Ever since I saw a clip from this film in a documentary on television and had heard the host of the documentary clearly say that all the movies that had clips shown would be on that network, I had looked forward to seeing this one. I had a while to wait, because that documentary was a couple of years ago or so and this movie was shown today. It's my understanding that there was a good amount of music associated with this movie when it was released and you can kind of tell this because there are empty segments. Jeanne Eagles, the main reason I wanted to see this film, does a pretty good job overall. 1929 sound movies have a tendency to creek, but this one really doesn't. She is clearly the star of this vehicle. She shoots lover Herbert Marshall several times, killing him. She lies like a rug under oath at her trial, where she is found not guilty. She also informs husband Reginald Denny that she still loves her deceased lover, despite the fact that he informed her, shortly before being shot to death, that he did not love her even a little bit! Oh, and then there's the letter. She had written this to Marshall, but since he was dead, his Chinese housekeeper/mistress has it. Eventually, she has to pay the mistress $10,000 for the letter. Yes, there is racism in the film, but also racism in reverse. After the mistress receives the money, she drops it on the floor and when Jeanne stoops down to pick it up, the mistress says "White woman at Chinese woman's feet" to the delight of an assemblage of Chinese women behind bars. It's not a perfect film, and in some ways not worth that wait I mentioned earlier, but it's still quite watchable and has enough going for it for me to rate it a "7"
Review of The Letter
