The Letter (1940)

Directed by

William Wyler

Genre

drama film, film noir, crime film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 35m

Rated

NR

Rating

7.3 of 10 from 249 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A woman in a Malaysian rubber plantation shoots a man to death. She claims it was self defense but the evidence tells a different story.

tensemelancholicfast-pacedglamorousmoodysuspensefulnoirish

What happens

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; she 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. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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• Queen of the Mob (1940)
• Convicted Woman (1940)
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