“The Passionate Stranger” is a 1957 British comedy-drama film, directed by Muriel Box and starring Margaret Leighton and Ralph Richardson. It uses the film within a film device, with the "real" part of the plot shot in black-and-white and the "fictional" element in colour.
Carlo, an Italian man, is taken on as a chauffeur at an English country mansion, the home of Roger and Judith Wynter. She is a novelist who pens torrid escapist romantic fiction for the popular women's market, although in real life she is a respectable, unassuming woman, happily married to husband Roger who has been stricken with polio that leaves him immobile. She uses people she knows and situations she encounters as the raw material for her fictional flights of fancy.
Judith is working on her latest novel titled The Passionate Stranger, a lurid tale of a bored and unsatisfied woman, with a pompous, disabled husband she despises, who embarks on a wild affair with her Italian chauffeur.
When her real Italian chauffeur reads the manuscript of the novel by chance, he takes it as real and believes his lady boss is in love with him.
This movie was a total delight. It had a clever script and fine playing by the cast. They play it for real, not as a farcical comedy, which adds to its effectiveness. Second leads Carlo Giustini as the chauffeur and Patricia Dainton as the housemaid hold their own against the more famous Ralph Richardson and Margaret Leighton.
I discovered this playing on the GEM TV channel. They play a lot of old English movies and there are some classics amongst them. GEM seems to recycle them so if this sounds like a movie you’d like to see, keep a watch on GEM’s schedule as I’m sure it will turn up again. I really recommend it.
