The Letter (Wyler, 1940): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 3.45pm
This 35mm presentation, part of the BFI Bette Davis season, is also being screened on August 17th. Full details here.
Time Out review:
A superbly crafted melodrama, even if it never manages to top the moody
montage with which it opens - moon scudding behind clouds, rubber
dripping from a tree, coolies dozing in the compound, a startled
cockatoo - as a shot rings out, a man staggers out onto the verandah,
and Bette Davis follows to empty her gun grimly into his body. The contrivance
evident in Somerset Maugham's play during the investigation and trial that
follow is kept firmly at bay by William Wyler's technical expertise and terrific
performances (not just Davis, but James Stephenson as her conscience-ridden
lawyer), although Maugham's cynical thesis about the hypocrisies of
colonial justice is rather undercut by the addition of a pusillanimous
finale in which Davis gets her comeuppance at private hands. A pity,
too, that Tony Gaudio's camerawork, almost worthy of Von Sternberg in its
evocation of sultry Singapore nights and cool gin slings, is not matched
by natural sounds (on the soundtrack Max Steiner's score does a lot of busy underlining).
Tom Milne
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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