THE LETTER: Blu-ray (Warner Bros. 1940) Warner Archive

William Wyler's The Letter (1940) begins with one of the most shocking and audacious openers in movie history; a jealous woman's cold-blooded assassination of her married lover on the front steps of her own husband's rubber plantation. In a career in which she played many great bitches, Bette Davis' aesthetic for personifying evil women who bucked tradition - oft, to their own detriment, and certainly, to the ever-lasting regret of their menfolk - was well served in this, her second collaboration with Wyler. By now, the affair between Wyler and Davis, begun on the set of Jezebel (1936) had somewhat cooled; the onset behind-the-scenes creative symbiosis immensely aided by their thinly camouflaged grand amour. Wyler and Davis, who were both married then (Davis, unhappily ever after in round two to Arthur Farnsworth – the marriage, to end three years later, and Wyler, to actress, Margaret Tallichet, also his second, but to whom he would remain wed until his death in 1981), arguably, had reached ‘an understanding’ as The Letter went into production; their mutual admiration for the sheer pleasure of working with one another to remain inviolate. And Davis, who could be known to eat directors alive, especially when she believed she knew more - or at least better on how to hand-craft a performance, on this movie - as during their first collaborative effort, and with one noted exception, was pliable putty in Wyler's hands. 

In The Letter, Davis offers an absolutely brutal and bone-chilling portrait of a genuine spider woman - Leslie Crosbie. Having carried on a notorious affair with her husband, Robert's (Herbert Marshall) friend, Geoffrey Hammond (David Newell) now, by her own hand, lying dead just beyond the front stoop. In the frantic moments afterward, Leslie, eyes bulging at the moon to have emerged from behind the clouds and reveal her gruesome handywork, concocts a rather absurd scenario, whereupon Hammond – presumably having made ‘unwanted’ advances for the first time, followed by a drunken assignation and seduction, causing Leslie to fear, not only for her virtue but her life, has been dispatched in an act of self-defense. Interestingly, Herbert Marshall had played the victim of this crime in the 1929 silent version of The Letter. Of course, Robert believes his wife's allegations implicitly, summoning their attorney, Howard Joyce (James Stephenson) immediately to plot a defense strategy. We discover Hammond was secretly involved with a Eurasian dragon lady (Gale Sondergaard) – presumably, further reason to believe he was not of the gentleman’s mettle as our Leslie has inferred. To misquote Rhett Butler – “You miss, are no lady!”  At the very least, Hammond was unfaithful. At worse, he is, as Robert suggests, 'a no-good swine' who, quite possibly, received his just deserts. Howard concurs – perhaps.  But he is bound by the canon of ethics and the law to investigate further; also, to make Leslie realize her actions cannot be excused while the wheels of justice grind slowly towards a complete analysis of the events as allegedly transpired.

The Letter is deliciously cynical. Howard Koch's screenplay, based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham, serves up round after round of insidious speculation to keep the mystery successfully brewing until that fateful moment when, consumed by lingering grief, Leslie cannot help but declare, "With all my heart, I still love the man I killed." Between these two shocking moments of revelation, Koch’s handiwork intervenes with a diabolical quagmire of entanglements, brought from a simmer to a rolling boil; Howard's office aid, Ong Chi Seng's (Sen Yung) cheeky attempt at bribery, reporting to be in possession of ‘a letter’ that could leave Leslie Crosbie dangling from the gallows, and Mrs. Hammond, in a thoroughly startling act of revenge, plunging a dagger into her husband’s mistress. The Letter is rife with situations and circumstances that were permissibly – even fashionably - observed when the silent version starring Jeanne Eagels (in her last movie) debuted. By 1940, however, such delicate offerings were considered all but taboo and unfit fodder for the screen under Hollywood’s then relatively new morality instituted by its self-governing production code. In cleverly skirting the Code, some of the potency in the original material needed to be blunted, though Wyler managed to maintain the inferences of a far seedier and more salacious tale. And Davis, who relished playing bad girls perhaps more than any other actress of her generation, lends Leslie Crosbie an air of infectious and uncanny perverseness.

