What a Character: Gladys Cooper

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyB0yH45P_indI81lJO_HFurOVhcQ2ASNCHBiis3m0N4umZ1Ii8WVGACNioJXrWjVBv3ENY970Oarxj9_DVJRlKu_yuVTpgZ5qepnTPAnloKqSShE_gWvKQt25ayavREspbplQyFIv0FQ/s1600/Gladys_Collage+2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyB0yH45P_indI81lJO_HFurOVhcQ2ASNCHBiis3m0N4umZ1Ii8WVGACNioJXrWjVBv3ENY970Oarxj9_DVJRlKu_yuVTpgZ5qepnTPAnloKqSShE_gWvKQt25ayavREspbplQyFIv0FQ/s1600/Gladys_Collage+2.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>The <b>What a Character! </b>blogathon is in progress now, hosted by </i><b>Once Upon a Screen</b><i>, </i><b>Outspoken and Freckled</b><i> and </i><b>Paula's Cinema Club</b><i>. <a href="http://aurorasginjoint.com/2013/11/06/what-a-character-blogathon-schedule/"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Click here</span></a> for more information and links to participating blogs. My entry for the event follows...</i> </span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">~</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5JKYogDfkPFzxqs5oCs_kRiSpXg3vvu_Rk7Z4XCyJK9gub1g7-aswQ3003a-8UX7MqoXviDFk4B8Zr5zZoy9JpMEu-Aop0r_uXpM6yf2dJlawhV6mp_RzSCRhveBRKaPFm_dl0aSXl7E/s1600/Gladys_model2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5JKYogDfkPFzxqs5oCs_kRiSpXg3vvu_Rk7Z4XCyJK9gub1g7-aswQ3003a-8UX7MqoXviDFk4B8Zr5zZoy9JpMEu-Aop0r_uXpM6yf2dJlawhV6mp_RzSCRhveBRKaPFm_dl0aSXl7E/s320/Gladys_model2.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Young Gladys</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She was a beautiful child, wide-eyed and wistful, who began modeling at age six; during World War I she was the favorite 'picture postcard' pin-up of British troops; she went on tour in a musical at age 17 and by the time she neared 40 she was a star of the London stage. In 1940, at age 51, she began working as a character actress in Hollywood and would, over the course of the next three decades, earn three Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Her name was Gladys Cooper and she is best remembered for her performance as Bette Davis's cruel, steel-willed mother, Mrs. Vale, in <i>Now, Voyager</i>...</span><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Q6KD7DATyj0" width="420"></iframe> </div><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gladys Cooper and Alfred Hitchcock launched their careers in Hollywood at the same time on the same film - <a href="http://eves-reel-life.blogspot.com/2011/11/chill-in-air-part-i.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i>Rebecca</i></span></a> (1940). Cooper's was the small role of a tweedy aristocrat, the sister of Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), who offered warmth and kindness to the beleaguered second Mrs. de Winter (Joan Fontaine). <i>Rebecca</i>, Selznick Pictures' follow up to <i>Gone with the Wind</i>, took the year's Best Picture Oscar and put Cooper (not to mention Hitchcock, Fontaine and Olivier) on the Hollywood map. Her obvious talent and commanding presence brought two less sympathetic roles next: Dennis Morgan's disapproving socialite mother in <i>Kitty Foyle</i> (1940) and the spurned wife of Laurence Olivier in <i>That Hamilton <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTyxnZ215_mm8L7eLYjfHK1ajlzGUiFsj9ZFwLRBamVugdaZBVcsABi7AIsJGMsxXMQG_si4y93L6pu0H1Q59Ak9Dt7nVn-7b98mjxwzio8wyQW16Rm5p5kh9yZpKlqRvyFJmg5pydd7c/s1600/Gladys_Morgan_GDS.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTyxnZ215_mm8L7eLYjfHK1ajlzGUiFsj9ZFwLRBamVugdaZBVcsABi7AIsJGMsxXMQG_si4y93L6pu0H1Q59Ak9Dt7nVn-7b98mjxwzio8wyQW16Rm5p5kh9yZpKlqRvyFJmg5pydd7c/s320/Gladys_Morgan_GDS.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Gladys Cooper and Frank Morgan in <i>Green Dolphin Street</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table>Woman </i>(1941). Her facility in these roles paved the way for Cooper to be cast as the villain in <i>Now, Voyager</i>. She earned her first Oscar nomination in 1942 for her portrayal of this archetypal <a href="http://www.classicfilmtvcafe.com/2010/01/this-weeks-poll-whos-your-mommie.