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The Letter
As well as its startling opening sequence, this vehicle for Bette Davis also contains one of her best performances, as murderess Leslie Crosbie. The film is superbly controlled by director William Wyler, who also guided Davis to her Jezebel Oscar, not to mention having an ongoing relationship with the star. The original W Somerset Maugham tale of repressed passions in Malaya is melodrama, pure and simple, but Davis uses her talent for turning tosh into art magnificently, and manages to persuade us that this is a tragedy of untold dimensions rather than a formula product of the studio system. She is aided by atmospheric photography by Tony Gaudio (every blind casts a slanting shadow), an evocative and cleverly melodic Max Steiner score and excellent support from a sinister Gale Sondergaard.
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