letter from an unknown woman ( 1948 film )
letter from an unknown woman is showing at bfi southbank, london, from 12 - 28 february .
joan fontaine and louis jourdan in letter from an unknown woman. photograph: ronald grant archive
letter from an unknown woman (1948 film) was directed by max ophüls. starring joan fontaine, louis jourdan, mady christians and marcel journet .
looking for movie tickets? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing letter from an unknown woman near you .
it is most unfortunate that the three films you have reviewed for us are not (yet ?) available on dvd. i' ve wanted to see letter from an unknown woman (1948) for some time now .
i feel that joan fontaine has been overlooked and underrated all these years. a letter from an unknown woman, has sadly been overlooked, even for tcm. i ...
5. letter from an unknown woman (1948) maybe the director' s most delirious film, a bittersweet and exemplary melodrama about both the allure and the danger of fantasy. structured like an opera, the episodic story illustrates a doomed and delusional love affair with equal parts grace, humor, distemper, and cynicism .
a pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember, who may hold the key to his downfall .
joel6 - fontaine has an odd star trajectory, that' s for sure. some of her roles i absolutely adore like born to be bad and letter from an unknown woman. she can be amazing which is why her choices overall are so baffling !
tags: max ophuls, letter from an unknown woman, liebelei, la ronde, don druke, lola montes, the reckless moment, dave kehr, the earrings of madame de... , kent jones, image
the same could be said to any viewers who, like most critics of the film’s day, find the film overly sentimental. like douglas sirk’s written on the wind (1956) and other hollywood soaps of the period, letter from an unknown woman has climbed in stature after a closer look .
letter from an unknown woman (1948) is the classic romantic film - a lush tearjerker par excellence - of the bittersweet theme of unrequited, lost love (it' s considered a quintessential
woman' s picture
). legendary european director max ophuls' deeply - moving, timeless film, considered his greatest and most successful american film but a film unlike most hollywood films. [ note: the director' s name was given an alternate american spelling, opuls, in the credits, as in his other american films of the 40s. ]
today, and you’ll most likely evoke an extreme reaction from classic movie spectators .
carla marcantonio is an assistant professor of film and media studies at george mason university .
excellent essay on one of my favorite actresses and which discusses flawlessly two of my top 5 favorite films :
the constant nymph
and
letter from an unknown woman
. very well done moira! your style is flawless and exquisite. you should write a book !
an excellent film about obsession, disappointment, lost opportunities and depression, all wrapped up with a big costume drama bow. it tells the story of a man who just before he is running away from a duel gets a letter from someone he seems to not know. after that, the film is all told in a flashback from the perspective of the letter writer .
( 1948). only the last film is readily available on dvd, and i have not seen it on broadcast cable in some time .
a pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember. as she tells the story of her lifelong love for him, he is forced to reinterpret his own past .
so begins max ophuls’ masterpiece letter from an unknown woman, instantly gripping audiences, but not by setting up a mystery thriller as some might guess. the letter’s recipient is not some private eye who must keep reading to find clues to a potential murder. instead, it’s a suave playboy who must keep reading to see how his own selfish actions have led to the heartache of a woman he does not even remember .
jason fraley holds an m. f. a in film & electronic media from american university and a b. a. in journalism from the university of maryland. he has contributed to
on the subject of stefan’s conversion by the end of the film and its representation of a man’s journey into symbolic order, and thus into history, see tania modleski, “time and desire in the woman’s film”, letter from an unknown woman, ed. virginia wright - wexman and karen hollinger, rutgers university press, new brunswick, 1986, pp. 249 - 262. her reading begins from the observation that what is at stake in this film is a man’s word (249) and a woman’s silence (250). i do not take issue with modleski’s reading which focuses on the representation of gender through the tropes of temporality, stasis and action .
in may 1948, koch was fleetingly rumored to be collaborating with max ophüls on a stage play starring paul draper .
james mason, who appeared in two of max ophüls' s films, once wrote a short poem about the director that begins :
a shot that does not call for tracks / is agony for poor dear max / who separated from his dolly / is wrapped in deepest melancholy .
the luscious visual audacity of letter from an unknown woman makes mason' s case perfectly .
in lesser hands this film would be pathetic, masochistic melodrama. but ophuls and screenwriter howard koch never look down upon the lead character. there is no disdain toward her actions. instead, they treat the story with tender sympathy. but, that doesn’t fully erase the underlying darkness of this story in my mind. the film makes love both decadent and horrific. even with the moving score and romantic cinematography letter from an unknown woman feels truly haunting .
