The Letter

Jeanne Eagels demonstrates why she was considered one of the best stage actresses of the 1920s. Her performance is absolutely outstanding. She's mesmerising to watch. Despite this, even by the low standards of 1929, it's not a particularly good film.

Like so many very early talkies, this is essentially a filmed stage play. It's a good stage play and is very close to Somerset Maugham's story but you inevitably compare it to William Wyler's 1940 version and you appreciate the difference between a play and a film. Although because of the restrictive censorship code introduced in the mid thirties, the story in the "new" version was massively altered to conform, that version is so much more immersive. When you watch miserable old Bette Davis you become the judge and jury when considering the plight of Mrs Crosbie. You enter into what you think is the mind of Mrs Crosbie - or you think you do - Wyler has fun playing with your emotions. In this version however you're just watching the narrative unfold, you're not involved.

Although this is inferior in terms of what you'd expect from a motion picture, it's still worth watching just for Jeanne Eagels' magnificent portrayal of raw emotion especially in the last act. What's remarkable and indeed a testament to her acting is that although you're being told from the onset that her character, Mrs Crosbie is a bad person, you're on her side, you're supporting a murderer! Thus is the power of seduction which this actress strangely imposes on you ninety years after her death.

The film itself is certainly watchable and better than most films from 1929 but it has no innovative or imaginative direction. To be fair, it was Jean de Limur's first film - it seems an odd choice of Paramount to use a novice to direct such a high profile picture but his lack of experience is almost compensated for by Miss Eagels' skill and also by Herbert Marshall who is also fantastic - incredibly it's his first movie as well.

It's interesting to note that a decade later Herbert Marshall is alive again back in the remake - not as Mrs Crosbie's lover but as the wronged husband. Also in the "new" version her lover wasn't sharing a bed with a Chinese woman (a fact used in the trial to prove he was a disreputable and disgraceful human being!) but a respectable married man - married of course to a respectable white woman!

Left alone on her husband's rubber plantation, four miles from Singapore, neglected Jeanne Eagels (as Leslie Crosbie) sends a letter to handsome Herbert Marshall (as Geoffrey Hammond), hoping for a romantic evening. Desperate for attention, Ms. Eagels is instead told, "All good things must come to an end," as Mr. Marshall tells her their affair is over. Eagels is told she disgusts Marshall, who has replaced his blonde English mistress with a Chinese woman. Eagels thinks the native woman is "common" and "vulgar." Declaring she still loves Marshall, Eagels decides to take matters into her own hands. This gets her in trouble with the law. Covering herself, Eagels convincingly hides her secret – but her Asian rival "Lady" Tsen Mei holds "The Letter"...

For her first "talking" motion picture, Eagels wisely agreed to star in W. Somerset Maugham's "The Letter" for producer Monta Bell and debuting director Jean de Limur. Eagels' greatest Broadway success had been in Maugham's steaming "Rain" (1922-26), which was filmed with Gloria Swanson as the hit silent "Sadie Thompson" (1928). Considering her success with this film, Eagels would have likely been considered for the sound version of "Rain" (the part went to Joan Crawford) and further acclaim. However, she had addictions and overdosed after one more film (the presently unavailable "Jealousy"). Notably, Marshall appeared in both the 1929 and 1940 versions, but as different characters...

As many have noted, Eagels shows the effects of drug use in her final films, but it works for the character she plays in "The Letter" – she is desperate and wasting away in a remote location. While employing some stage overplaying at times, Eagels still delivers an electrifying performance. She certainly earned her "Academy Award" consideration, and had the skills to continue into the sound era. This film was famously re-made in 1940 with William Wyler directing and Bette Davis starring. That version is much more polished, and Ms. Davis is likewise stunning. This 1929 version is incomplete and rough in spots, but still enjoyable. The racism is much less confusing, herein; there are scenes and situations which seem to be white-washed for the 1940 version.

******* The Letter (3/17/29) Jean de Limur ~ Jeanne Eagels, O.P. Heggie, Reginald Owen, Herbert Marshall

Jeanne Engles is almost a physical ghost here. Everyone seems to be in love her as an actress. Based on this, I'm not that hooked but she definitely does get your attention.

In this movie, the racism out in the open and cuts both ways which is closer to the real world. The movie does well to bring that forward. Unfortunately, here, as usual, Hollywood fell into bizarre caricatures and images when portraying the Chinese.

With Anna May Wong in Europe at the time, Tsen Mei is cast as Li-Ti and only manages to extract a very average presence. It is difficult to imagine her as a love interest. (Tsen Mei went on to run theatres in New Jersey) With Anna May Wong in that role (and advising the directors), the movie would have been elevated considerably and the confrontation-over-the-letter scene likely would have become an all time classic.

Technically, this movie is crude, especially the sound but a restored version might be a different story.

Although this version of The Letter that I saw was incomplete lacking the final six minutes, if you have seen the better known Bette Davis version from 1941 then you know what fate awaits Jeanne Eagels in this film. Sad to say this and another sound film are all we have of her acting and stage presence. Eagels was most famous on stage for doing another W. Somerset Maugham work, Rain. After seeing this what a shame it was she died of too much living before doing a film version of that. Joan Crawford was unjustly criticized for essentially not being Jeanne Eagels, so vivid was the memory of what she did on stage with Sadie Thompson.

She doesn't do too bad with Leslie Crosbie either in this film. Eagels is the bored wife of rubber plantation owner Reginald Owen and she casually drifts into an affair with Herbert Marshall. But Marshall has been two timing Eagels with a lovely Asian mistress. After deceiving her husband she's not about to be thrown over for an Oriental so she empties a revolver into Marshall. In the Bette Davis version Marshall plays the wronged husband and the character of the lover is only shown at the beginning being ventilated with six bullets.

Eagels gets the best barrister in Singapore O.P. Heggie, but there is the nasty business of an indiscreet letter she wrote to Marshall that the Chinese woman now has. Therein lies the tale.

Somerset Maugham if anything was more observant of the racism in the British colonial community in this version than the later one. What's driving Eagels is the thought of being tossed aside for an Oriental woman, the type she employs as servants and looks down on. Not to mention the scandal of her affair and what would happen to her position in that strict British white colonial society.

Eagels gives a dynamic performance in her confrontations with the various male characters and in a soliloquy in court where she recounts a version for the jury as to why she killed Marshall. Of course it's all lies and the white jurors want to believe her. But that letter should it get out, she's toast.

Shot in Paramount's Astoria studios, The Letter shows its age, but even as she overacted as most of her Broadway contemporaries did when they faced sound cameras, her dynamism is undeniable. Watch this and you'll why Jeanne Eagels was such a big star.

Jeanne Eagels is brilliant in this short version of THE LETTER. My copy is lousy but I stuck with it because Eagels gives an amazing, Oscar nominated performance that keeps you riveted to the screen. I can only image the power this woman had on stage.

The story is the same as the Bette Davis version, but the narrative structure is all different. Eagels has two fabulous scenes: the trial and the finale. Her English accent slips a couple times but for a 1929 movie (and her talkie debut) it's a terrific performance as the amoral Leslie Crosbie.

Herbert Marshall, O.P. Heggie, and Reginald Owen co-star. But the film belongs to Miss Eagels. If only her follow-up and final film JEALOUSY could be found!