The Letter
About The Letter
On a rubber plantation in Singapore, Leslie Crosbie (Jeanne Eagels) is tired of her husband Robert (Reginald Owen) and takes Geoffrey Hammond (Herbert Marshall) as a lover. Hammond leaves her for Li-Ti (Lady Tsen Mei). Leslie summons him while Robert is away and shoots him when he will not come back. At the trial she swears that Hammond tried to rape her. Li-Ti holds a letter in which Leslie begged Hammond to visit, and will sell it for $10,000 if Leslie collects it in person. Leslie pays, is humiliated, and is acquitted. The lawyer's bill exposes the $10,000 to Robert. He keeps her on the plantation with no money left, and she says she still loves the man she killed.
Cast & crew
More about The Letter
Jean de Limur directed. Garrett Fort adapted W. Somerset Maugham's 1927 play. Monta Bell produced and shared the editing with de Limur. It was the first all-talking feature shot at Astoria Studios. Paramount also released a silent version. The negative ran 5,778 feet, at least six reels. New York opened it on March 17, 1929, and the general release was April 13, 1929. In 1931 Paramount issued Spanish, German, French, and Italian dubs.
Themes
Background
Paramount made it in Queens in 1929, during the changeover to sound, and released both a talking picture and a silent one.
In film history
It is the only surviving sound film with Jeanne Eagels, and the first filming of Maugham's play The Letter.
Making
Eagels came from the stage to Astoria for the sound version. A silent cut was shipped as well, for houses that were not yet wired.
Reviews
The New York Times treated the release as an important piece of theater and of film history.
Audiences
The Chicago Board of Censors passed it for adults only. The Chicago Theatre, 4,400 seats, advertised it as too daring for immature eyes and took in $59,500 in one week.
Look
George J. Folsey shot the film at Astoria. The camera negative is logged at 5,778 feet.
Preservation
It was out of circulation and listed as lost until a work print was found on April 3, 2011, and given to the Library of Congress and The Film Foundation. They restored it in June 2011. Warner Archive then issued a made-on-demand DVD. It is the only surviving sound film starring Jeanne Eagels.
Notes
- Jeanne Eagels's role is her penultimate film performance. She died a few months after the picture was finished.
- Her Academy listing for Best Actress was not an official nomination. At the second Academy Awards a board of judges named several actresses under consideration, and she was the first performer named after her death.
- Reginald Owen made his film debut as Robert. Herbert Marshall made his sound-film debut as Hammond, after the British picture Mumsie (1927).
- O. P. Heggie plays the lawyer Joyce, Irene Browne his wife, and Tamaki Yoshiwara plays Ong Chi Seng, Li-Ti's emissary.
- Maugham drew the play from a 1911 Kuala Lumpur case: the Eurasian wife of a school headmaster shot a man friend, was convicted, and was later pardoned by the sultan.
- The National Board of Review put the film on its ten-best list for 1929.
- In William Wyler's 1940 remake, Marshall plays the husband. Bette Davis, as Leslie, was nominated for an Academy Award.
- The copyright was never renewed, so the film is in the public domain. Lobby cards published in 1929 entered the public domain on January 1, 2025.
Awards
- National Board of Review: Top Ten Films (1929)
Scenes
- Leslie shoots Hammond when he tells her he prefers Li-Ti.
- Li-Ti makes Leslie buy the letter in person for $10,000, then humiliates her.
- After the acquittal, Robert reads the letter and tells Leslie she will stay on the plantation.
Influenced by
- The Letter (W. Somerset Maugham play)
Influenced
- The Letter (1940)
Also available
- Internet Archive (the-letter-1929-by-jean-de-limur)
- Warner Archive Collection DVD (2011)