Apart from Robert, only Howard's wife, Dorothy (Frieda Inescort), blinded by Leslie's frequent giddy outbursts and crocodile tears, fully believes in her innocence. And Howard, ever so clever to pursue the matter on his own terms, keeps much of his exculpatory evidence a secret, even after he learns the depth of Leslie's depravity. The Letter was considered un-filmable under the Production Code. Indeed, the original story was rejected outright by the Hays office in that it contained such irredeemable acts as premeditated murder, adultery and subversion of the law. To placate the Code, Wyler agreed to tone down the importance of Sondergaard's slinky mistress, altered to an embittered and vengeful wife - the deus ex machina to right the injustice against her wayward husband by killing Leslie Crosbie in the movie's 'eye for an eye' last act. While Wyler and Davis got on for most of the production, Davis disapproved of Wyler's handling of the moment when Leslie's brutally confesses her never-waning affections for the deceased Hammond to Robert, arguing with Wyler that no woman could betray her husband with such cruel calculation while staring him in the face. Wyler disagreed and the two bickered over the way the scene should be played. Eventually, Wyler won the argument and Davis did the scene his way. Alas, screening the rough cut, Davis remained unconvinced it was the right decision. Earlier, she had walked off the set to illustrate her disapproval. But now, it was in the can and would stand as the only version to be shot, even after Wyler ordered several retakes of other scenes in the movie.

Meanwhile, Jack L. Warner, having granted Wyler permission to use the relatively unknown James Stephenson in the movie, had a change of heart, ordering Wyler to reshoot all of the actor's scenes with a bigger name in the part. Again, Wyler illustrated the ballast of his clout, insisting Stephenson was ideally suited for the part. He would not reshoot Stephenson's scenes or quit the movie himself. Pressed by such an ultimatum, Warner backed down, though he was never contented with this decision - even after Stephenson's performance managed to garner a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Nor was Jack the forgiving kind, eager to have the freelancing Wyler work at his studio again. After all, Jack preferred 'yes' men to strong-minded creative types. And no one could confuse Wyler with a 'yes' man. Production progressed at an excruciatingly glacial pace as Wyler – in typical fashion - worked his cast and crew to the bone, take after take, achieving a truly mesmerizing tempo on the screen, rich in its subtly nuanced performances and supremely textured, stylish and studio-bound sets by Carl Jules Weyl, with gowns by Orry-Kelly to add a touch of glamour amidst this seemingly hot and steamy sub-tropic climate, and finally, Max Steiner's brilliant score, and, Tony Gaudio's evocative, noir-esque B&W cinematography to evoke an ever-lingering sense of foreboding and danger.

As already stated, The Letter begins with a bang – literally, Wyler’s camera panning past the sleepy outdoor barracks of Asian workers on the Crosbie rubber plantation in Malaya, startled from their slumber by the piercing sound of a gunshot. In silhouette, a man emerges from the main house, followed by a woman, unrepentant as she plugs several more bullets into the man’s back while he is attempted to leave. The clouds part, the pallor of the moon reveals the handiwork of Leslie Crosbie, having only just shot her lover. Ordering the head house boy (Tetsu Komai) to fetch Mr. Crosbie at once, Leslie appears to be in a state of shock as she reveals to all she has just killed Geoffrey Hammond, a well-regarded member of the local European community. Telephoned of the ordeal, Robert, who is presently overseeing one of his shipments at the docks, hurries home, contacting his attorney, Howard Joyce and the British Police Inspector, John Withers (Bruce Lester). All too eager to believe Leslie’s story, that Hammond tried to rape her, only Howard is circumspect about what must come next – a charge of murder.  And indeed, Leslie is placed under arrest and put in jail in Singapore to await trial. The white community unreservedly accepts Leslie’s tall tale. But Howard is suspicious, more so after his office clerk, Ong Chi Seng, shows him a copy of a letter Leslie wrote to Hammond the day of the murder – imploring him to attend her in the evening while Robert is away, but also implicitly threatening some act of retaliation should he fail to do so. Seng tells Howard that Hammond's widow is in possession of the original - for sale, at a price that would greatly benefit Ong. Attending his client in prison, Howard confronts Leslie with this damning evidence and she bitterly confesses to have written it. Nevertheless, she insists its contents has been misconstrued. She killed Hammond in self-defense. With perverse stealth, Leslie encourages Howard to buy back the incriminating letter, despite the detriment that might be incurred to his own freedom, safety, and, the integrity of his otherwise peerless career. Howard obtains Robert's consent to buy the letter. However, he lies about its contents, suggesting it has been forged as a means of blackmail. A decent man, thoroughly in love with his wife, and painfully naïve, Robert is easily persuaded. The final caveat from the widow Hammond is that Leslie personally deliver the $10,000 and abase herself at the widow's feet. Under Howard’s supervision, Leslie is granted a temporary stay from prison, attends the widow and recovers the letter. Its contents suppressed, Leslie is acquitted on all charges and spared her public humiliation.

