Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1928-1929

The Contenders:

Betty Compson: The Barker
Bessie Love: The Broadway Melody
Mary Pickford: Coquette (winner)
Corrine Griffith: The Divine Lady
Jeanne Eagels: The Letter
Ruth Chatterton: Madame X

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1940

The Contenders:

All This, and Heaven Too
Foreign Correspondent
The Grapes of Wrath
The Great Dictator
Kitty Foyle
The Letter
The Long Voyage Home
Our Town
The Philadelphia Story
Rebecca (winner)

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1940

The Contenders:

Ginger Rogers: Kitty Foyle (winner)
Bette Davis: The Letter
Martha Scott: Our Town
Katharine Hepburn: The Philadelphia Story
Joan Fontaine: Rebecca

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1940

The Contenders:

John Ford: The Grapes of Wrath (winner)
Sam Wood: Kitty Foyle
William Wyler: The Letter
George Cukor: The Philadelphia Story
Alfred Hitchcock: Rebecca

Junk Mail

Film: The Letter (1929)
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I’ve watch this story before. In situations like this, I probably should see the original version first, but I watched the 1940 version of The Letter with Bette Davis a couple of months ago. I didn’t have a ton of time today, though, and this one is nice and short, so it fit into my schedule nicely. As it turns out, I’m pretty happy it’s a short one because I’m not sure I would have wanted to watch it for much longer. When I say I’ve seen this story before, I mean that precisely—this is a pared down version and the ending is different, but there’s not a lot different between the two versions. I’m going to spoil this one, but believe me, that’s no big loss.

Leslie Crosbie (Jeanne Eagels, who was the first ever posthumous Oscar nominee for this role) is the bored wife of a rubber baron in the South Pacific. While he spends his day dealing with all of the problems of owning a rubber plantation, she finds a man named Geoffrey Hammond (Herbert Marshall) to spend quality time with. Eventually, the two fall apart and Hammond takes a Chinese lover named Li-Ti (Lady Tsen Mei). Desperate one evening, Leslie sends a litter to Geoffrey and demands to see him.

Return to Sender

Film: The Letter (1940)
Format: TCM Watch on laptop.

It’s interesting to consider the 1940 version of The Letter a film noir even though it is a solid early example of the style. The reason it feels weird is that this is a remake of a film first made in 1929. I haven’t seen that version yet, so I don’t know how much it conforms. My guess is that it probably doesn’t much. This version, though, is very solidly a noir, having all of the main elements that the noir aficionado looks for. What makes it unusual is that in this case, the femme fatale isn’t the pursuit of the main character, but the main character herself.

The Letter has one of the better openings of a film I’ve seen in at least a year. We open on a quiet Malay night. The moon is high. Rubber drips from a tree into a waiting bucket. The plantation workers are preparing themselves for bed. A shot rings out. A man staggers out of a building onto a porch and stumbles. Leslie Crosbie (Bette Davis) follows him out, watches him fall, and empties the gun into the body on the ground. I couldn’t help but think I was in for a treat after the first minute or two.