[... ] of the hollywood films, one was a bright entertainment, the unjustly neglected the exile with douglas fairbanks, jr. in 1947. two were flawed but engaging attempts at film noirs, caught (1949) with robert ryan, and the reckless moment (1949) both starred james mason at the start of his u. s. career. in the latter film ophüls also evoked a fine performance as a desperate, respectable housewife from one of the most interesting actresses of the ’40s, joan bennett. the director also made one possible masterpiece, letter from an unknown woman in 1948 with joan fontaine. [... ]
the view blurs and fades, signifying a flashback (for virtually the remainder of the film) from the unknown woman' s written deathbed confession, as she tells of her lifelong, almost 20 year obsession with a pianist and actually relives the feelings and thoughts of her life. the reading of the letter is represented by the narrating voice of the woman herself - now dead, although her voice doesn' t sound labored or deathly sick .
a woman' s lifelong love for a callous concert pianist leads to tragedy .
the shot from the top of a stairway is one of the dominant motifs in the film. for an excellent analysis of this visual motif refer to wright - wexman’s essay .
there have been dozens of films about unrequited love, about heartbreak, about the lives of two individuals taking different paths and there will continue to be, but letter from an unknown woman stands above pretty much all of them. this forgotten 1948 romantic melodrama is an intensely engrossing piece of cinema well worth seeing for acclaimed german filmmaker max ophuls' stylistic direction. he was apparently known for his lyrical camera movements, the use of long tracking shots, and his atmospheric evocation of romantic melancholy—all of which are on full display here. it' s a beautifully roasted chestnut well worth seeking out .
serving as a delivery intermediary in the hallway, john touches stefan' s arm to interrupt his departure and get his attention. he then shows him an envelope [ a
letter from an unknown woman
] - un - noticed and forgotten in the rush, but placed and served on a silver tray - it came during the night. he tosses the thick envelope onto his desk, pinches the corners of his tired eyes, picks up the envelope, walks to the bathroom, opens the envelope and unfolds the many pages of the letter, and splashes water on his face from a small washbowl .
all the films from all the editions, including those subsequently removed, presently totalling 1199. an easy way of seeing how…
this guy is stefan brand (louis jourdan), a former concert pianist in 1900 vienna, who has developed a reputation for romancing more women than he can count. the unknown woman, and writer of the letter, is lisa berndle (joan fontaine), an ailing woman wanting to get a few important things off her chest. just as intrigued as viewers, stefan dives into the letter over some coffee and cognac, and the narrative shifts to lisa’s story, signaled by a blurry flashback and fontaine’s narration .
with a sad and heartbreaking story which addressees issues like destiny, love, dignity, pride and regret, max ophuls’ unappreciated little masterpiece, letter from an unknown woman, is more like a story written by leo tolstoy, like the works of the russian writer it takes place in dimly lit noble houses and chooses its characters from the upper - class society, it takes lonely characters and follows them across years as they go from happiness into misery and despair. what ophuls does is that he turns his camera away from all the glamour of houses, clothes and concerts and instead focuses…
although it is angering, one can learn much from this rich film. it is a must see for film lovers and makes you realize how important it is to make the right decision .
