The Intimate Stranger offers an ironic, sordid echo of the situation faced by Losey and its blacklisted screenwriter Howard Koch, best known for his co-authorship of Casablanca. Koch's story substitutes sexual peccadillo for politics as an American film editor, drummed out of Hollywood by an unnamed sex scandal, finds success in England by marrying a powerful producer's daughter. The invitation of an American star – also the writer's ex-girlfriend – brings disaster in the form of a string of anonymous letters from a woman claiming to be another of the writer's former lovers.