1937 Love From A Stranger !!BETTER!!
Love from a Stranger is a 1937 British film directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Ann Harding, Basil Rathbone and Binnie Hale. It is based on the 1936 play of the same name by Frank Vosper. In turn, the play was based on the 1924 short story Philomel Cottage, written by Agatha Christie. The film was remade in 1947 under the same title.
1937 Love From a Stranger
Carol, on her way to the office where she works, cannot stop herself from gazing wistfully at a pretty hat in a shop window. How she would love to have that, love to travel, love to do the many things she absolutely cannot afford.
Carol is furious. Furious and indignant. More so, because just this morning, she and Gerald have been married. She tells Ronnie that, just as Gerald emerges from another room. The two of them are so in love, and Carol is so obviously refusing to hear anything against her husband, that Ronnie leaves.
Poor, working class Ann Harding wins the lottery and suddenly becomes the target of definitely-not-a-murderer Basil Rathbone's unbridled affection, so she goes on vacation with him. And who can blame her, really? Basil Rathbone treats me like a queen after a life of poverty, and a little sinister intent isn't stopping me from falling in love with him.
An Agatha Christie adaptation from 1937 starring Basil Rathbone proves to be Succesful in suspense and thrills. The more older films I watch, mainly thanks to Letterboxd, the more I gain an appreciation for each era. I believe this is one of the earliest Christie adaptations and Rathbone brings it fully to life.
"A Night of Terror," or "Love from a Stranger" from 1937 is based on an Agatha Christie story. A woman, Carol Howard (Ann Harding) wins a huge amount of money in a lottery. She decides to sublet her apartment and go to Europe, first to claim the money in Paris, and then to sightsee. Her fiance doesn't understand, and is unhappy that after working hard for a good job, they're not going to need his salary. They consequently break up.
Click on the image to see a larger versionPhoto by David StrangeThat little brass marker is set at the high water mark of the 1937 flood; by far the worst known flood ever to inundate the multi-state Ohio Valley region.January 28, 2012 marked the 75th anniversary of that terrible time in our local history. On that cold January day, the Ohio River passed over its 28 foot flood stage and kept going.In Bullitt County, as in many areas, the result was devastating. According to the state Health Department report at the time, in Bullitt County alone several thousand dairy cattle and sheep drowned. Financial loss, even in such a rural county, amounted to millions of dollars in today's money. Flooding in Shepherdsville reached fifteen feet. Two fifths of Lebanon Junction was under water. In Bardstown Junction, the water was twelve feet deep. Flood waters swept furiously across the road south of Mt. Washington at Smithville.Entire houses were washed downstream, crashing into bridges along the way.In western Bullitt County, I am told the old Nichols School house was flooded half way up the windows.Set your sight on that little brass marker in the county courthouse, look out past the door, and imagine a level mark across the town at that height, and you can begin to get an idea of the shock of that flood.Yet, just the summer before, in 1936, was one of the hottest and most drought-plagued in North American history. In one bit of dark-humor, it has been said that perhaps the flood of '37 was caused by too-earnest prayers to end the drought of '36.And end it did. The rain started on January 9 and kept coming harder and harder. By the end of January, the Ohio River was overflowing fast and backing up the Salt River and Rolling Fork River. People kept expecting it to stop but it kept coming, faster and faster.Suddenly farmers couldn't get livestock to high ground in time. In fact, many people barely made it to safety themselves. Some twenty-five percent of Bullitt Countians were directly affected by the flood; many moving in with friends and family and with good-Samaritan strangers. Four people drowned.On January 21, in one story told by Minnie Maraman, she tells of going out to milk cows for what turned out to be the last time. Over the night, flood waters rose and her cows, horse, and a hog all drowned in the barn.Many people were caught in their homes, surrounded by the rising waters. Bob Moser tells of his father going over to their barn, stripping off some of the boards, and constructing a rough boat from the material. After letting the new boat soak in the water overnight so the wood would swell and seal any leaks, the little boat worked pretty good and the family soon set to work going house-to-house rescuing neighbors. The long hours were hard work and the cold, rainy weather was miserable. People could get a little testy, but in hindsight some humorous memories were created.On one rescue trip with the little