[There] comes a marked and respectable turning point [in "Stolen Hours"] when the heroine and her new husband—the physician who has tended her, of course—go off to the west of England to spend the last few months of her life. Then the script of Miss West takes over. Some remarkably real characters—Cornish village people—are tactfully moved onto the scene. Their dialogue is charming. Their village is salty and warm…. [The] physician-husband, now settles down to be the strong and believable person he has promised to be all along.

Suddenly, [the heroine] is surrounded with sense and sincerity, with humanity and humility in their everyday aspects and forms….

[The] heroine is able to die simply and decently, and even the most hard-hearted skeptic is able to shed a genuine tear.

Bosley Crowther, "'Stolen Hours'," in The New York Times (© 1963 by The New York Times Company...