No Room at the Inn and The Fallen Idol

I blogged about the 1948 film No Room at the Inn the other day. Even when I was watching it, I noticed parallels between it and a better-known British film from that year: Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol.

Both involve a death by falling down a staircase that was a murder in the original story. In The Fallen Idol that was Graham Greene's short story The Basement Room and in No Room at the Inn it was the play by Joan Temple.

The above paragraph may contain spoilers.

Both have a performance by a woman actor that brilliantly captures a child's vision of an evil mother figure: Sonia Dresdel in The Fallen Idol and Freda Jackson in No Room at the Inn.

Both feature an early role - in fact these are her first two credited film roles - for the wonderful Dora Bryan.