Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)

Film: Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)
Stars: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan
Director: Max Ophuls
Oscar History: Somehow, despite this film's reputation, absolutely no Oscar nominations.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Few things stir my heart more than a film being referred to as a "forgotten classic."  I'm at the point in my cinematic journey where, if I'm going to see a truly great movie for the first time (and not have it be a new release), pretty much all of the films are going to have to be "forgotten classics," as the "celebrated classics" have all gotten a checkmark next to their name.  So last night, armed with a tub of popcorn and feeling a wee bit off (I think it's the lack of fresh air and exercise, something I hope to remedy today), I decided to see a film that I had heard spoken about in hushed tones by pretty much anyone who had seen it, but that wasn't a lot of people, and it's weirdly hard to find on streaming, TCM, or even Netflix DVD (I had to actually go out and purchase the DVD), and finally watched the celebrated Max Ophuls' film Letter from an Unknown Woman.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is chiefly a duet between Lisa Berndle (Fontaine), a young girl infatuated with a promising piano player named Stefan Brand (Jourdan) (though I loved Art Smith in the small role of Stefan's mute butler).  Lisa is a poor girl, infatuated with Stefan (and his many lovers), and clearly is madly in love with him in the way that we all can be on a first love.  When her mother marries a wealthy gentleman, giving Lisa a chance at respectability, she gives up the opportunity to marry a well-to-do young gentleman because she's still in love with Stefan, and runs back to Vienna, working as a model, but spending every night in front of Stefan's apartment.  One night he finally notices her, and he takes her on a remarkable date, charming her in the ways she'd always dreamed, and they have sex, which because this is a movie in the 1940's, obviously ends with her pregnant.  Rather than force him to marry her, she never tells him about their son, and marries an older man, who gives her a chance at the life her mother hoped for her.  Unfortunately, at one point she sees Stefan again, and though he doesn't remember her, she can't help but fall back in love with him, abandoning her marriage, and running to his side...and then realizing in a truly heartbreaking scene that he is never going to remember her, because what for her was the greatest moment of her life was for him just another conquest.  She leaves, she and her son die of typhus, and Stefan, after reading the letter of her life and realizing that he had a chance at a great love but let it slip away, goes to fight a duel with her jilted husband, his death near certain.

That's a lot of plot, and it's told in 86 minutes so you'd think there's not a lot of time to catch your breath, but Letter from an Unknown Woman is sly in that way.  The movie focuses almost exclusively on its two leads, and as a result the moments of sheer romance and tragedy in the film are heartily felt since they're the only two people you really know in the film (though, again, Art Smith's butler is top drawer).  As a result, the exquisite moments where Lisa gets to finally realize her romance are exceptional, a glorious fleeting glance where you feel like years of admiration were worth it.  They'll remind you of the most romantic moments of your life, whether those led to lifelong companionship or just warm memories.

The film wouldn't work if the two leads weren't fully committed to these roles.  Joan Fontaine hasn't been this good since Rebecca, and plays the gorgeous wallflower exquisitely.  Her Lisa is a woman of independence, but not necessarily pride-her only goal is to obtain more time with Stefan, which makes the moment when she realizes that he was not worthy of her love, that he was just a man and she was perhaps the extraordinary one, all the more damning.  This is some Grade-A "facial journey" acting from Fontaine, and I'm kind of stunned considering she was a big star at the time (and nominating her would have meant a sequel to the Fontaine/de Havilland Oscar feud since Olivia was cited that year for The Snake Pit) that this didn't land her an Oscar nomination; it surely should have.

