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!

I was fortunate to see a rare screening of this (early) 1929 film. The lure for me was Jeanne Eagels, and her performance did not disappoint. Her screen presence is amazing - there is scarcely a performance from this early talkie period to compare it with. If Eagels was alive at the time (she died in October 1929), if Paramount had more clout with the MGM-dominated AMPAS at the time, she surely would have won the Academy Award for Best Actress (it went to Mary Pickford in one of the WORST performances of the period, in the nearly-unwatchable "Coquette"). Her final confrontation with her husband, one of the most dynamic pieces of film acting from ANY period, is alone worth the price of admission.

This film exists only as a work print, without final dubbed-in music and sound effects, which may be disconcerting to some viewers, but thank God Eagels' performance survives intact. The storyline is similar to the 1940 remake but without several plot variations imposed by the Hays Office, and in many ways this earlier film seems more modern, complete with a few profanities and obvious depictions of a brothel (that scene, with Eagels' character humiliated in front of a bevy of Asian prostitutes, is amazing). The casual racism of colonialists on display throughout the film may be off-putting when viewed today, but is historically and dramatically appropriate.

Rights to this film apparently belong to Universal, so the chance of its being distributed on DVD - along with the many wonderful Paramount pre-1934-code films, the brilliantly restored Technicolor "Follow Thru" and "Paramount On Parade", etc. - is slender-to-none. No studio cares less about its pre-1948 catalog, especially the Paramount titles, and we can only pray that whoever heads their video division will be replaced by someone who knows and loves this eminently under-exploited catalog. In the meantime, Run, don't walk if this is screened in your area, and experience this beautiful and vibrant star who influenced a generation of actresses (not the least of which, Bette Davis, who took much from Eagels).

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!

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.

This film has recently been restored to a 35mm print. I was fortunate enough to see it. A great deal is already said here about Jeanne Eagels' performance. The only thing I can add is that Bette Davis seems to not have so much modeled her performance in the remake, as to have modeled her own physical persona in general on Eagels, who has a subtle body twitch that Davis took to (delightful) extremes later on. Certainly Davis would have seen this original movie version, and may have even seen Eagels on stage in other properties.

The sound is very primitive in this early version. At first it seemed like the sound wasn't even working. But the problem is that there is no sound until the film gets to a scene that has dialogue. It would have been interesting to hear more ambient sound added so you would be less likely to notice the old-fashioned audio, but then purists might complain.

Nevertheless, the film is fascinating and so is Eagels. I saw the film with an Asian friend who liked the fact that the film doesn't shirk from racism. The sequence where the heroine delivers the letter to the dragon lady was fun to compare to the later version. The early version is a lot racier! Also, I must point out that Herbert Marshall, who appears in the later version as the heroine's husband, is very young and handsome as her murdered lover in this 1929 production.