Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)
Country: US
Technical: bw 89m
Director: Max Ophuls
Cast: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians
Synopsis:
A seducer sleeps with a woman and then forgets her. She, however, carries a torch for him for years, until the day that he might just need her, when she writes him a letter.
Review:
Like a piece of mid-nineteenth century fiction (in fact a story by Stefan Zweig), Ophuls' film is one of those luscious expressive creations that would never have issued from Hollywood had it not been for all the European talent there. Devotedly he recreates that old Vienna Carol Reed would evoke but a year later in The Third Man, with magnificent locations including a wrought-iron staircase, the site of so many key scenes, a fountain with four proud lions, and the detail of half-melted snow and perfectly cobbled streets matching that of the cluttered interiors. Fontaine positively sparkles as the teenaged heroine, Jourdan is suitably charming, and the whole enterprise proves once again that novelettish material makes for superb cinema, its circular structure culminating in the succession of blissful memories making up the 'sortie', and without an ounce of fat in its eighty-odd minutes. Moments provided by the carriage driver and the major-domo ('The usual, sir?') are worthy of Maupassant - or Lubitsch.
Country: US
Technical: bw 89m
Director: Max Ophuls
Cast: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians
Synopsis:
A seducer sleeps with a woman and then forgets her. She, however, carries a torch for him for years, until the day that he might just need her, when she writes him a letter.
Review:
Like a piece of mid-nineteenth century fiction (in fact a story by Stefan Zweig), Ophuls' film is one of those luscious expressive creations that would never have issued from Hollywood had it not been for all the European talent there. Devotedly he recreates that old Vienna Carol Reed would evoke but a year later in The Third Man, with magnificent locations including a wrought-iron staircase, the site of so many key scenes, a fountain with four proud lions, and the detail of half-melted snow and perfectly cobbled streets matching that of the cluttered interiors. Fontaine positively sparkles as the teenaged heroine, Jourdan is suitably charming, and the whole enterprise proves once again that novelettish material makes for superb cinema, its circular structure culminating in the succession of blissful memories making up the 'sortie', and without an ounce of fat in its eighty-odd minutes. Moments provided by the carriage driver and the major-domo ('The usual, sir?') are worthy of Maupassant - or Lubitsch.
Country: US
Technical: bw 89m
Director: Max Ophuls
Cast: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians
Synopsis:
A seducer sleeps with a woman and then forgets her. She, however, carries a torch for him for years, until the day that he might just need her, when she writes him a letter.
Review:
Like a piece of mid-nineteenth century fiction (in fact a story by Stefan Zweig), Ophuls' film is one of those luscious expressive creations that would never have issued from Hollywood had it not been for all the European talent there. Devotedly he recreates that old Vienna Carol Reed would evoke but a year later in The Third Man, with magnificent locations including a wrought-iron staircase, the site of so many key scenes, a fountain with four proud lions, and the detail of half-melted snow and perfectly cobbled streets matching that of the cluttered interiors. Fontaine positively sparkles as the teenaged heroine, Jourdan is suitably charming, and the whole enterprise proves once again that novelettish material makes for superb cinema, its circular structure culminating in the succession of blissful memories making up the 'sortie', and without an ounce of fat in its eighty-odd minutes. Moments provided by the carriage driver and the major-domo ('The usual, sir?') are worthy of Maupassant - or Lubitsch.