Revisiting a "lost" classic: "The Letter" (1929)



Jeanne Eagels as murderous Leslie Crosbie in the original 1929 version of "The Letter"

If people today are at all familiar with a film titled "The Letter", they are more often than not thinking of the 1940 melodrama that starred Bette Davis as the wife of a Rubber Plantation manager who is put on trial for the murder of her former lover.  However, the Warner Archives Collection recently released for the first time on DVD the original 1929 version of "The Letter" which starred Jeanne Eagles in an Oscar nominated performance. 

Having seen the 1940 Davis version several times, I was already familiar with the plot and characters, yet found that despite my familiarity with the story, my interest was held, mainly due to the jittery, nervous performance of Eagels.  The film itself lasts barely an hour, and was obviously made during the transition from silent to sound pictures, as evidenced by the passages of silence and the lack of a music score (which is one of the most memorable things about the 1940 version). 

The basic plot is the same, however there are scenes in the 1929 version that didn't make it into the 1940 revamp.  Whereas the Davis version begins with the shooting of Geoffrey Hammond by Leslie Crosbie, in the Eagels version we are introduced to Leslie and her husband Robert (Reginald Owen) in their bungalow at the rubber plantation he owns.  And the intrigue about a letter that Leslie sent to Hammond on the night he was murdered is dealt with quickly, as we see Leslie write the letter and send it off with a servant after her husband goes into Singapore on business.

Another change is that in the latter version, Hammond has a Eurasian wife (played skillfully and practically silently by the wicked looking Gale Sondergaard).  In the first version, a Chinese woman who is his mistress lives with him, and she is seen intercepting the letter after Hammond leaves to meet Leslie on the ill-fated night.  When Hammond visits Leslie, she is interested in rekindling their romance, but he rejects her, causing the killing.  When on trial however, Leslie will claim that Hammond tried to attack her and that she shot him in self-defense.  In the 1929 version we see that this is not the case; in the 1940 version, we are asked to believe it without being shown the true events that occured in the Crosbie's bungalow between Leslie and Hammond.

Much of the drama in the latter version concerns a crisis of conscience on the part of Leslie's lawyer over buying the letter from Hammond's widow in order to save Leslie from a guilty verdict.  There is no such crisis in the original version, as the details of the letter are made quite plain, and Leslie goes to pay for it, spitting insults and vitriol at Hammond's mistress. 

Though the earlier film ends after Leslie's acquital, and her brutal confession to her husband about Hammond's death, by the time the film was remade in 1940, the Production Code demanded that Leslie Crosbie be punished for her act of violence, and so I was a bit disappointed that the 1929 version failed to include the suspenseful, moodily bleak epilogue where Leslie recieves her comeuppance at the hands of Mrs. Hammond in a moonlit courtyard. 

Herbert Marshall, who plays Geoff Hammond in the 1929 version, graduated to the role of Robert Crosbie by the time the remake was filmed in 1940, and I think he handles the latter role better than the earlier one.  Also, O.P. Heggie as the attorney, Joyce, doesn't make nearly the impression that James Stephenson did in the same role in the later film.  Alas, however, the success of the film ultimately depends on the portrayal of Leslie.  Now, I've always considered Bette Davis' performance in "The Letter" to be one of her stronger, less-mannered characterizations, and one that carries the film as a whole.  Taking nothing away from Davis, however, I have to admit that in 1929, Jeanne Eagels was amazing as Leslie Crosbie.  Granted, the actress had a notorious drug habit that would kill her soon after the picture was released (and before she got her Oscar nomination for it), but Eagels' Leslie is all edgy nerves and much more of a loose cannon than cool-headed Davis is in her performance.  It is regreftul that less than a handful of Eagels' film performances survive today, but it is a blessing that "The Letter" has been restored by Warner Archives so that the work of this amazing actress can be enjoyed now, over eight decades since the picture was filmed.