The same can be said of Jourdan, who has never been better.  His Stefan is the less demanding role on paper, but it's also a challenge.  He has to make us fall in love with him, then earn that love, and then make us understand that he is only a man, but a man who realized too late the folly of his ways.  The scenes toward the end, where he breaks Fontaine's heart, and then has to confront his butler about whether "he remembered her" as Stefan finally did at the time-it's melodramatic and tear-inducing, but it's so enchanting.  Written by Howard Koch (who also wrote the ultimate Hollywood romance Casablanca), Stefan is a weak man more than he is a bad one, and Jourdan knows how to play such a nuanced part brilliantly.  Unlike Fontaine, Jourdan's role is not the type we'd normally see at the Oscars (the young, handsome guys were normally forced to wait a while), but he also deserved that citation, even in a particularly strong field for Best Actor (which also didn't have room for Humphrey Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, so Oscar screwed up twice that year).

Combined with a beautiful violin score and Franz Planer's moody cinematography, the biggest surprise for me of Letter from an Unknown Woman was not that it was briliant, but how is this a "forgotten classic."  How is a film so romantic, simple, elegant, and devastating not one that is instantly remembered?  If you haven't seen it & but love the movies, do yourself a favor and change that immediately.

The Bigamist (1953)

Film: The Bigamist (1953)
Stars: Joan Fontaine, Ida Lupino, Edmund O'Brien, Edmund Gwenn
Director: Ida Lupino
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Ida Lupino-click here to learn more about Ms. Lupino (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

This week we will conclude our month-long look at Ida Lupino.  Lupino has been a discovery for me throughout November, someone who I had heard of but never really followed, and only seen in a smattering of things like her TV spots on Batman and The Twilight Zone.  This month, I've really enjoyed finding an actress that genuinely didn't get her do in her era but was a particularly fine performer who frequently got saddled with less-than-inspiring scripts and storylines that were beneath her talents.  It's difficult to imagine what might have been if Lupino had been, say, given one or two the iconic roles that went to her peers Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, & Barbara Stanwyck, as she was clearly up for a Mildred Pierce or Double Indemnity if it suited her.  Unlike most actresses we've profiled who started to migrate away from screens when the parts got lousy, Lupino took her fate into her own hand, becoming the only significant female film director of the Classical Hollywood era.  We likely could have devoted a whole additional month to Lupino's work behind-the-camera, but this is a series that is focusing on stars in front of the camera, so we will only profile one of her directorial achievements: The Bigamist, a 1953 picture that made history as the first Hollywood studio film to have the same woman both on the screen and in the director's chair.  As a result, Lupino was a trailblazer for women such as Barbra Streisand, Jodie Foster, Angelina Jolie, & Diane Keaton who would also star in their own directorial achievements.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film gives Fontaine & Lupino top billing, but the titular and main character is Edmund O'Brien's Harry Graham, a seemingly mild-mannered salesman who is trying to adopt a child with his confident, businesswoman wife Eve (Fontaine).  While investigating them for whether they'd make good parents, the adoption officer Mr. Jordan (Gwenn) discovers that Harry has been leading a double life, and is in fact married to another woman named Phyllis (Lupino), with whom he has a young son.  Repulsed, Mr. Jordan initially wants to contact the police, but Harry insists that he hear his story, and in it we learn that he is a man who was in a stilted marriage, and who genuinely fell in love with another woman, got her pregnant, and then married her to "do the honorable thing."  Despite Mr. Jordan forgiving him, Harry feels the need to come clean, and the film ends with an unusual amount of ambiguity, as while the judge is sympathetic to Harry, he passionately calls out that it will be the women in his life who will decide his ultimate fate, and both women don't show their leanings before the end card scans (and for the record, neither does the judge as we don't know what he'll sentence).  We're left with a lot of heartache, but no answers from Eve or Phyllis if either will take back the man who lied to them, but lied because he genuinely loved them both.

The movie is short, and was a blip of a picture when it was first released.  RKO was initially going to release the film, but dropped out (perhaps because of the movie's touchy subject matter, a trait of Lupino's as a director as she'd also discuss rape in Outrage and serial killers in The Hitch-Hiker, both of which caused her headaches with censors), and so Lupino's production company had to release the film themselves.  Even with several big name stars, that's a tall task for a minor studio with a pioneering director.