[ at the beginning of the letter, stefan would naturally not know that lisa' s voice should accompany the reading of the letter, because he does not know who sent the letter! further, some of the events in the film are not witnessed by lisa, as the film frequently mismatches her presence in the narration with various scenes / incidents in the flashbacks. therefore, the film often requires a very non - literal interpretation by the viewer. ]
it is a testament to fontaine as an actress that i don’t utterly revile lisa. often watching fontaine i have the urge to scream, “grow a backbone, woman! ” which i guess is what many of my female friends think when i put on a fontaine film for a movie night. you may feel sympathy for lisa’s heartbreak and angry at her circumstances in letter from an unknown woman. after all haven’t all of us dealt with unrequited love in some way or another? but it is hard to forget that lisa continued to choose stefan even when he couldn’t remember her and doing so would could only lead to misery .
then, in october 1959, koch’s first film job was announced. although it took two years to reach screens, the english film
no direct evidence of an affidavit exists in koch’s papers, but around this time, he went back to work in theater and television. the film industry may not have been so forgiving. a february 1959 letter from civil rights attorney edwin bennet williams suggests that if an affidavit was signed, it alone could not grant koch full reinstatement in the industry :
lisa also wistfully watches his numerous visitors from an upstairs window, noticing that his gatherings are often attended by elegantly - dressed women .
meeting a stranger in a railway station, a woman is tempted to cheat on her husband .
but that' s asking for a lot. so fontaine has to be taken carefully now. but jourdan' s lothario has improved beyond belief. jourdan was actually two years younger than fontaine – i wonder if he dared tease her. but both of them had been put under contract by david o selznick (jourdan had been in the ­resistance during the war) – and thus they were loaned out for letter from an unknown woman .
i feel that joan fontaine has been overlooked and underrated all these years. a letter from an unknown woman, has sadly been overlooked, even for tcm. i had looked for years for a copy of it and now finely am able to obtain it. i believe tcm has neglected to show more of miss fontaines' films especially some of comedic ones. let' s hope 2012 brings us more of miss fontaine' s films .
smartly woven by author stefan zweig and poetically adapted to the screen by casablanca co - writer howard koch, letter from an unknown woman is a teary, melodramatic look at societal gender roles, the false hopes of love, and how the two tragically intersect. it may be best articulated in lisa’s sad, written revelation to stefan: “if you could have only recognized what was always yours, you could have found what was never lost. ”
to respond to nick, there' s an excellent analysis of letters in molly haskell' s from reverence to rape which brings out the self - sacricial myth at the heart of the woman' s dream. e. m .
as hollywood changed, fontaine never again had an opportunity to explore the depth of her talent as she did in letter from an unknown woman, and slipped back into playing stock bad girls, pleasant companions, idealized heroines, and dissatisfied women with sharp tongues in such films as born to be bad, september affair, ivanhoe, and tender is the night. this film, which like the other two films discussed here had, according to producer john houseman, a mixed critical reception and was not a financial success at the time of its release. since then, this movie has found an audience and is the widely available on dvd. maybe someday, even those who think they don’t like joan fontaine as an actress will discover these movies. each offers a more complex and varied portrait of a woman in conflict with reality .
hi mdr, actually, letter from an unknown woman, as i mentioned, is the only one of the three that is available on dvd, but it would be great if tcm could eventually include this rko release as part of its programming, allowing a wider audience an introduction to a masterpiece. this above all would be a great addition to tcm, but i realize that not all fox products are readily acquired, (especially since the fmc provides an outlet on cable for them). the real shame is that the constant nymph cannot be seen, though, according to some rather contradictory sources that i' ve come across, the copyright may become part of the public domain in 2017 or 2018, freeing the film from litigation .
this is the love every woman lives for... the love every man would die for !
in vienna, about 1900, a dashing man arrives at his flat, instructing his manservant that he will leave before morning: the man is stefan brand, formerly a concert pianist, planning to leave vienna to avoid a duel. his servant gives him a letter from an unknown woman, which he reads. in flashbacks we see the lifelong passion of lisa berndle for him: first as a girl who was his neighbor; next as a young woman who, in secret, has his child; then as a mature woman who meets him again and abandons husband and son to be with him. each time he does not remember who she is or that they have ever met. by morning, he has finished the letter, and her husband awaits satisfaction .
letter evokes the turn of the 19 th century to partly avow the bond that psychoanalysis and film share in delivering and shackling us into modern consciousness. it is impossible for me to pursue the implications of this point in this short essay, but one may refer to stanley cavell’s chapter on the film that partly focuses on this problem. see contesting tears: the hollywood melodrama of the unknown woman, university of chicago press, chicago, 1996, pp. 81 - 113 .