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;">devouring mother</span></a>. The following year she earned her second nomination as Sister Marie Therese, a severe and punishing nun in <i>The Song of Bernadette </i>(1943).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Typecast? Yes and no. Cooper was fortunate (and versatile) enough to be cast in sympathetic roles - in <i>Mr. Lucky </i>(1943), <i>The White Cliffs of Dover </i>(1944), <i>The Valley of Decision </i>(1945), <i>Green Dolphin Street </i>(1947) and other popular films - but she was as often cast as uppercrust autocrats. In 1947, she brought one of her most memorable wealthy dowagers to the screen as Mrs. Hamilton in the holiday fantasy <i>The Bishop's Wife</i>. This time, though, there was a twist; the imperious widow's hardened heart<i> </i>was melted by no less an angel than Cary Grant - giving Cooper the rare chance to render both harsh and tender facets of her character. </span><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKFLygBLTIvGFgELzYhligaE67sSh4cfOGtLXV16TCaCw5aEA7i_5lWRpyhaoMAu4hDQLMudxz7gY1HXE-J0lmZKLs-VIG_h_s2miioeyivdknBNcq0LecNNxvmgfIUM46vjPtRHH6rPI/s1600/Bishop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKFLygBLTIvGFgELzYhligaE67sSh4cfOGtLXV16TCaCw5aEA7i_5lWRpyhaoMAu4hDQLMudxz7gY1HXE-J0lmZKLs-VIG_h_s2miioeyivdknBNcq0LecNNxvmgfIUM46vjPtRHH6rPI/s400/Bishop.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Gladys Cooper and Cary Grant, <i>The Bishop's Wife</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The 1950s brought the actress far more work on television that in films, but she would add one more notable ill-tempered and overbearing mother to her gallery of silver screen harridans. Maude Railton-Bell, her role in Delbert Mann's <i>Separate Tables</i> (1958), doesn't command the wealth or position of Mrs. Vale of the "Boston Vales," but she does maintain the same kind of suffocating stranglehold on her dowdy spinster daughter (Deborah Kerr).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gladys Cooper's credits during TV's early, golden days are impressive. She appeared on two legendary drama anthologies, <i>The Alcoa Hour</i> and <i>Playhouse 90</i>; she was featured on both <i>Alfred Hitchcock Presents</i> and <i>The Alfred Hitchcock Hour</i>; she guested on <i>The Ann Sothern Show, Naked City</i>, <i>The Outer Limits</i>, <i>Burkes Law</i>, <i>Ben Casey</i>, <i>The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. </i>(!) and was nominated for a <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdM9W5Usi3ZEHfm0dUqUxUwafY1UcYZG1E-OHVwFnf1KG92Ndd7daH_NBQhc_5CmuI9qvDjft2socy9veDpoOjDy8qKEYWCGBEH8M3BT6T4kkniim0mofDX_IzIOstlZawbhTQhHifBcE/s1600/Rogues.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdM9W5Usi3ZEHfm0dUqUxUwafY1UcYZG1E-OHVwFnf1KG92Ndd7daH_NBQhc_5CmuI9qvDjft2socy9veDpoOjDy8qKEYWCGBEH8M3BT6T4kkniim0mofDX_IzIOstlZawbhTQhHifBcE/s320/Rogues.JPG" width="299" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>The Rogues</i></span> </td></tr></tbody></table>1964 primetime Emmy for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057782/"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i>The Rogues</i></span></a>, a crime caper series in which she </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">co-starred with Charles Boyer, David Niven, Gig Young and Robert Coote</span>. Most often talked about among her many TV performances, though, are her appearances on the venerable series, <i>The</i> <i>Twilight Zone</i>. Cooper first appeared in a haunting 1962 episode entitled "Nothing in the Dark," in which she portrayed an elderly woman utterly terrified of death (personified by fledgling actor Robert Redford). Her second guest spot came the following year when she played one of several elderly travelers who have booked "Passage on the Lady Anne." Finally, later in 1963, came "Night Call," directed by Jacques Tourneur, in which she starred solo as an elderly woman who lives alone and begins to receive unnerving, anonymous phone calls.