"The Letter", William Wyler's 1940 film about murder, deception and the consequences of both, was a lot darker than I actually expected it to be. Bette Davis is Leslie, who is first introduced to the film when she is shooting a man multiple times on the front steps of her house in Malaysia. She tells her husband Robert (Marshall) and attorney Howard (Stephenson) that though the man she shot was in fact a long-time family friend, he was making advances on her and she feared for her life. Unfortunately, the truth is that she was having an affair with this man, Hammond, he spurned her and she shot him. This is discovered when Howard is contacted by an associate with the news that there is a letter in existence which was written the day of the murder by Leslie inviting Hammond to come to the house that night, and Hammond's widow has it. Since her original story would be a slam-dunk acquittal in court, Howard and Leslie, while keeping this a secret from Robert, buy the letter back for a large sum to secure her freedom. Unfortunately, this doesn't ensure that she will no longer be blackmailed, that Robert will never find out, or that Leslie's life won't be in danger for what she did.
I found "The Letter" to be a decent film, but it was really odd. I guess I had never seen a Wyler film that was so dark, even when he teamed up with Marshall and Davis in "The Little Foxes". "The Letter" was downright scary at times, though I think that was due largely to the really frightening Mrs. Hammond, played by Gale Sondergaard. She was described as a wicked woman with a frightening white mask of a face, and that's pretty much what she was. The hard looks that she would give, without saying a word, were actually really unsettling. The denouement was so wild and over-the-top that it left me actually kind of humored. The film was good, and I always enjoy Herbert Marshall; (everything I've seen him in make him seem like such a soft-spoken, eloquent teddy bear) but I think I was expecting something either different, or something more out of the film and out of the actors, particularly Davis. 5/10 --Shelly
I found "The Letter" to be a decent film, but it was really odd. I guess I had never seen a Wyler film that was so dark, even when he teamed up with Marshall and Davis in "The Little Foxes". "The Letter" was downright scary at times, though I think that was due largely to the really frightening Mrs. Hammond, played by Gale Sondergaard. She was described as a wicked woman with a frightening white mask of a face, and that's pretty much what she was. The hard looks that she would give, without saying a word, were actually really unsettling. The denouement was so wild and over-the-top that it left me actually kind of humored. The film was good, and I always enjoy Herbert Marshall; (everything I've seen him in make him seem like such a soft-spoken, eloquent teddy bear) but I think I was expecting something either different, or something more out of the film and out of the actors, particularly Davis. 5/10 --Shelly