i loved the blog on letter from an unknown woman and stella dallas - i certainly remember loving the first from a long time ago and think i have seen the second too, the plot summary certainly rings a bell - apparently it is unavailable in the uk though according to one of the comments (probably judy ?) - i can' t work out the comments on livejournal - it seems you either have to join or leave one anonymously which i don' t like doing. anyway all the analysis is brilliant as ever .
it' s no surprise that these' endless parades of arrivals and departures' that make letter from an unknown woman take as much away from these characters as they give. it' s these actions and the musicality of the performers' movements matched by the waltz the camera is frequently engaged in that creates ophüls' tragic world wherein our central woman lisa berndle devotes her life to a man she seems destined not to be with. it' s always a window or a door blocking lisa from her love - or everything that, to her, represents her love - pertubed by her inability to reach him even through something most brittle. and finally, upon meeting, their attempt to capture missed opportunities and memories can…
continuing the theme of looking back at 1948 ahead of this weekend' s smackdown. here' s angelica discussing one of joan fontaine' s greatest roles ...
letter from an unknown woman is one of the few films that can be said to be truly beautiful. everything about it is dreamy: the setting, the music, the cast. joan fontaine plays a girl then a woman who is sexually obligated and infatuated to louis jourdan, who is sexually free and only obligated to his music. one of the best parts is when the two main characters meet for the first or second time. they' re in am amusement park at night on a fake train talking. for the woman it' s an experience she will treasure forever, but for the man it' s the beginning of a one night stand. in reality the viewer knows that both of them are on a love train going nowhere. how can a woman be so infatuated with a man! ? that is what makes this story so sad and heartbreaking. joan fontaine and max opuls should have been nominated for this film .
, max ophüls’s 1948 universal film, joan fontaine falls in love from afar with a concert pianist, played by louis jourdan; they meet once, make love, then don’t see each other for ten years, during which time she bears and raises their child. he doesn’t remember her when they meet again—at the opera, where
an interview with the chicago native, an artist and activist, about the politics of his sci - fi comedy with radical left and anti - capitalist messages .
, yet tastefully, differentiated himself from the other eighteen, an action that suggested a re - evaluation of the group dynamic might have been in order .
the reason for this reassessment belongs solely to the legendary vision of german director max ophuls. letter from an unknown woman is not only his greatest american contribution, but his greatest contribution, period. rather than transparently following the characters within their fictional world (like most movies), ophuls positions his camera in its own time and space, disconnected from the characters and the reality they know. it gazes at them through a restaurant window. it studies them fatalistically through the bars of a gate. it peers at them through a set of curtains on either side of the frame .
even before the mankiewicz cancellation, though, koch had been contemplating “getting a ‘clearance’” according to the mccall letter .
is usually hailed as his best american film and the clear favorite among many film buffs, both for ophuls' romanticism and the finely etched performances of fontaine and jourdan .
nevertheless, koch began to distance himself from the political realm in the late 1940s. although he later dated his exit from politics to the early 1950s ,
i won' t tell you how the story ends – that would be unfair, though i think if you see the film afresh now, you will feel that the melodrama is a little heavy - handed at the end. but we have known all along that stefan' s perilous thin - ice life has let him be challenged to a duel, and we gather that he is not expected to survive. indeed, he plans to be away before dawn – he has a manservant (played by art smith) vital to the whole story. his escape is only ­prevented because he receives a long ­letter, a letter from an unknown woman. when he starts to read it, the story it ­contains dooms him .
his startled attention is turned toward the letter when he sees its letterhead from st. catherine' s hospital, and its ominous first statement in a female' s handwriting :
by the time you read this letter, i may be dead .
his brow furrows (with beads of water) as he picks up the letter, turns, and dabs his face with a towel. he proceeds into his study where he places the letter on a desk, lights a small lamp, and then leans over to read it .
the heart - breaking tale of their relationship is communicated through flashbacks and the night - time reading of the deathbed letter written by the dying woman - she is the wife of the man the pianist must duel at the coming dawn .
for mankiewicz, koch’s name was only fuel for an already raging public relations fire .