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now in her mid-70s, Gladys Cooper still had a last good film or two ahead of her. She was a member of John Huston's illustrious cast in <i>The List of Adrian Messenger </i>(1963) and earned her third and final Academy Award nomination for her performance as Mrs. Higgins, mother of Henry (<a href="http://eves-reel-life.blogspot.com/2013/08/summer-under-stars-unfaithfully-rex.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Rex Harrison</span></a>), in the Oscar-winning musical, <i>My Fair Lady </i>(1964).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And that's not all. Before she embarked on her Hollywood career, Cooper had starred on Broadway several times. She returned to the New York stage in her late career and earned Tony nominations in her final two roles. She was nominated for Best Actress in a Play in 1956 for her performance in <i>The Chalk Garden</i> and again in 1962 for her performance in <i>A Passage to India</i> (in a role that would bring an Oscar to Peggy Ashcroft 20+ years later).</span><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGnBwKCYAxxIDxN7jI9LjjQnCEx-7uGTqDUv1fjUVrozPrl3_pjkk34qWF0pK5G07dbtmgplrFW0yR1pUqLNhV1YTRJ7NKe_Ec5uUQi5Rk4DdzbqOIwD8wiWAOxGvBX8uo7fVzAtucVkI/s1600/chalk_garden_revival.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGnBwKCYAxxIDxN7jI9LjjQnCEx-7uGTqDUv1fjUVrozPrl3_pjkk34qWF0pK5G07dbtmgplrFW0yR1pUqLNhV1YTRJ7NKe_Ec5uUQi5Rk4DdzbqOIwD8wiWAOxGvBX8uo7fVzAtucVkI/s400/chalk_garden_revival.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Gladys Cooper (center) in a 1971 revival of <i>The Chalk Garden</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At last, in 1967, as she approached 80, Gladys Cooper was named a Dame of the British Empire. Her life in the public eye had begun because of the great beauty with which she was naturally endowed; she was long considered the most beautiful woman in England. But Cooper was blessed with more than looks, she had striking talent and presence and profound devotion to her craft. The blush of youthful beauty would, as it always does, fade, but her power as an actress only matured and deepened through the years. Dame Gladys Cooper had been about to embark on a Canadian tour with a revival of <i>The Chalk Garden </i>in 1971 when she was stricken with pneumonia and died. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bette Davis was set to tape a guest appearance on <a href="http://dickcavettshow.com/"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i>The Dick Cavett Show</i></span></a> when she learned of Gladys Cooper's death; she shared her thoughts during the interview: </span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">  </span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4wsgpF-InEY" width="420"></iframe></div>

Gladys Cooper Now Voyager The Bishop's Wife The Lady Eve (author) What a Character What a Character: Gladys Cooper

The What a Character! blogathon is in progress now, hosted by Once Upon a Screen, Outspoken and Freckled and Paula's Cinema Club. Click here for more information and links to participating blogs. My entry for the event follows... ~Young GladysShe was…

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William Wyler's "The Letter" (1940) - Starting with a Bang

<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk4MyE-ab_UvbiKxDTOS3DHYQCAGj7pZG9GohNAaZXZ7NjJqtDDKiaBpNaFWd1_dEGDWmjAHj2lGvWoZtsBKaF5fEElZvsLmSUxLnmf9qtoYo4Vsf0irQOfXS7sUDFApuT0MuvUUCPTBBj/s1600/bette+in+full+lace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk4MyE-ab_UvbiKxDTOS3DHYQCAGj7pZG9GohNAaZXZ7NjJqtDDKiaBpNaFWd1_dEGDWmjAHj2lGvWoZtsBKaF5fEElZvsLmSUxLnmf9qtoYo4Vsf0irQOfXS7sUDFApuT0MuvUUCPTBBj/s1600/bette+in+full+lace.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">  </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>This piece is my contribution for The Movie Projector's blogathon in honor of William Wyler. <a href="http://themovieprojector.blogspot.com/p/wm-wyler-blogathon.html" style="color: #cc0000;">Click here</a> for more information and links to participating blogs.