***The Girl With The Bette Davis Eyes- Somerset Maugham’s “The Letter”-A Film Review
DVD Review
The Letter, starring Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, directed by William Wyler, based on a play by Somerset Maugham, Warner Brothers, 1940
Not every black and white film is a noir and not every crime noir has a femme fatale although in both cases many are. Nor are all films based on the work of world literature figures like Somerset Maugham (although his reputation has been eclipsed somewhat since his 1920s-1930s heyday when he produced classics like The Razor’s Edge and Of Human Bondage). But the film under review, The Letter, is all of them, kind of. Sure the black and white crime noir is present although with a more than usual amount of melodramatic moments, and as noted so is the world literature authorship.
The real question is the femme fatale aspect. Now Bette Davis was an extremely fine actress during her 1940s and 1950s heyday (and earlier as well in such beauties as The Petrified Forest) but she never struck me as a femme fatale like Lana Turner, Lauren Bacall and Rita Hayworth. You know leaving the guys gasping for breath, and asking for more. No question in this role as the put-upon and isolated wife of a owner of a rubber plantation in pre-war (pre-World War II war to be precise) in colonial British Malaysia scorned by a wayward lover she matches any femme fatale with a quick, too quick, trigger finger when things don’t go her way. She certainly could use her wiles, feminine or otherwise, to get out from under the law, British colonial style. And she was just psycho enough to stand one’s hair on edge. But a lot of her actions (and frankly Davis’ performance) are just too mawkish to root for.
Maybe a little sketch of the plot will illustrate the point. As the film opens Ms. Davis is firing away with that old root-a-toot-toot like crazy at that scornful lover (Hammond by name) mentioned above. No question she is a classic murder one case, and let’s just wrap it up and ship her off to some English prison. Right. But she has a story; a fantastic story on its face about a known intruder making sexual advances to her while her husband is away. Moreover this is the 1930s colonial outback of the Empire and Bette is the proper wife of a stand-up rubber plantation owner (played by Herbert Marshall).
Needless to say, outback or not, murder is murder and the wheels of justice must grind along. A mere formality if her story holds up, a quick trial and she will be free. Except a certain letter, and hence the title of the piece, shows up in mid-plot from her to the intruder. Seems they were lovers, that she had been scorned, and that moreover he had picked up an inconvenient wife, a Eurasian wife to boot. Said letter was in possession of the wife who had her own ax to grind after Bette put six in her husband. A deal between Bette’s compromised lawyer and the wife suppressed this piece of key evidence that would convict Bette.
Bette thereafter was acquitted. Legally acquitted. But you know how those Eurasian women are. That was not to be the end of it. Naturally between a woman scorned and a woman bereft of her companion-lover something has to give. And instead of getting the hell out of town on the first boat, canoe or raft like any real femme fatale our Bette just steps into her fatal fate. See what I mean.
DVD Review
The Letter, starring Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, directed by William Wyler, based on a play by Somerset Maugham, Warner Brothers, 1940
Not every black and white film is a noir and not every crime noir has a femme fatale although in both cases many are. Nor are all films based on the work of world literature figures like Somerset Maugham (although his reputation has been eclipsed somewhat since his 1920s-1930s heyday when he produced classics like The Razor’s Edge and Of Human Bondage). But the film under review, The Letter, is all of them, kind of. Sure the black and white crime noir is present although with a more than usual amount of melodramatic moments, and as noted so is the world literature authorship.
The real question is the femme fatale aspect. Now Bette Davis was an extremely fine actress during her 1940s and 1950s heyday (and earlier as well in such beauties as The Petrified Forest) but she never struck me as a femme fatale like Lana Turner, Lauren Bacall and Rita Hayworth. You know leaving the guys gasping for breath, and asking for more. No question in this role as the put-upon and isolated wife of a owner of a rubber plantation in pre-war (pre-World War II war to be precise) in colonial British Malaysia scorned by a wayward lover she matches any femme fatale with a quick, too quick, trigger finger when things don’t go her way. She certainly could use her wiles, feminine or otherwise, to get out from under the law, British colonial style. And she was just psycho enough to stand one’s hair on edge. But a lot of her actions (and frankly Davis’ performance) are just too mawkish to root for.
Maybe a little sketch of the plot will illustrate the point. As the film opens Ms. Davis is firing away with that old root-a-toot-toot like crazy at that scornful lover (Hammond by name) mentioned above. No question she is a classic murder one case, and let’s just wrap it up and ship her off to some English prison. Right. But she has a story; a fantastic story on its face about a known intruder making sexual advances to her while her husband is away. Moreover this is the 1930s colonial outback of the Empire and Bette is the proper wife of a stand-up rubber plantation owner (played by Herbert Marshall).
Needless to say, outback or not, murder is murder and the wheels of justice must grind along. A mere formality if her story holds up, a quick trial and she will be free. Except a certain letter, and hence the title of the piece, shows up in mid-plot from her to the intruder. Seems they were lovers, that she had been scorned, and that moreover he had picked up an inconvenient wife, a Eurasian wife to boot. Said letter was in possession of the wife who had her own ax to grind after Bette put six in her husband. A deal between Bette’s compromised lawyer and the wife suppressed this piece of key evidence that would convict Bette.
Bette thereafter was acquitted. Legally acquitted. But you know how those Eurasian women are. That was not to be the end of it. Naturally between a woman scorned and a woman bereft of her companion-lover something has to give. And instead of getting the hell out of town on the first boat, canoe or raft like any real femme fatale our Bette just steps into her fatal fate. See what I mean.
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