over the same period, koch also suffered from rejection on broadway. his play
a double life 1947 ronald colman, edmond o' brien, signe hasso. film noir
btw, there are an incredible number of typos in the article - - the kind that spellcheck overlooks. it was a distraction from the otherwise v well written analysis .
a blurred dissolve clears on the face of stefan (fifteen years later) who is reading the letter at his desk .
bill rothman’s essay on vertigo also notes points of similarity between these two films. see the chapter entitled, “ vertigo: the unknown woman in hitchcock” in his the “i” of the camera, cambridge university press, cambridge, ma, 1988, pp. 152 - 173 .
fontaine renders lisa with a sensitivity, intelligence, and naïve hope so that it is hard to hate her. instead, you’re whisked away into the fairytale she so desperately wants to become reality. lisa’s life peaked early she’s forever replaying distorted images of stefan. she created a narrative for him in her youth that neither reality nor age could break. ultimately, letter from an unknown isn’t a love story, it is beautifully rendered portrait of obsession .
the writer ceased to appear in the popular press as a political figure late in 1948. initially, his flirtation with huac hardly seemed to affect koch’s level of political engagement. he sponsored a world peace conference
,
linda williams ,
' something else besides a mother ;
stella dallas and the maternal melodrama ,
tania modleski ,
time and desire in the woman' s film ,
christine gledhill, edd .
founded in 1999, senses of cinema is one of the first online film journals of its kind and has set the standard for professional, high quality film - related content on the internet .
thank you for your comment, judy. i must go back to basinger to read the passages. i had forgotten there was some on letters from an unknown woman. curious what' s available on one or other side of the atlantic, or available or not anywhere. no dvd for _ letters for an unknown woman _ except at very high price. no packages of dvds of ronald colman, none for jean arthur, none for cary grant; is it the american popular classic audience the dvd makers seek to please? if so, why not jean arthur? because she' s a woman? then why not cary grant? ronald colman was popular with american audiences. is it the non - macho content that doesn' t go over or is instinctively not wanted? i found there is a dvd i could get which plays any regions, and i' ve seen a multiregion or purpose videocassette player, but can' t as yet tell where to buy them :) a muse, ellen
the staircase of stefan’s home carries deeper sexual symbolism with each girl he brings up, begging the question of how many other heartbroken “unknown women” have come before laura .
based on the novella by stefan zweig, the film begins in vienna 1900. we meet stefan (louis jordan) a rakish pianist planning to run out of town before a scheduled duel. before he can do so his mute servant (art smith) gives him the titular letter. it begins ominously, “by the time you read this letter i may be dead. ”
. even so, koch would have to wait until 1964 for screen credit for an american production .
streamline is the official blog of filmstruck, a new subscription service that offers film aficionados a comprehensive library of films including an eclectic mix of contemporary and classic art house, indie, foreign and cult films .
i have never seen this film before this past week and where has this film been in my life before. it' s so beautiful and fontaine is so captivating and this film not being fully embraced my oscars back in 1948 is baffling to me. maybe the academy could only go for one of the de havilland sisters and they choose olivia' s films the snake pit another film i love. i could imagine the two sisters who hated each would not have wanted to be nominated in the same category even though both of them should have been nominated. this film put all modern love stories to shame because these actors in the 40' s & 50' s really were masters of creating believable love stories no matter how massive in scale they are .
i finally have received a copy of “the constant nymph. ” i’ve read and heard about this film for so long. when that happens, i am usually disappointed but not this time! i loved the film, especially joan fontaine’s performance. the music is great and i enjoyed boyer’s acting, but it is fontaine’s film. her acting is nuanced and totally believable. she a very underrated and underappreciated film actress in my opinion .
of course, this does not prove that the incident did not take place; after all, koch’s name is erased from the popular press in the two major cities of the entertainment industry after the release of the 13th letter in february 1951 .