</i><br /><br />Of director William Wyler, Bette Davis once declared, “It was <i>he</i> who helped me realize my full potential as an actress.” Of the actress, Wyler would recall, “She was a director’s dream.” Together they made three very popular and critically acclaimed Hollywood films. The pair first collaborated on the 1938 Warner Bros. production of <i>Jezebel</i>. For her performance Bette Davis won the second of her two Best Actress Academy Awards. Davis was sorely disappointed that Wyler had not received a Best Director nod for his work on the film and would later credit her Oscar-winning portrayal to him, “It was all Wyler,” she wrote.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTbM5WKKKgZHX72tpomrUSKppxwo7FGDJJVR4TsSx3XQW9VpEw7nDkvOLg3hpIzPcyQpvl1QiMTWXshH0Ybu2unxftCKZQsmr-Y_q5XNrr_GmzalAW5bSfQjMwXrut-NO25npGvMnEJGgP/s1600/bette-davis-william-wyler-lunch-break-jezebel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTbM5WKKKgZHX72tpomrUSKppxwo7FGDJJVR4TsSx3XQW9VpEw7nDkvOLg3hpIzPcyQpvl1QiMTWXshH0Ybu2unxftCKZQsmr-Y_q5XNrr_GmzalAW5bSfQjMwXrut-NO25npGvMnEJGgP/s320/bette-davis-william-wyler-lunch-break-jezebel.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bette Davis and William Wyler</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In January 1940, Warner Bros. announced that Bette Davis would star in a remake of a film adapted from a play <a href="http://www.online-literature.com/maugham/" style="color: #cc0000;">Somerset Maugham</a>had dramatized from his own short story, <i>The Letter</i>. In April, William Wyler was hired to direct, on loan from Samuel Goldwyn who would, in turn, be able to use Bette Davis for his upcoming <i>The Little Foxes</i>, which would be the last film Wyler and Davis would make together. In an interview years later, Wyler recalled that he had read Howard Koch’s script for <i>The Letter</i> and liked it and that he wanted to work with Davis again. His only regret was that cinematographer Gregg Toland was unavailable. For her part, Davis was eager to work with Wyler on another very promising project; Maugham’s sensational tale of British colonial “white mischief” was set in the exotic Far East and replete with adultery, deceit and murder.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: right;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg35RmizrqhirxyOFUBvB7UbmQw9_3rNSwAdU1gWDSuTIVgI5O5CdEmBMgoyYXQWwaBJS0zhzbaK2v3O-b85dBKhYVs_UGTC2Ddp19SL3FuCvqtchJSU1Cn6sw4GTY5RZ0ZA0J9JPSg4ghA/s1600/map-malay+bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg35RmizrqhirxyOFUBvB7UbmQw9_3rNSwAdU1gWDSuTIVgI5O5CdEmBMgoyYXQWwaBJS0zhzbaK2v3O-b85dBKhYVs_UGTC2Ddp19SL3FuCvqtchJSU1Cn6sw4GTY5RZ0ZA0J9JPSg4ghA/s320/map-malay+bw.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Malay Peninsula</td></tr></tbody></table>By the time he traveled to British Malaya in 1921, Somerset Maugham was a well established writer of best-selling fiction and popular stage plays. While in the colonies he met an attorney, Courtenay Dickinson, who told him of a scandalous case he’d handled ten years earlier. In 1911, Dickinson represented the wife of the headmaster at a boys’ school in Kuala Lumpur who shot and killed a male friend one night while her husband was out. The headmaster was <a href="http://www.viweb.freehosting.net/proudlock.htm" style="color: #cc0000;">William J. Proudlock</a>, a British citizen, and his school was the prestigious Victorian Institute, founded in the capital city in 1894. Proudlock’s wife, Ethel, had been visited by William Crozier Stewart, an engineering consultant, while her husband was at dinner with an associate one night in April 1911. Though Mrs. Proudlock claimed that Stewart had attempted rape and that she shot him (several times) in self-defense, she was found guilty at trial and sentenced to death. The outcry of the local British community prevailed, however, and Ethel Proudlock was freed after serving a scant five months in prison. Maugham developed a fictionalized account of the case, with details changed and flourishes added; Maugham said of himself, “I have never pretended to be anything but a story teller.