Stars: Jeanne Eagels, O.P. Heggie, Reginald Owen, Herbert Marshall, Lady Tsen Mei
Director: Jean de Limur
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Jeanne Eagels)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars
(Spoilers Ahead) This is unfortunately the curse of watching old movies-with the great actors of long ago also comes the outdated and terrible ideals of that era as well. The movie takes place in Singapore, with Eagels playing Leslie Crosbie, a neglected woman who has taken up an affair with another man named Geoffrey (Marshall), who in turn has become involved with a local woman, Li-Ti (Mei). Leslie, fueled by a jealous rage after being scorned by Geoffrey, shoots him in cold blood.
We then cut to Leslie's trial, which is what the rest of the film is about (Marshall, despite being the most well-known actor in the film now, only is in the movie for a brief appearance). Leslie makes up a lie on the stand, claiming that she shot Geoffrey in self-defense, and the judge and prosecution seem to eat it up; she is a respectable woman on paper, and there is no one to speak otherwise for the victim.
However, Leslie wrote Geoffrey a letter (thus the title) the night he died begging her to come over, and this could doom the case. After a conversation with her lawyer, Leslie takes her husband's life savings to Li-Ti and bribes her to get the letter back (life was so much simpler and more trusting before Xerox). She is successful, and in an odd twist, Leslie gets away with the murder in court. The film's final scene, though, shows her husband finding out about the letter. She confesses the crime to him, how she was driven to Geoffrey's arms because she had been neglected for years by her husband, and how she even now still loves Geoffrey. Her husband's punishment to her is to snatch away her hopes of returning to London and her old life; they will stay in Singapore and she will remain miserable. In an odd twist (I didn't see this coming for such an early film), this is where the story ends. There is comeuppance for Leslie, but she never has to go through another trial over her crimes.
The film is a weird juxtaposition for me as a reviewer on whether I would recommend it (I consider anything at three stars or higher to be a recommendation). On the one hand, the film's racist overtones are hard to ignore. Li-Ti and On Chi Seng (a Chinese man who helps in the blackmail scheme) are both depicted as duplicitous and always through the lens of how they are perceived by the film's white characters. Despite Leslie being the murderer and Li-Ti being the wronged woman, the film doesn't really proceed that way during their only scene together; instead, we see Li-Ti being the "evil" one and Leslie being the frightened victim. The movie lacks any sort of shading for the Chinese characters, and treats them all as stereotypes. The cinema's treatment of people of color would unfortunately take decades to make much progress in this department.
On the other hand, Eagels is aces in the main role in the film. While many performers of this era were hindered by moving from silent film acting to sound, Eagels had been a huge star on Broadway, and so the more theatrical speaking world of the talkies wasn't a stretch for her as an actress. Thus, we got a more complete performance here, and she nails the melodrama of the role, while still finding ways to layer a confused woman. She's not entirely willing to admit to herself what she has done, much less those around her.
Eagels died at the age of 39 after a really remarkable and adventurous life (seriously, check out the woman's IMDB biography page), and so with The Letter she became the first actor ever to receive an Academy Award nomination posthumously. She lost to Mary Pickford in Coquette (generally considered one of the worst performances to ever receive an Academy Award), and as a result of her untimely death, is little mentioned today. Have you seen any of her films? If so, what are your thoughts on Eagels? And don't you wish that instead of doing yet another biopic on someone we already know by heart (say, Marilyn Monroe) that Hollywood would reinvestigate one of the great early stars onscreen?
1 comment:
Well written review. I do disagree, though, with the portrayal of the Chinese characters. I believe it is very clear that Leslie is the 'bad guy' here. The Chinese characters make her suffer. She deserved it. The way Li-Ti humiliates Leslie is much more powerful than it is in the remake. It shows the character as being strong rather than diminutive, which became the stereotype of Asian female characters once the Hayes Code was enforced. It, also, allowed for on-screen miscegenation, which is much more progressive than the remake was. This movie makes it clear the only guilty party in this tale is Leslie.
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