. too european for success in an era of hollywood escapism, the film failed at the box office, but has lived in the hearts of its fans to become one of the most cherished of all ophuls films .
shortly thereafter, a static high - angle shot watches lisa move diagonally from the bottom of screen left to the top of screen right, already almost a shadow; here she literally exits the film’s frame, never to be recovered again – except as a flash of past images, or as a ghostly superimposition, or in our viewing and re - viewing of this film again through time. in all these cases, all we have access to are scenes from the film itself, scenes we merely revisit – not unlike lisa’s beloved train travel. yet the question arises: what right does lisa have to ask this man for recognition? must we rebuke him? stefan has never been anything other than a man predicated on existing in an evanescent present. he is a man who also has a stake in his fantasy of an ideal woman who never arrives. thus, a world conceived with the deliberateness of a stairway, where every step is fatefully arrived at, meets the randomness of one envisioned as an endlessly shuffled deck of cards. fantasy is the inescapable violence we enact upon each other, making the other invisible. the power of melodrama, and certainly of this melodrama, resides precisely in luring us to these realisations through the banal, the sugar - coated, and perhaps the even laughable desire of a certain unknown woman .
koch, it seems, was the only member of the nineteen to emerge unscathed from the reversal .
add your ratings! each of the detailed ratings you select will result in a cumulative score for this film .
with houseman supervising, koch and ophuls worked on the screenplay. from the first, ophuls was demanding, insisting on authentic, creative choices throughout the film. though he did not receive a screenwriting credit, houseman' s memoirs credit him with some of the film' s most distinctive touches, including the snow - filled amusement park, the deserted dance - hall in which the stars dance as an all - female orchestra plays strauss and the fake train ride, with an attendant pedaling furiously to roll scenery past a stationary train carriage .
this film is so beautiful it brings tears to my eyes every time i watch it and goose bumps to my skin each time i hear the beautiful score of the film. joan fontaine give what arguably is her best performance as does louis jourdan. it is a bittersweet romance that will leave you wanting to watch it over and over. many film historians have written about this film and some of what they have said can be found on the internet .
shows profound human feeling violated by social status, and while there is exaggeration and crudity in the way the story and circumstances are presented, i know from experience, that such violations occur all the time, and believe (have known of) where they can be central and wreak irremediable damage on a psyche and a life. this is not just a woman' s issue, but it can be more likely for a woman, especially as stella is working class and appears to be a woman with a low class lover, ed. in fact she' s not interested in ed or any man, only her daughter, and i' ve seen this: woman who are mothers first, last and foremost .
on the other hand, his non - communist status made an affidavit of non - affiliation a viable possibility .
from the boer war through world war ii, a soldier rises through the ranks in the british military .
i was issued a sort of invitation to return to hollywood for an assignment and reinstatement in ‘the industry’ by an ‘un - named major studio executive. ’ i couldn’t take advantage of this opening at the time because i was doing that picture with joe [ losey ]. however, the letter convinced me that my situation could be cleared up in that painless fashion and that the list was practically non - operative as far as i was concerned. the past six months have proved that an illusion .
. directed by king vidor, screenplay by harry wagstaff gribble and based on a very popular novel by a woman, olive higgins prouty, at the time .
this careful use of camera effects turns the film into a piece of music, which is underlined by ophuls' painstaking selection of the appropriate classical pieces to reflect action and milieu. jourdan' s theme is taken from lizst' s piano etude no. 3, which his character is shown practicing early in the film when he is still a student. it plays whenever fontaine thinks of him, over their love scenes and as he finishes reading her letter at the end. when fontaine encounters him again at the opera, where he does not remember their previous liaison, the music is from mozart' s
received only mixed reviews, with critics praising the period art direction but often noting the film' s slow pacing. it was decidedly not what post - war film audiences wanted. theories about the film' s box - office failure usually blame the casting of jourdan, whom producer houseman felt lacked the sex appeal necessary to make fontaine' s lifelong devotion both believable and touching. later critics, however, have pointed out that ophuls' direction supplies all the sensuality required and that, on re - evaluation, jourdan' s performance is perhaps his finest. another problem for audiences was the film' s fatalistic plot. by the final shot fontaine' s character is dead of typhus while jourdan, now chastened from reading her letter, is going off to certain death in a duel with her husband. although this finale seems tragic to contemporary critics, it may have lacked the obvious sense of ennoblement audiences of the 1940s wanted from what was still basically an escapist medium .
