MovieChat Forums > The Letter (1940) Discussion > Great Gem of a Movie I'd Never Heard Of!

Great Gem of a Movie I'd Never Heard Of!

posted 17 years ago by SusanJL
8 replies | jump to latest

Not a Bette Davis fan, I almost quit watching this on TCM recently after she convinces everyone with her story (at first) she's innocent. I found her story too unemotional & too glib & rehearsed and thought the other men were gullible idiots. I'm glad I kept watching because I think this movie is very powerful on many levels. The dramatic scene in the opium den was one of the most gripping I've ever seen in a movie - unexpected for 1940! By the end, I felt empathy for everyone swept up in this mess*SPOILERS AHEAD*
The lawyer, deeply torn, deciding to try to save his dear, innocent friend Robert Crosbie unimaginable pain by shielding Leslie.
Leslie, for loving a man so much she is a victim of her own insane jealousy. I was riveted when she decides to honestly reveal to her husband the entire truth of her actions and undying love for her murdered lover and knowingly goes out to meet her deserved fate (and perhaps expecting to reunite with her lover in death?)I found myself admiring her brutal honesty & bravery in spite of her awful deeds.
The poor husband who sweetly loves and forgives his wife in spite of all, facing the end of his own dreams & financial disaster.
The Eurasian widow who suffers the death of her beloved husband and gets a justifiable revenge.
Quite an engrossing movie!

[–] wallace702 17 years ago

Yes I agree 100%. This movie is one you have to just keep watching and then and only then do you get the full impact. It's a great movie.

[–] Harold_Robbins 17 years ago

I can watch and enjoy this one annually with no trouble at all.

"I don't use a pen: I write with a goose quill dipped in venom!"---W. Lydecker

[–] jrhpax 17 years ago

Pauline Kael wrote that Davis "gives what is very likely the best study of female sexual hypocrisy in film history." I appreciate Kael's insight.

I can't imagine people seeing Bette Davis in "The Letter," "Jezebel," "All About Eve," "Marked Woman" and "In This Our Life" -- just for starters -- and not realizing that she is as good an actress as American cinema ever produced.

It's a shame that many people remember her for her hammier performances later in her career, when she relied too much on her mannerisms. Because I love the actress and the woman, I watch those movies and enjoy them anyway.

In many of her movies in the 1930s and for the first half of the 1940s, and again with "All About Eve," Bette Davis was as good as acting got.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] vermontfudge 16 years ago

Yeah, and she was so gutsy, never afraid of unsympathetic or unflattering roles, like this one.

[–] lastmidnite2 15 years ago

How can anyone NOT be a Bette Davis fan? lol

[–] oldblackandwhite 14 years ago

-- How can anyone NOT be a Bette Davis fan?--

Love her! And this is proabably her best after The Little Foxes. And how can anyone not be a fan of classy Herbert Marshall? When they are in one together, I have to see it. But James Stephenson walked off with this movie!

He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45

[–] 14 years ago

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