boat, Bill (Bob Moser's brother) rescued two rather large young ladies. After they entered the boat, they would not sit still. Every time they moved, the boat took on water and Bill had to stop and bail. After the third time, Bill took one of the oars, turned around, and said, "The next time one of you moves and makes the boat dip water, I will take this oar and knock you out of my boat! Do you understand me?!"Bill said later that he didn't think the girls breathed after that.Hundreds of people took refuge wherever they could. The two-story Masonic Hall, then located on the southeast corner of Buckman Street and Highway 44 in Shepherdsville, was itself surrounded by water. Yet one writer from the time said that some two hundred people stayed there. Homes that were on higher ground, sometimes isolated themselves, often housed twenty and thirty people.This created a food problem and people foraged wherever they could in order to survive.Bob Moser tells about when the people at the Cruise family home on Chapeze Lane had used up all the food stored at the house, some of the men went down to a local distillery and got the corn meal mash that was there, using it to make "fried mush for lunch and boiled mush for dinner." One day, unnoticed by anyone, the family geese ate some of the slop that was left over from the whiskey-making process. Eventually, someone looked out and saw the geese, all dead, lying around the yard. Probably thinking it was some malady from the flood, the family put the geese in a pile until the men could return. But sometime later in the day, they heard the geese honking and saw them wobbling around the yard. The geese had just passed out from all the liquor in the slop!And so, there was humor to be had, even in the darkest of times.By the first Saturday in February 1937, the waters were beginning to recede much as in the days of Noah, and families made their way back to what was left of their homes and farms, and began the long recovery in a world still reeling from the Great Depression. Time moved on. Sadly, boatman/rescuer Bill Moser died just a few years later in World War Two (in Belgium), as did so many others.Oh what a terrible time, yet what a time to remember.To only slightly change a phrase from the Charles Dickens book A Tale of Two Cities, "It was the worst of times. It was the best of times."
John T. (Tom) Newkirk, Sr. passed away peacefully on Friday, July 22, 2022, at Bailey Manor Assisted Living in Cookeville, Tennessee following an extended illness. Tom was born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 27, 1937. He graduated from Saint Xavier High School and the University of Louisville. Following graduation, he was a teacher, FBI Agent, realtor, Manager of the Nashville Office of BRI International, and worked as an investigator in corporate security for various companies.
Katie Mae Tyler Blevins was born on May 20, 1937 to the late John Brookes and Elaine Tyler in the small town of Orrville, Alabama. She was educated in Selma, Alabama and graduated from R.B. Hudson High School.
"MakeWay for Tomorrow" (1937) is a nearly-forgotten American film made in theDepression. It tells the story my mother imagined for herself. A couple haslived happily together for 50 years. They lose their home to a bank. Their fivegrown children are sincerely sorry to hear this, but what can they do withthem? One has moved to California and is rarely heard from. The others livecloser, but don't have the space to take in two people. It is decided thatmother and father will stay with two different children, "for now."Their last night in their home is the last time they will sleep together in thesame bed.
When the legislature took up the issue of racial intermarriage in 1937, the Northwest Enterprise again helped rally the black community to fight the new bill. Two articles from 2-26-1937:
However, it must be said that while these groups developed a strong foundation for future action, they were neither strangers to organizing their communities, nor to one another beforehand. This coalition pulled together so well largely because of the preexisting ties that these interest groups and leaders had with their communities and with one another. Blacks, Filipinos, and the leftist labor movement were not strangers to one another. Filipinos drew together its community through the labor union. Blacks relied upon the social roles of churches. Both Blacks and Filipino organizations rallied their members. White labor utilized its broad networks to mobilize progressive workers state- and nationwide. Because their interconnectedness predated the actions detailed in this paper, it follows that they would be better prepared and experienced in working together for any subsequent issue that might arise following the 1935 and 1937 efforts. The fact that these groups could more easily collaborate following the efforts against anti-miscegenation is really a continuance of the same trends that brought this coalition together. 041b061a72