The Letter
The Letter is a 1940 American crime film noir melodrama directed by William Wyler, and starring Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall and James Stephenson. The screenplay by Howard E. Koch is based on the 1927 play of the same name by W. Somerset Maugham derived from his own short story. The play was first filmed in 1929, by director Jean de Limur. The story was inspired by a real-life scandal involving the Eurasian wife of the headmaster of a school in Kuala Lumpur who was convicted in a murder trial after shooting dead a male friend in April 1911. She was pardoned by the local sultan after a public furor.
Plot
Leslie Crosbie, the wife of a British rubber plantation manager in Malaya, shoots dead Geoffrey Hammond, a well-known member of the expatriate community. Leslie tells the servant to send for the new district officer and her husband Robert, who is loading rubber for shipment. Crosbie returns, delivered by his attorney, a close family friend. Leslie claims that she killed Hammond to save her honor.
More details
| author | Howard Koch William Somerset Maugham |
|---|---|
| contentLocation | Singapore |
| director | William Wyler |
| editor | George Amy Warren Low |
| genre | crime drama |
| keywords | attorney british malaya expatriate family friend fresh start grabbed from behind jail kill malaya open read rubber plantation shoot sumatra |
| musicBy | Max Steiner |
| nomination | Academy Award for Best Actress Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White Academy Award for Best Director Academy Award for Best Film Editing Academy Award for Best Original Score Academy Award for Best Picture Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor |
| producer | Hal B. Wallis |
| publisher | Warner Bros. |
| theme | melodrama noir |