The Letter ***** (1940, Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson, Victor Sen Yung, Gale Sondergaard) – Classic Movie Review 1340

‘Even my agony was a kind of joy!’, yells the great Bette Davis, who sins, kills, lies, cheats and publicly humiliates her forgiving husband Herbert Marshall in director William Wyler’s powerhouse, overwhelmingly haunting 1940 film noir adaptation of W Somerset Maugham’s famed 1927 play The Letter.

Handsomely gowned by Orry-Kelly, Davis is at her brilliant best as Leslie Crosbie, the Malayan rubber-plantation manager’s wife who shoots her lover (David Newell) in a crime of passion and fabricates a web of lies to protect herself. (‘Yes, I killed him and I’m glad, I tell you. Glad! Glad! Glad!’)

Marshall as the trusting husband Robert Crosbie, James Stephenson as Leslie’s disbelieving defence counsel Howard Joyce, Victor Sen Yung as his assistant Ong Chi Seng and Gale Sondergaard as the dead man’s Eurasian wife Mrs Hammond are not far behind in the acting honours, while Wyler’s direction is strong, potent and purposeful.

The murder is one of the most astonishing opening scenes in the movies. Bette Davis herself said: ‘This long opening shot in The Letter is, in my opinion, the finest opening shot I have ever seen in a film.’ It is certainly a stunning start to the film.

Huge praise too for Max Steiner’s emotional score and Tony Gaudio’s steamy cinematography . Now, 80 or so years on, The Letter still casts its magic spell.

There were seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture or Outstanding Production (Hal B Wallis for Warner Bros.), Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor (James Stephenson), Best Cinematography – Black and White (Tony Gaudio), Best Film Editing (Warren Low), and Best Original Score, but no wins.

It runs 95 minutes.

It premiered 14 November 1940 in San Francisco and St Louis, and opened in New York City on 22 November 1940.

Marshall played the lover in a 1929 version with Oscar-nominated Broadway star Jeanne Eagels. It was remade for TV in a tedious and unnecessary 1982 version with Lee Remick. And there is also a loose uncredited 1947 remake, The Unfaithful, with Ann Sheridan, Lew Ayres and Zachary Scott.

The Little Foxes (1941) reunites Davis, Marshall and director William Wyler after their hit The Letter the previous year. For the second time a Wyler-directed Davis vehicle was nominated for Best Picture, Director and Actress at the Academy Awards. And for the second year in a row, everyone went home empty-handed.

Maugham’s 1927 play The Letter is dramatised from a short story in his 1926 collection The Casuarina Tree. It is inspired by the Ethel Proudlock case, in which the wife of the headmaster of Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur was tried for murder after shooting dead a man friend in April 1911. Gladys Cooper produced and starred in the London premiere of the play in 1927 at the Playhouse Theatre.

http://derekwinnert.com/the-little-foxes-1941-bette-davis-herbert-marshall-teresa-wright-richard-carlson-classic-movie-review-2706/

http://derekwinnert.com/now-voyager-classic-film-review-636/

http://derekwinnert.com/what-ever-happened-to-baby-jane-film-review/

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/