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Letter </i>first appeared in a collection of his short stories in 1924. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: left;"></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div>Somerset Maugham’s stage adaptation of <i>The Letter</i>debuted in London in 1927, starring <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0178066/#Actress" style="color: #cc0000;">Gladys Cooper</a><span style="color: #cc0000;"> </span>as rubber plantation wife Leslie Crosbie and Nigel Bruce as plantation manager Robert Crosbie. The play premiered on Broadway later that year starring <a href="http://brbl-archive.library.yale.edu/exhibitions/cvvpw/gallery/cornell.html" style="color: #cc0000;">Katharine Cornell</a><span style="color: #cc0000;">.</span>In 1929, illustrious American actress <a href="http://www.jeanneeagels.com/" style="color: #cc0000;">Jeanne Eagels</a> played the lead in a Paramount film directed by Jean de Limur; her co-stars included Reginald Owen as Crosbie and Herbert Marshall as shooting victim Geoffrey Hammond. Eagels received a posthumous Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance.<br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rvI2sUCLHCk" width="420"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jeanne Eagels and Reginald Owen, <i>The Letter </i>(1929) </span></div><br />Somerset Maugham’s short story opens in Singapore within the offices of Howard Joyce, the attorney representing Leslie Crosbie, who is charged with murder. Joyce’s clerk, Ong, ushers in Robert Crosbie, husband of the accused. The lawyer expresses concern that Crosbie is not bearing up well under the strain of his wife’s arrest and incarceration. Maugham re-engineered the opening to powerful dramatic effect when he adapted it for the stage. As the curtain rises, the sound of a pistol shot is heard. A man (Hammond) staggers across a sitting-room toward its veranda and cries “Oh, my God!” A woman (Crosbie) follows, firing her gun into him even after he has fallen.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0462321/" style="color: #cc0000;">Howard Koch</a>’s script for William Wyler’s film opened with an exterior shot of the Crosbie bungalow, the sound of a sudden gunshot followed by a woman stalking a man as he flees, her revolver blazing. Reading this scenario for the first time, Wyler thought it was literally “starting with a bang” and decided the scene should be set up “…with an opposite mood. A mood of silence, quiet, people sleeping…” Wyler also wanted to evoke “…a feeling of the dank, humid jungle atmosphere of rubber plantation country” and opened the film with an uncut and wordless 2-minute sequence:<br /><br />Under a vivid full moon and cloud cluttered night sky, the camera sweeps through a rubber plantation where a tree oozes latex into a collection pot as Malay workers lounge or sleep in hammocks and a white Cockatoo perches on a fence. A gunshot shatters the quiet and the startled bird takes flight. A man emerges onto the veranda of a lamp-lit bungalow and lurches down its steps. Close on his heels strides a woman with a gun, her face a study in fierce resolve. She fires shot after shot into his body until he is a crumpled a heap at the foot of the steps. The moon goes dark behind a drift of clouds as <a href="http://www.americancomposers.org/raksin_steiner.htm" style="color: #cc0000;">Max Steiner</a>’s ominous and hypnotic theme surges.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisDdo4XmvpoueG5IPXErxd_IKnowuPwy0oKsXVn5f_4q5JvFWRQfxb3K-UF2ZiwrnLbxSxWWUELwep0ZKC6y1j2eBxznvLRw_9BlBRvlXQkRQQo4g2OEbuNeDAPha9ToL2kqN1ucSJdm0h/s1600/full+moon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisDdo4XmvpoueG5IPXErxd_IKnowuPwy0oKsXVn5f_4q5JvFWRQfxb3K-UF2ZiwrnLbxSxWWUELwep0ZKC6y1j2eBxznvLRw_9BlBRvlXQkRQQo4g2OEbuNeDAPha9ToL2kqN1ucSJdm0h/s400/full+moon.