The Letter Summary
Director: Jean de Limur
Genres: Drama
Rating:
The_Letter was the first film version of the Somerset_Maugham play of the same name. Broadway star Jeanne_Eagels plays the wife of Reginald_Owen, the owner of a Malayan rubber plantation. The film opens with Eagels shooting a man (Herbert_Marshall) to death; she explains that the man had tried to assault her. It is assumed that the subsequent trial will go well for Eagels, who has the advantage of wealth and social position. But Eagels' lawyer (O.P. Heggie) learns of the existence of a letter sent to the dead man in which Eagels declares her undying love--thereby proving that the killing was not justified. At great personal expense, the lawyer buys back the letter from the dead man's wife, a grim native woman. Only after Eagels is found not guilty does she reveal her indiscretion to her husband. She tries to convince him that she will be a faithful wife in the future, but suddenly pulls back and violently declares "With all my heart--I still love the man I killed!" The_Letter was remade in 1940 (with considerable censorial alterations) starring Bette_Davis as the murderess and Herbert_Marshall--the victim in the 1929 version--as her cuckolded husband. Hal Erickson, Rovi
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