Buoyed by the exoneration, Robert hosts a house party where he announces plans to draw from his savings and expand his empire by buying another rubber plantation in Sumatra. Reluctantly, Howard and Leslie inform Robert his life savings have all been spent on acquiring the letter. Suddenly aware its contents must be far more damaging than he was initially led to believe, Robert demands to see what he has paid for and is summarily devastated to discover his wife and Hammond were passionate lover for several years. She did not kill Hammond in self-defense, but rather, out of an act of blind rage and jealousy. As their friends prepare to depart, Robert leaves to an adjacent room where he has an emotional breakdown. Leslie retreats to her bedroom, but is startled to find a dagger lying on the matt on her balcony. Robert enters, suggesting a truce. He will forgive Leslie if she tells him she loves him. Alas, as they prepare for an embrace, Leslie retreats in bitterness, declaring, “No! With all my heart, I still love the man I killed!” Deeply wounded, Robert rushes away and Leslie retreats to the balcony, only to discover the dagger has vanished. She now realizes Hammond’s widow intends to murder her.  Accepting this fate, Leslie enters the garden where she encounters the widow and her head house boy. He seizes Leslie, stuffing a cloth into her mouth to silence her screams while the widow plunges the dagger deep. The pair are confronted by a policeman passing by. However, as the heavy clouds have blotted out the moonlight, the officer does not see Leslie’s body lying only a few feet away. As Hammond’s widow and the house boy retreat, the clouds part and a shaft of moonlight illuminates Leslie’s lifeless remains, only now, no one is there to see it.

Nearly 80 years later, The Letter remains a sumptuous melodrama with Wyler and Davis pulling out all the stops. Curiously, in the eleventh hour of editing the picture, Wyler seemed to get cold feet, believing Leslie Crosbie had emerged from the depths of this darkened despair as a wholly unsympathetic character. Together with Koch, Wyler ordered a series of rewrites 'to soften' Leslie's appeal. When Davis learned of these revisions, she was utterly horrified. Davis later recalled, "I said, 'If we film these retakes, we lose the intelligent audience. Besides I deeply sympathized with Leslie Crosbie." To Davis' relief, her argument proved persuasive and Wyler never did get around to ‘softening’ the character. Leslie would remain an unrepentant harpy. The Letter was one of Davis’ greatest hits for Warner Bros. Even so, when she reflected on the picture in her 1962 memoir, Davis still held out Wyler had made a mistake in filming Leslie’s confession to Robert with her cold-bloodedly staring him in the face. “Willie disagreed with me - most definitely,” Davis wrote, “I could not see it his way, nor he mine - end result, I did it his way. I lost, but I lost to an artist.”  Davis did, however, believe The Letter’s ever-lasting success and its reputation as a fine drama were exclusively owed to Wyler’s direction, and she considered its opener among the greatest moments in her career.  Eighty years on, we wholeheartedly concur. Bravo!

The Warner Archive’s level of perfection affords very little opportunity for reviewers such as myself to quibble with the details. Nominated for 7 Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actress, Editing, Director, Cinematography, score, and Supporting Actor) and winning none…what?!?!? – The Letter on Blu-ray from WAC is a thing of loveliness. Restored and remastered from an original nitrate negative, pedantically curated, The Letter in hi-def is perfection itself. Grain levels – yep. Contrast – superb. Tonality – wow! Fine details – positively gorgeous. If you didn’t know you weren’t watching a 35mm print your eyes would easily be fooled. Only the main titles suffer from a minute hint of image instability, baked into the frame, likely while the titles were being originally composited from mattes and background plates. The audio has been remastered and in DTS 1.0 sounds exceptional. So, zero complaints. Okay, maybe one. For better or worse, The Letter, while deserving of at least an audio commentary from some such noted ‘historian’, never did receive it during the heady ‘golden’ era of DVD-produced special features. As WAC is not in the habit of adding any new content to their Blu-ray releases, extras here are the same as what appeared on the original DVD release – an alternate ending, two audio-only radio broadcasts of The Letter, and a theatrical trailer. We will forgive WAC its trespasses, as they have most certainly not trespassed against collectors with this exceptionally fine hi-def release: one of the true gems in Bette Davis’ crown. Bottom line: very – very – highly recommended.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

5+

VIDEO/AUDIO

5

EXTRAS

1