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Wyler reflected,“…it was a more effective opening this way, by having this silence,” and Howard Koch, who fondly remembered working on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Letter</i>, remarked on Wyler’s fine-tuned “instinct for staging.” The opening sequence of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Letter</i>, which took a full day to shoot, establishes not only the film’s noirish mood and hot-house atmosphere, but also the controlled ferocity intrinsic to Leslie Crosbie’s character. From this spectacular beginning <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Letter</i> unfolds slowly and deliberately, revealing and suggesting its secrets with painstaking care. The film evolves with unrelenting tension and suspense and is remarkable for its astonishingly expressive camera work and atmospheric effects…</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The image of the full moon, breaking through heavy clouds or peering down between the fan-like leaves of palm trees, recurs and has been much discussed over the years. According to Wyler, the image of the moon was his attempt “to bring in something mysterious and supernatural” to the story. He knew that this repeated image would lend itself to many interpretations, but his own desire was to add “…a bit of supernaturalism, which I thought belonged.” Another of Wyler’s noteworthy atmospheric accents is the occasional sound of tinkling wind chimes. According to Wyler this was not a planned effect, but something he came up with during filming. There happened to be decorative Chinese wind chimes on the set and when the soundman began to complain that the tinkling annoyed him, the director considered the possibilities and decided they could be used to interesting effect. He thought the chimes made “…an eerie kind of noise, which would heighten the suspense.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL5Zo7SnC-MbuE11HgXjuUwB6lHPjOFa8GDGh-NIVXUjcaFk13oZVLcx3QMF00nQ0Q_RiwzATlsa3coipk9E8rUKuoTTrVNz2feixTVxPf_tFEiHP4v-HaGYhndsWej8kS6G6FOvYTkR9P/s1600/james+stephenson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL5Zo7SnC-MbuE11HgXjuUwB6lHPjOFa8GDGh-NIVXUjcaFk13oZVLcx3QMF00nQ0Q_RiwzATlsa3coipk9E8rUKuoTTrVNz2feixTVxPf_tFEiHP4v-HaGYhndsWej8kS6G6FOvYTkR9P/s320/james+stephenson.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James Stephenson reads "the letter"</td></tr></tbody></table>At the time <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Letter </i>was released, William Wyler had recently commented that he believed the sole responsibility for the quality of any film rests entirely with its director. He felt that the director, whose every decision culminates in what ultimately appears onscreen, is accountable for everything including the performances of the players. <i>The Letter</i> is marked by high caliber acting all around and two impeccable portrayals in particular. Bette Davis is radiant yet coolly controlled as the emotionally repressed Leslie Crosbie, a woman capable of coy charm, relentless guile and calculating deceit - as well as violent rage. James Stephenson, in a breakthrough performance as Howard Joyce, Leslie’s attorney, depicts an intelligent, inherently civilized man manipulated into a wretched compromise. His Howard Joyce, suspicious of the case from the start, endures a visibly wrenching struggle with his own conscience as he becomes ever more entangled in the moral intricacies of Leslie’s defense. The scenes between Bette Davis and James Stephenson are some of the richest moments in the film.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">On one important point Wyler and Davis disagreed and that was how the actress should deliver her crucial line at the film’s climax. In the scene, Leslie and Robert Crosbie (Herbert Marshall) are alone together in a darkened room, their marriage in tatters. When Robert asks Leslie if she loves him, she at first says yes, then cracks and cries out, “….with all my heart, I still love the man I killed!” Wyler wanted Davis to look Herbert Marshall directly in the eye as she said these words, but Davis disagreed, she felt no woman could do that, it was too brutal, she would avert her eyes. The two fought and could not agree. Finally, and for the first time in her career, Bette Davis walked off the set. She soon returned and later recalled, “I came back eventually – end result, I did it his way. It played validly, heaven knows, but to this day I think my way was the right way.” She also remarked, “I lost, but I lost to an artist.” 