Cartas Venenosas

A series of poison pen letters roils a small Canadian town.

Boyer and Darnell get top billing, but Rennie gets the screen time and uses it to memorable effect. His aloof Dr. Pearson is a fascinating portrait in guarded emotions. There's one scene where his steely reserve is topped. Catch the old lady, mother of the dead lad, as she brandishes a nasty looking razor while Pearson looks on, hoping it's not meant for him. It's deliciously played.

The movie's a good noirish mystery, benefiting from the Quebec locations, especially during the impressive funeral scene. This was during TCF's neo-realist period when actual locations were widely used. Then too, the French setting lends a kind of exotic air that boosts the unusual poison pen premise.

At first Darnell's role looks like one of her sexually aggressive type-casts, but then the screenplay does an effective job at winning our sympathy. At the same time, I'm impressed with the strikingly pretty Constance Smith holding up so well during director Preminger's extended hospital scene. There's not much info about her or her brief career. Too bad, she certainly had the chops—literally and figuratively—for a starring career. Took me awhile to identify Boyer as the aging doctor and a long way from his usual dashing leading man (sans toupee). After reading his bio, I expect he enjoyed this departure.

Anyway, the solution is rather complex and something of a stretch, for me at least. Nonetheless, the cast and the production carry it off, making for a very watchable 90- minutes.

1st watched 5/30/2000 - (Dir-Otto Preminger): Well-done whodunit which revolves around a series of letters written supposedly to defame a local doctor in a Canadian town, but ends up becoming more fatal.It keeps you guessing until the end which is pretty much the measuring stick for this kind of movie.

Michael Rennie plays a doctor at a Canadian hospital who receives a series of poison pen letters. Soon these letters are sent to others which leads to tension amongst the inhabitants of the small Canadian town.

THE 13TH LETTER is a decent well made mystery which keeps the viewer guessing to the very end who is sending the poison pen letters and why. The cast is quite good, with Rennie giving a stand out performance as noble doctor who is the main target of the nasty letters. It a shame that this film from Otto Preminger is so rarely shown.

I used to think of the Hollywood proclivity toward remaking foreign films in English to be a modern phenomenon until I encountered the 1951 remake of Fritz Lang's German classic "M" from 1939. Well, that comment segues nicely into the American remake of "Le Corbeau." "The 13th Letter" doesn't mention the French film as a source nor the historical incident from the 1920s it is based on but refers back only to the novel. It does pay some homage to its French origins. An opening title tells us that the new movie was filmed in its entirety at a "small French-Canadian community in the Province of Quebec." When I reviewed the Hollywood remake of Fritz Lang's "M" (released the same year as "The 13th Letter" but from different studios), I said that if you could, as much as possible, take the new film on its own merits then it had quite a bit to offer. I can't quite say the same for the Preminger effort. The director doesn't seem to be working too hard for a film that falls between "Where The Sidewalk Ends" and "Angel Face" in his filmography. The new film is not quite a shot-for-shot remake but is pretty much a scene-for-scene redo. The only substantial change is right at the end where a fairly long dialog passage goes to explaining the crimes in a lot more detail than Clouzot provided - but I liked the Clouzot approach better. The new young doctor is played by Michael Rennie who can't come close to showing the inner turmoil that Pierre Fresnay brought to his tormented physician. Linda Darnell is good enough as the landlord's flirty daughter if she isn't nearly as seductive and overtly sexual as the French would have it. The only real notable performance is by Charles Boyer who is quite brilliant as the elderly doctor with the young wife who the anonymous letters continually link to Rennie's character. Howard Koch wrote the screenplay. The cinematographer was Joseph LaShelle (Laura, The Apartment, Marty), so there was talent behind the camera. I can neither recommend or not recommend this picture. See it if curiosity leads you that way. It's not really a bad movie but not a very good one either.

A small Quebec town is rattled by a series of anonymous poison pen letters. Preminger takes a stab at Clouzot's LE CORBEAU (Clouzot himself being one of the finest purveyors of European noir, including LES DIABOLIQUES, THE WAGES OF FEAR and QUAI DES ORFEVRES). I don't recall the original very well, but I do know it had a more biting, cynical edge to it (as well as overt references to abortion, which of course was verboten under the Hays code) as opposed to the moodier tones found here. The subject matter is ripe for common noir themes like the fragility of civilized society and the darkness lurking beneath pleasant facades. Every performance is quite good, especially Michael Rennie and the sultry-as-ever Linda Darnell. The film keeps you guessing and keeps you interested, never playing a hand too soon. Although my copy was rather blurry, I could still appreciate the artful framing and use of light. The score is the weakest aspect, often laying on the strings too thick. Otherwise, quite a fine film.