It probably helped Lupino, though, in selling the film that it's really good.  The Bigamist handles its subject matter with a calm, level-headed demeanor, proving that while there are complicated feelings and attitudes here, there are no villains here.  Harry never blames Eve's infertility or her ambition for being the reason he stepped out on her (he tries on occasion, but the movie is quick to deter him from blaming his wife for her own career).  The movie also doesn't make Phyllis out to be a harlot or some sort of gold-digger; if anything, they underline that she didn't want to get married and is willing to have their baby as a single mother, not wanting to "marry him that way."  It feels a bit sexist of me to attribute this care to Lupino's gender, the way that she is able to have both Eve and Phyllis be real, fully-fleshed women who have their own pursuits but still are in love with the same man.  After all, other directors like Nicholas Ray were able to have this sort of sensitivity for their characters.  But it's perhaps more telling the way that Lupino handles the behind-the-screen scenes as a director with a long history as an actor, as she makes sure to use her performer's natural gifts (O'Brien's everyman lunkheaded charm, Fontaine's casual elegance, Lupino's brash initial standoffishness) to aid her story.  The Bigamist is proof that Lupino was a damned fine director, and it's hard not to imagine what she would have accomplished given a bigger budget and more sway from the powers-that-be.

Instead, The Bigamist would be Lupino's penultimate directorial achievement, and the last one of the 1950's.  She'd continue starring in the occasional noir film (including While the City Sleeps which we looked at for Rhonda Fleming's month), but mostly migrated to television as an actress and a director.  She'd only make one more feature film, the 1966 Columbia movie The Trouble with Angels with Rosalind Russell & Hayley Mills.  Next month, we will conclude our first season of "Saturdays with the Stars" with one last starlet, a Hollywood actress who also turned her stint in the movies into more memorable success in other fields.

Jane Eyre (1944)

Film: Jane Eyre (1944)
Stars: Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine, Margaret O'Brien, Peggy Ann Garner, John Sutton, Sara Allgood, Agnes Moorehead, Elizabeth Taylor
Director: Robert Stevenson
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine, had she made it just a few years longer would have turned 100 years old last week, and while I was too busy prepping for NaNoWriMo to do something on the actual day, I felt it was worth acknowledging her as an actress after such a centennial.  Fontaine, in my eyes, has always paled in respect to her sister, Joan being an actress who had a brief moment of major stardom (where she scooped up a trio of Oscar nominations), and then spent the rest of her career being perhaps more infamous for a feud than anything else.  But Fontaine was a fine actress, and as it was about to leave FilmStruck I decided to catch Jane Eyre for the first time, watching Fontaine's "plain" young governess fall madly in love with the complicated, tortured Edward Rochester, played most appropriately by Orson Welles.

(Spoilers Ahead...though seriously, you haven't read Jane Eyre?) It should be stated right up-front that Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorite books.  I've read it a couple of times, and it's nearly impossible to put down.  Charlotte Bronte paints a tough, feminist icon in the form of her titular heroine, and it's really one of those stories like Great Expectations or Pride & Prejudice that is almost impossible to screw up, it's so compelling.  Still, though, I'd seen other versions that were remarkable (particularly the 2011 version with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender), and was curious to see what one with such an expansive cast would achieve.

All-in-all, I didn't leave disappointed.  I won't recap the plot that much (it's such a famous story), but the movie takes great care in the earlier chapters to portray Jane as a young woman in a way that I don't think I've seen before onscreen.  Peggy Ann Garner, as the young Jane, is marvelous in this role.  She would the following year win an Honorary Oscar for her brilliant work in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but here she's nearly its equal, headstrong and defiant while very real.  It's rare to see someone steal scenes from Elizabeth Taylor (who plays her doomed childhood friend Helen), but Garner is truly excellent-it's a pity she never got to contend for a competitive Oscar in her career, as she more than earned a nomination.

