Rent The Letter (1940)

Shadows, Scandals, and Smoke Rings - The Letter review by griggs

Atmosphere practically drips from every frame of The Letter—Wyler wrings suspense from shadow, mist, and moonlight with such precision it’s like watching noir take its first breath. Set in colonial Singapore, the film feels engineered to spotlight Bette Davis, who delivers the kind of brittle, haunted performance awards are built around. The plot’s a slow burn, coiled tight with moral ambiguity. Victor Sen Yung is tremendous in a thankless role, as are the other Asian actors, though what they’re given to play with deepens some ugly, era-typical stereotypes. A gripping, evocative piece that’s both of its time and indicts it.

Tropical Noir (spoiler). - The Letter review by Steve

Six years after Of Human Bondage, Bette Davis starred in another Somerset Maugham adaptation. But this time, with the Production Code at full tide, greater compromises had to be made. Davis empties her revolver into the body of her lover because he has has married a Chinese woman in colonial Singapore, but she cannot go unpunished as she does in the source play.

Bette gives one of her best and most interesting performances. Her character is lying for most of the film and she performs behind an inscrutable visage which doesn't signify a stiff upper lip, but her intent to not betray her guilt. And the suppressed Malayan locals are similarly impassive, unable to express themselves honestly before these corrupt, entitled occupiers.

The scene between Gale Sondergaard as the grieving wife and her husband's murderer is a meeting of masks. The unctuous facade of Victor Sen Yung as a Singaporean lawyer acting as a go-between for the two women is another deception. James Stephenson is excellent as Bette's biddable British lawyer who hides behind a mirage of ethical purity. The message is plainly anti-empire.    

The studio recreation of the east is exotic but plausible. Davis' costumes by Orry-Kelly are elegant. The camerawork is mobile and eloquent and very artistic, with the expressionist photography painting the fluttering, white-laced and guilty heroine within its shadowy net. Though censorship was an impediment, this is one of William Wyler's greatest films.