Amusingly mannered Bette Davis vehicle concerns the wife of a rubber plantation foreman near Singapore indicted for the killing of a man she and her husband were acquaintances with--she claims it was self-defense, but an incriminating letter she wrote to the victim on the morning of his demise puts her future in jeopardy. Camp/exotic atmosphere and music (like Martin Denny on downers) keeps this soap opera from being a bummer (the underlying message of it all being that any woman who cheats is "evil"). There are some intentionally funny visual jabs and performances, but it's really Bette's show: with her saucer-round eyes and precise diction, she's quite mesmerizing--but with her silly feminine wiles, fainting spells and poker-faced reactions, she's also infernally confounding. Either way, the picture loses dramatic vitality whenever she is off-screen, the men being of little consequence. **1/2 from ****
Review of The Letter
The Letter
(1940)
"I've always wanted to visit the Chinese Quarter--I hear it's a bit creepy..."
19 February 2006