THE LETTER – Jeanne Eagels

The Letter (1929)
Direction: Jean de Limur
Screenplay: Garrett Fort, from W. Somerset Maugham’s 1927 play
Cast: Jeanne Eagels, O. P. Heggie, Reginald Owen, Herbert Marshall, Irene Browne, Lady Tsen Mei, Tamaki Yoshiwara

 
Having seen William Wyler’s masterful 1940 adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s The Letter and having read quite a bit about Broadway star Jeanne Eagels‘ remarkable talent, I was expecting to find at least a modicum of quality in Jean de Limur’s 1929 version of the tale. I was greatly disappointed even though the plot is basically the same as the one found in the Wyler version:
Stuck on a Malayan rubber plantation with her aloof older husband (Reginald Owen), British subject Leslie Crosbie (Eagels) finds affection in the person of [...]

by Andre Soares | September 14, 2004   
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IN OLD ARIZONA – Warner Baxter, Edmund Lowe

In Old Arizona (1928)
Direction: Raoul Walsh and Irving Cummings
Screenplay: Tom Barry; from O. Henry’s (aka William Sidney Porter) 1907 short story "The Caballero’s Way"
Cast: Edmund Lowe, Warner Baxter, Dorothy Burgess
 

 
TIRED IN THE SADDLE
What makes Irving Cummings and Raoul Walsh’s In Old Arizona (barely) watchable decades after its highly successful initial release is its sheer bizarreness. Technically, the picture, billed as the first outdoor talkie, is of interest solely as a museum piece. Despite the use of the American Southwest’s wide-open spaces as background, In Old Arizona is really not that different from other static, slow-moving, and poorly acted films of the period. From a thematic standpoint, however, this racy Western is a must-see because of its in-your-face pre-Production Code sensibility, [...]

by Andre Soares | September 14, 2004   
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