Strangers in the Night (1944)

Strangers in the Night: Directed by Anthony Mann. With William Terry, Virginia Grey, Helene Thimig, Edith Barrett. A lonely, mentally unbalanced woman invents a fictitious daughter and has the “daughter” write to a Marine stationed in the South Pacific. When the soldier returns back to the States, he goes to look up his pen pal, and is told by the “mother” that the daughter has moved away. An acquaintance of the women tells the soldier the truth, and in a rage the “mother” kills her. In order to cover up that crime, she realizes she must kill the soldier, too.

“A seriously wounded Marine is given the will to live again through letters from a girl heu0026#39;s never met. He arranges to go and visit her when heu0026#39;s home on leave. Aboard a train to where Rosemary lives he mistakenly thinks for a moment that their paths have physically crossed before he arrives. A woman sitting opposite is carrying a copy of u0026#39;A Shropshire Ladu0026#39; book of poems by Alfred Edward Houseman. That is the very book that had brought about the correspondence between the marine and Rosemary.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe woman on the train is Dr Ross who has just become the doctor for Rosemaryu0026#39;s household. As Johnny the Marine is about to explain his mistake to Dr Ross the train crashes and many of the passengers are in need of her medical treatment. This brings these two strangers close and romance would have seemed to have blossomed if it wasnu0026#39;t Johnnyu0026#39;s love for Rosemary who had saved his life through those letters. But Rosemary is not at home when Johnny finally gets to his destination.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eRosemaryu0026#39;s house is on a remote clifftop. There lives Rosemaryu0026#39;s mother and her nervous companion Ivy Miller. Rosemary becomes a mystery and her disabled mother is shown to be the kind who may live in a fantasy world for some reason. Tension builds as u0026#39;Rosemaryu0026#39;s motheru0026#39; becomes capable of endangering others in her bid to keep the romance between her daughter and Johnny alive. Not one moment is lost in this deft telling of a poor deranged woman who needs to imagine an alternative reality for herself.”