USA drama
1948
bw 89 min.
Director: Max Ophuls
CLV: $49.95 - available
           1 disc, catalog # CC1293L
If Max Ophuls hadn't cooled his heels in Hollywood to flee the Nazis,
his name might have conjured only the most unintelligible of foreign
cinema -- vague and inaccessible to the average American filmgoer. But
in 1948 Ophuls was given an opportunity to display his legendary
technique in a movie no one would have trouble understanding, the
indulgently romantic Letter from an Unknown Woman.
From the first moment that Joan Fontaine's eponymous unknown woman
begins to speak -- "By the time you receive this letter, I may be
dead" -- we're hooked on this hypnotic tale of fatal attraction,
adapted from a novel by Stefan Zweig. Ophuls lovingly recreates
turn-of-the-century Vienna on a studio backlot: the opera, the
rathskellars, the toffee vendors, snow-covered Prater Park complete
with wax works and a magical rolling-canvas cyclorama ride. It's an
ideally moody locale for a story bathed in the wintry light of
memory. Ophuls' artistry is such that the transparent theatricality of
the sets only enhances the film's old-world aura, while toying with
the idea of life as illusion.
Letter from an Unknown Woman begins on the eve of a duel,
introducing the dashing, philandering and now aging pianist Stefan
Brand (Louis Jordan) as he assures his mute servant (the Group
Theater's Art Smith) that he is in no danger -- "Honor is a luxury
only gentlemen can afford." In the subsequent flashback, which
occupies virtually the entire film, Brand is faced with the bitter
irony of his life. In a written deathbed confession, Lisa Berndle
(Joan Fontaine) recounts her lifelong unrequited love for him -- first
as a shy teenage neighbor who swoons as he practices his solos, then
as a young woman whom he seduces and abandons. Years later,
comfortably married for the security it provides to his child, she
risks everything by offering herself to him one last time.
By the end of this movie-length denouement, Brand has realized that
the tragically, at times pathetically, devoted Lisa embodied the
unobtainable muse-like love he has always sought. But as in the best
tearjerkers, it's too late. Most of the time, Ophuls manages to rescue
the film from abject melodrama, offsetting Lisa's desperate lack of
humor with a parade of comic characters -- the cyclorama cyclist and
his wife, the all-female string quartet, Lisa's fluttery mother, the
conspiratorial maitre d' -- who reveal Ophuls' sophisticated, cynical
vision.
What might sound like a libretto for an opera is surprisingly
effective through the combination of Howard Koch's witty and literate
script, Daniele Amfitheatrof's lush score with its haunting theme, and
Ophuls' European sensibility (realized through his reunion with
cinematographer Franz Planer, who had shot Ophuls' first great German
success, Liebelei). Joan Fontaine, consummating her celebrated knack
for playing the awkward girl-on-the-verge-of-womanhood (as seen in
Rebecca and Jane Eyre), gives one of the most sustained
performances of her career. As for Louis Jordan, Letter from an
Unknown Woman was his second American film, and although producer
John Houseman felt he lacked "sex," he does bring a blend of intellect
and narcissism to the role and captures all of Stefan's facile charm.
Houseman claims that he and Ophuls often came close to blows over
the director's time-consuming obsession with elaborate camera
movements. (James Mason, who starred in two other Ophuls films, was
inspired to write: "A shot that does not call for tracks/Is agony for
poor dear Max, Who, separated from his dolly, Is wrapped in deepest
melancholy./Once, when they took away his crane,/I thought he'd never
smile again.") Nonetheless, Houseman and Ophuls were both thrilled
with the results. But the critics and audiences of 1948 rejected the
film, and the studio abandoned it as callously as Stefan did Lisa --
even misspelling the director's name as "Opuls" in the credits. Dumped
on the market by Universal, the film vanished from sight.
Ophuls made two more Hollywood films before returning to Europe,
where in 1950 he finally received long-delayed international
recognition with La Ronde, like Liebelei based on a play by
Schnitzler and set in 1900 Vienna. He had a successful run of movies,
but like the protagonist of one of his own films, fate threw him a
curve. The overly ambitious Lola Montes destroyed his
credibility and his health. He died in 1957, and until this Criterion
Collection edition, the shimmering Letter from an Unknown Woman
has been available only in chopped-up, wee-hour TV slots.
--
CHARLES DENNIS
Credits
Directed by: Max Ophuls
Produced by: John Houseman
Musical Score: Daniele Amfitheatrof
Screenplay by: Howard Koch
Director of Photography: Franz Planer, A.S.C.
Art Direction: Alexander Golitzen
Transfer
This edition of Letter from an Unknown Woman was transferred
digitally from a 35mm fine grain print and the original camera
negative.