Film 101 - Bette Davis Opens The Letter Today in 1940 and Receives Another Academy Award Nomination The Letter is based on a short story from the prolific hand of W. Somerset Maugham and was made into a play of the same name. Maugham frequently created characters who, as outsiders, watch and note the intricate social behaviour of others. In The Letter, the observer is lawyer Howard Joyce, a decent man who finds himself torn by conflicting moral obligations. One of Maugham’s favourite themes is to explore the divisions between married couples, and the issue of class differences. Maugham sometimes used real life as fodder for his stories (The Painted Veil for example). The Letter may have been based on the real-life murder case and sensational trial involving Mrs. Mabel Proudlock, the wife of a headmaster in Kuala Lumpur who shot and killed William Crozier Stewart on April 23, 1911. She claimed that he tried to rape her after an unexpected visit made during one of her husband’s absences. She shot Stewart 6 times, and after her story fell apart she was convicted and sentenced to hang. She was eventually pardoned and died in an insane asylum. William Wyler, the films director, also directed Bette Davis in the 1938 film, Jezebel. During the making of the film, they had an affair, but Wyler ended the relationship. Wyler planned to use Davis for the role of the wife in The Letter from the project’s inception. Wyler stipulated that he had the “right to withdraw” if Bette Davis declined the role, and given the baggage between them, there was a distinct possibility that she would refuse. Luckily, she accepted, and she’s perfect here as the tightly-wound Mrs. Crosbie whose domestic persona is just the outward repressed manifestation of her true nature. Bette Davis had a long history with this role as she saw The Letter performed on Broadway repeatedly in 1927 when she was a drama student in New York. Only the end of The Letter is weak—and that is because of the postscript which the Hays office compelled. The play ended with the freed wife returning to her poor husband, who knows that she doesnt love him, that she has killed the man she loves. But they must go on living together. That was the trenchant irony of the whole story, the sardonic victory of the Orient over the Occident. The Hays office demand for compensating moral values makes Miss Davis pay for her criminal deed. It is a feeble conclusion. But, never mind—the picture as a whole is insured against even that. It is fine melodrama, in short. Postman Wyler has rung the bell—several times. youtube/watch?v=wo5QuonRCHE
Posted on: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 13:23:45 +0000
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