‘The Letter’ 1940, with Bette Davis. ‘The Letter’ 1940 movie: Bette Davis superb in masterful studio era production Directed by William Wyler and adapted by Howard Koch from W. Somerset Maugham’s 1927 play, The Letter is one of the very best films made during the…
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The Letter movie with Jeanne Eagels and Herbert Marshall Having watched William Wyler’s masterful 1940 film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s 1927 play The Letter and having read quite a bit about Broadway star Jeanne Eagels’ remarkable talent, I was expecting to find at least…
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The Hands That Bilked America: To not choose the revolutionary Citizen Kane as the Best Motion Picture of 1941 is to commit an unforgivable act of cinematic sacrilege. Courageously (or perhaps madly), I dare to choose another film: William Wyler’s retelling of Lillian Hellman’s scathing…
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Blonde Venus is my favorite of the Marlene Dietrich-Josef von Sternberg collaborations. This 1932 melodrama has it all. The film begins with the ever-dull and wooden Herbert Marshall as an American soldier in Germany during World War I. At one point, he and his troops…