential.
Alas, 'The Passionate Stranger' doesn't really work. The sluggish fantasy sequence in particular is a weakness as it could've been told in half the time.
And there are too many sloppy & unconvincing aspects to the narrative. Considering he has limited English skills, how is Carlo (Carlo Giustini) able to read an entire novel manuscript so quickly and ably? Why couldn't Judith (Margaret Leighton) put even a slight effort to not make her 'Mario' character somewhat different from Carlo?
Weakest of all, the entire post-fantasy closing segment is reliant on the Carlo completely changing his personality on the basis of a fiction manuscript. His going from a sincere, well-meaning personality to a lecherous and idiotic fool doesn't convince on any level; it also shows the film to have a rather patronising attitude to its 'foreign' character.
While not a success, 'The Passionate Stranger' isn't without its pleasures, in particular the performances of Leighton and Richardson (underused in this film), who create such an enjoyable dynamic as a couple in the 'real' section you wish there had been more of it.
Having a fantasy sequence (based on a manuscript written by the lead female character) takes up virtually half the film; quite a bold move when the easy option would be to devote 10-15 minutes to it. The fantasy sequence is filmed in colour while the 'real' sequence is in black & white - it's very rare to find a film from any era split in this format.
And the attempts to say something on the contrast between the florid melodrama in romantic literature and how the subtleties of real married life are potentially much richer have great potential.
Alas, 'The Passionate Stranger' doesn't really work. The sluggish fantasy sequence in particular is a weakness as it could've been told in half the time.
And there are too many sloppy & unconvincing aspects to the narrative. Considering he has limited English skills, how is Carlo (Carlo Giustini) able to read an entire novel manuscript so quickly and ably? Why couldn't Judith (Margaret Leighton) put even a slight effort to not make her 'Mario' character somewhat different from Carlo?
Weakest of all, the entire post-fantasy closing segment is reliant on the Carlo completely changing his personality on the basis of a fiction manuscript. His going from a sincere, well-meaning personality to a lecherous and idiotic fool doesn't convince on any level; it also shows the film to have a rather patronising attitude to its 'foreign' character.
While not a success, 'The Passionate Stranger' isn't without its pleasures, in particular the performances of Leighton and Richardson (underused in this film), who create such an enjoyable dynamic as a couple in the 'real' section you wish there had been more of it.
total waste of talent
malcolmgsw15 October 2017
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.
Boxing Clever, Not
writers_reign4 August 2015
Warning: Spoilers
I've given this five out of ten just for the pleasure of seeing Ralph Richardson and Margaret Leighton, clearly they'd be worth five in anything even a piece of cheese like this but in even a half-decent script they'd be off the chart. Even for the fifties this hoke appears badly dated. The principals are married and Richardson is in a wheelchair yet so already we are getting overtones of Lady Chatterley's lover and these are slipped up a notch when we learn that Richardson has advertised for a chauffeur/handyman to drive him to the office, help around the house,etc, secondary tasks which will, inevitably, bring him into close contact with the lady of the house. Leighton happens to be a novelist and in one of the most improbable contrivances she gets the chauffeur to drive her to her publishers with her new novel which she leaves on the back seat whilst she goes into the office. Unwrapped in any way the novel is just lying on the back seat and the chauffeur - an Italian with limited English - has time to read it from cover to cover in what at the most can be no more than a couple of hours. Leighton the novelist has imagined what MIGHT have happened had a woman with an invalid husband succumbed to the charms of a foreign chauffeur and her REAL chauffeur confuses fiction with fact and begins to hit on her. If you can take this without throwing up then you may well enjoy this movie, otherwise ...
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