Always on the look-out for appealingly slinky, stylishly shot, swingingly sixties cinematic eccentricity, Pierre Rouve's long-neglected, delightfully downbeat kitchen sink murder mystery 'Stranger in The House' is, perhaps, one of the more obscure thrillers ripe for rediscovery. The exciting, twist-laden tale take place in a rather dismal-looking Southampton, and the rather more grand, historical city of Winchester. This fascinating, tautly-written whodunnit, adapted from mystery master Georges Simenon abounds with some delightfully vivid performances, with the inimitable James Mason being especially beguiling as the boozy, self-isolating Dickensian curmudgeon John Sawyer, estranged from his daughter Angela (Geraldine Chaplin), wholly isolated, his wife long gone, the aged misanthropic barrister's austere, depressively gloomy, drab descent into inevitable redundancy almost complete, when, quite unexpectedly, a murder is committed in his sprawling, greatly dilapidated town house, thereby acting as a violent catalyst, forced out of his fuzzy, ethanol-hazed inertia, the once successful barrister takes on the murky case, somewhat reluctantly defending his daughter's lover, the bizarre events leading to the fatality, no less maddeningly obscure to him than his daughter's altogether alien personal life.
Pierre Rouve's engrossing 'Stranger in the House' is that rare cinematic artefact, a bona fide film classic, rescued from unwarranted obscurity, beautifully restored to pristine quality to enthral an audience of film fans hitherto unaware that such a finely wrought thriller ever existed. Another intriguing aspect to Rouve's exemplary thriller is Bobby Darin's deliciously unhinged performance as the magnificently malevolent, diabolically duplicitous deadbeat Barney Teale!
Pierre Rouve's engrossing 'Stranger in the House' is that rare cinematic artefact, a bona fide film classic, rescued from unwarranted obscurity, beautifully restored to pristine quality to enthral an audience of film fans hitherto unaware that such a finely wrought thriller ever existed. Another intriguing aspect to Rouve's exemplary thriller is Bobby Darin's deliciously unhinged performance as the magnificently malevolent, diabolically duplicitous deadbeat Barney Teale!