37 years later, Davis was honored as the fifth recipient, and the first woman, to be gvien the Life Achievement Award by the American Film Institute (William Wyler had received the award the previous year). In her 1987 memoir <u>This ’n That</u>, she remembered that the high point of the evening, for her, was when Wyler spoke. He said, “If tonight I brought up the subject of [that] scene in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Letter</i>, Bette would insist on going back to Warner Brothers and reshooting it the way she wanted it.” According to Bette,  “Willie’s speech was short and funny and had the added advantage of being true.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One battle Wyler did not win was with the Production Code. He had made a change to Maugham's ending. The author's and de Limur’s versions end with Leslie's realization that her punishment for her crime will be to live out her years in a country she despises with a man for whom she feels no passion. The closing line is her confession that even now she loves the man she shot. Wyler and Koch devised a more dramatic demise for Mrs. Crosbie, she would die by the dagger of Hammond’s widow. Wyler’s plan was that, “The thing should end with [Gale Sondergaard] killing Bette Davis.” But at the time “nobody could get away with killing somebody, so for censorship reasons we had to tack on the scene of her being arrested.” Wyler could never accept this “silly anticlimactic” ending and complained to the end of his days that the scene of Sondergaard's arrest still ought to be cut from his picture.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">~</div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>The Letter </i>was nominated for seven Academy Awards: Best Picture (Warner Bros.), Best Director (Wyler), Best Actress (Davis), Best Supporting Actor (James Stephenson, who died suddenly in 1941), Best Music, Original Score (Max Steiner), Best Cinematography, Black and White (Tony Gaudio) and Best Film Editing (Warren Low). </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><i> ~</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>The Letter </i>airs on Turner Classic Movies Friday, June 29, 6:00am Eastern/3:00am Pacific. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/F-1sgvur72o" width="420"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b><u>Sources</u></b>:<br /><i>A Talent for Trouble</i>, Jan Herman, Putnam (1995)<br /><i>William Wyler - The Authorized Biography</i>, Axel Madsen, Thomas Y. Crowell Co. (1973)<br /><i>Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis</i>, Ed Sikov, Henry Holt (2007)<br />"<a href="http://www.fathom.com/feature/35677/" style="color: #cc0000;">Imagery and Sound in William Wyler's <i>The Letter</i></a>," interview by Charles Higham, Columbia University Oral Research Office (1972)<br /><i>The Letter: A Play in Three Acts</i>, W. Somerset Maugham, George H. Duran Co. (1925)<br /><i>The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham</i>, Doubleday (1934)<br /><br /></div></div>

Bette Davis Gale Sondergaard Gladys Cooper Herbert Marshall James Stephenson Jeanne Eagels Katharine Cornell The Lady Eve (author) The Letter William Wyler William Wyler's "The Letter" (1940) - Starting with a Bang

  This piece is my contribution for The Movie Projector's blogathon in honor of William Wyler. Click here for more information and links to participating blogs.Of director William Wyler, Bette Davis once declared, “It was he who helped me realize my …

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