The romance between Fontaine and Welles is very good.  I'd say that Fontaine sometimes under-emotes, but there's something lost in her eyes and her mannerisms, the way that she clings to relevance through Adele (O'Brien), and how she manages to be both defiant and wear the weight of the world on her shoulders that I found quite captivating.  Welles as Rochester may be typecasting, but he's such a good actor it's hard to argue with such a decision.  His Rochester has occasional charm, but is brooded in his undying passion for Jane and the secrets he quite literally keeps in the attic.  The movie doesn't shy away from the novel's gothic exterior, and while so much of its genius comes from Charlotte Bronte (the script adds little that isn't there on the page), that's a minor quibble for such a grand translation.  Honestly-this may well be my favorite interpretation of the book, and considering how often this has made it to the big-screen, that's saying something.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  What version of Bronte's masterpiece do you think is the best big-screen adaptation?  What do you think is the best work of Joan Fontaine's career?  And why don't more film historians talk about the excellent childhood performances of Peggy Ann Garner?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: Quality Street (1937)

Film: Quality Street (1937)
Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Franchot Tone, Fay Bainter, Eric Blore, Cora Witherspoon
Director: George Stevens
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Score)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Growing up, one of my favorite discoveries was the fact that Katharine Hepburn is at her best when she's funny.  Between Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story, Hepburn surpassed her finest dramatic work and gave, in my opinion, her two very best performances.  This revelation was followed in turn by disappointment when it became apparent that these also happen to be two of the best films ever made, and Hepburn would occasionally flounder into overacting when given less structured or elegant humor.  As a result, I was not expecting Quality Street to bewitch me so ferociously when I caught it recently.  The film, based on JM Barrie's play, is a delight from start to finish, and features some prime Hepburn comedy.

(Spoilers Ahead) The plot to the picture itself is simple enough.  We have Phoebe (Hepburn), a young woman of some means who is in search of a bachelor, desperately in love with the local doctor, Valentine Brown (Tone).  Phoebe, however, cannot seem to tell Dr. Brown how she feels, and when he says he's off to fight in the Napoleonic Wars (when she thought he would propose), she assumes a life of spinsterhood.  Ten years pass, and Phoebe is dressed as an old maid, which surprises Dr. Brown, who says she's aged more than she expected, to which she's rightfully furious.  Phoebe then dresses in a beautiful gown and makeup, making herself look younger and passes herself off as her imaginary niece Livy.  Shenanigans ensue as Dr. Brown first is smitten with Livy, then realizes that he's actually in love with Phoebe, and all the while Phoebe and her sister Susan (Bainter) are trying to stave off the neighbors, who are certain that Phoebe and Livy are one-and-the-same.

If it sounds ridiculous, that's because it is.  The movie's plot is thin, and it's hard to imagine Dr. Brown not realizing instantly that Livy is Phoebe in disguise.  But once you move beyond that, this movie is actually quite delightful.  Hepburn and Tone are fine together, but it's really her chemistry with Bainter that sells the movie.  I loved every second of them trying to pull a fast one on their nosy neighbors, and their conviction that they will be able to both maintain the ruse and perhaps make their neighbors look the fools is marvelous.  Honestly-the film is filled with such lovely and delightful touches (even a very early-in-her-career cameo from Joan Fontaine), and at 83 minutes is deliciously spry, that you don't really care if you know exactly where it's going every step of the way.  Chart this one up in the Kate Hepburn comedic win column.

The film received one Oscar nomination, one of those truly random nominations for music that seemed to happen so often in the 1930's and 40's when studios could basically buy a nomination in the category there were so many nominees.  The actual score is omnipresent, accompanying almost every angle with bouncy strings and a playful attitude.  It's hardly groundbreaking or iconic, but it fits the movie itself like a glove, and it also led me to a picture I probably would have never seen otherwise (thus is the joy of the Oscar Viewing Project even if it thrusts upon me a movie like Suicide Squad in the same breath), so I'm grateful for the nomination even if it feels somewhat unearned.

Those are my thoughts on this charming little picture-has anyone else seen it?  If so, share your thoughts, and if not, please give me some of your favorite Kate Hepburn performances, either dramatic or comedic!