The landlady Astrid Jönsson of a forest farm, hires a job seeker posing as Aaltonen as a farm manager when her mentally ill husband Alfred is unable to work.
Directed by Wilho Ilmar, the melodrama A Stranger Came to the House (1938) is based on the novels of author Mika Waltari. Astrid Jönsson, the landlady of a forest farm, hires a job seeker posing as Aaltonen as a farm manager when her mentally ill husband Alfred is unable to work. Old Hermanni, an old man, does his best to help Astrid and Aaltonen, who are persecuted by the jealous Alfred.
Trial: the judge asks the accused woman, Astrid Jönsson, the hostess of Metsäkulma, to tell "the whole story". "I have nothing to say," she replies, "no one would understand anyway." The witnesses are called in, and when Alma from Jokitörmä begins her testimony, the story continues in flashback.
A strange man has come to the Metsäkulma house 'on a spring day, at dusk'. The landlady has asked for a foreman or farmhand, as the sickly landlord, engineer Alfred Jönsson, and the old, pension-aged landlord Hermanni are unable to keep the house going. A stranger, who introduces himself as Aaltonen, is given the job, despite the objections of the furious landlord.
In the morning, the hostess introduces the house and the work to Aaltonen, who is also invited to the master's chamber: Jönsson talks about the garden he has designed and asks Aaltonen to buy some wine. "The man in the chamber means nothing in this house, nothing", the hostess replies to a wondering Aaltonen, and dismisses Aaltonen's shopping list: "Only the seeds can be bought."
The hostess, Hermanni, and Aaltonen set off to work in the fields. As usual, the master is locked in his chamber, but with a secretly acquired chisel, he breaks the door and breaks into the mistress's cupboard, taking the money she has set aside for seeds.
The story returns to the trial and continues with the story of the master of the Ylitalo. Jönsson has been in town, bought some booze, and started drinking and playing cards with the loggers and the Ylitalo landlord. Word is brought to the corner of the woods: Aaltonen and Hermanni force the man home. The next evening, Jönsson begs the mistress to let him into her chamber and gets his way, but afterward, the mistress retires alone and bursts into tears.
The next witness testimony is a time of sowing and sowing. The relationship between Aaltonen and the hostess grows closer and closer, and they begin to confide in each other. Aaltonen reveals that he has worked in a factory for eight years but longed for the land; he has a wife and child whom he does not consider his own; she has gone off with another man and taken the child with her. She says she has lived with Jönsson in the city and that he has destroyed her paternal inheritance.
Hermanni goes to the doctor, receives medicine for his bad breath, but feels death approaching. The hostess and Aaltonen spend a summer Sunday together when Hermanni has decided to go to communion. There is thunder in the air: Jönsson attacks the hostess in the house, but Aaltonen comes to her aid, throws the host into his chamber, and threatens to kill him. She asks to be let into Aaltonen's barn and throws herself on his neck.
The trial continues behind closed doors with Hilma Savinainen giving evidence. The hostess and Aaltonen go to the haymaking in the backyard and spend the night in the lakeside sauna. During the harvest, Jönsson is increasingly jealous when he notices that the hostess's bed is untouched. She tells Hermanni that she has had a vision of a large grey man with a bloody bandage on his head who has shown her where to dig. In the place he was told in the vision, Jönsson finds an old Russian military rifle wrapped in oilcloth and ammunition, which he hides under the house.
The witness in court is a soldier to whom Jönsson, in his drunken stupor, has spoken of the death threats made by the ring. Then comes the master of Jaakkola, who testifies to the decisive events according to what Hermanni told him with his last strength before his death: after Aaltonen has gone into the woods, Jönsson attacks his mistress, who grabs the log and knocks him unconscious. After recovering from the blow, Jönsson goes after Aaltonen, shoots him from ambush, but only hits him on the second attempt. Alarmed by the gunshots, the hostess rushes to the scene and finds Aaltonen wounded. As Jönsson prepares to fire another shot, the hostess takes an ax, stabs her husband to death, and asks Hermanni, who has arrived, to call the registrar and the doctor.
"Don't judge, the hostess did what she did to defend the other", Jaakkola says, sending Hermanni's greetings to the court. The prosecution requests that Jaakkola's statement be taken out of the record, as the deceased's words cannot be proved. Meanwhile, Aaltonen, who has escaped from the hospital, enters the courtroom and pleads: "Arrest me, but he is innocent. To save my life, he took an ax."
The judge and jury retire to consider the solution. The judge considers Aaltonen's story to corroborate Jaakkola's testimony and considers the other statements to be "hearsay and village gossip". The verdict is that "it is not a case of intentional killing or murder, but of exaggeration of the exigent circumstances with very mitigating circumstances". The sentence is suspended, subject to review by the Court of Appeal, and the accused is released. The hostess and Aaltonen return together to the Metsäkulma house, leaning on each other as the courtyard opens up.