praised the site for offering
lengthy, spirited reviews... with the ethos of a true film aficionado .
click here to make a donation. if you are an australian resident, any donations over $ 2 are tax deductible .
i received my now playing booklet for the month ofmarch and was interested in seeing the movie
letterfrom an unknown woman .
thinking this soundedlike something i would be interested in, i was pleasedbeyond my expectations. this was a lovely and heartbreaking movie of unrequited love spanningthe lifetime of a young woman. i thoroughly enjoyedthe performances and chemistry between louis jourdan and joan fontaine. the movie left me wanting to seeit again... but alas, it is not for sale! i' m hoping thiswill not be the case for long. i would love to have itin my classic movie collections. thank you oh so much for playing this and makingmy saturday night !
the film' s literate screenplay was written by previous academy award winner howard koch (screenwriter for casablanca (1942) ), and adapted from a 1922 short story (novella) by stefan zweig. fontaine' s own production company produced the film. john houseman, orson welles' former partner and the uncredited co - author of citizen kane (1941), was the film' s producer, through rampart productions (a company owned by william dozier and his wife, actress joan fontaine) .
utterly transporting and deeply, complicatedly wistful in its exploration of the interplay between romanticism and reality. what an introduction to ophüls .
, during a dinner party, sung by a puppet in a candlelit diorama; a short lecture follows. (“hear the strange and illogical but genial rhythm: ‘pami—na. ’ this is no longer the name of a young woman but an incantation, a sorcerer’s formula. ”) bergman was particularly fond of
doesn' t have. ophuls' film is about a fantasy that doesn' t exist, and the story is improbable throughout .
, which recounts the story of a hollywood producer who is blackmailed. koch himself is utterly dismissive of the film: he relegates it to a single phrase in his memoir, dismissing it out of hand as a film “of no importance” without even mentioning its title .
( 1944). but this time she allowed the child - woman to grow up into a sophisticated, elegant wife and mother still capable of being ruled by the child within .
in pictures - the story of love and romance: from adam and eve to tinder and chemsex. compiled by martin chilton
in the letter we have a young girl who, at that age when girls get crushes, gets a crush for her handsome pianist neighbor, and stalks him from afar. eventually this leads to a life - long obsession punctuated by a couple of actual meetings, and a big disappointing final meeting .
strangely, in spite of his strong endorsement, the national council of arts, sciences and professions (the asp, of which koch was chair) was the only chapter of the pca that remained independent of the wallace party in a merger between the party and the pca in june of 1948 .
significantly, the first spoken words in the film' s first flashback identify and introduce the' unknown woman' s name' - they are called out as a summons by the young girl' s mother (mady christians) from a second - story window, to get her daughter to stop her dreamy contemplation of the delivery van :
lisa, come in lisa. come in this minute, you hear? lisa !
[ from the previous voice - over, it is clear that lisa identifies this day as a birthday - the beginning of her conscious life. ] after climbing the stairs, lisa meets the occupant' s mute assistant john, just as she hears her mother call her name one more time :
lisa, what are you doing out there? come inside .
3. la ronde (1950) a transitional film (don druker is dead - on when he writes ,
the movement toward ophuls' s baroque masterpiece lola montes is unmistakable .
the film is both completely joyous and stylistically radical, nearly avant - garde in the way it plays with the boundary between life and theater, facilitated by anton walbrook as the raconteur, maybe the best performance in an ophuls film. the director' s camera is particularly expressive here, comparing and illuminating the dialogue and the images via his famous tracking shots .
eschewing a hack’s against - all - odds psychoanalytic narrative in favor of a thoughtful portrait, simon callow' s book being wagner traces the evolution of an angry young man to an angry old man who, along the way, unalterably changed the dramaturgy of opera forever .
as with the case of the “single” flashback, this is perhaps not exactly right. there is one other scene where the camera seems to come in search of lisa, in which, after having said goodbye to stefan at the train station, lisa disappears from the frame close to the top of screen right and walks away from the camera. this shot is followed by a dissolve, cueing a temporal ellipsis, that reveals from the top screen right the image of a nun appearing from the darkness and walking toward the camera (almost fusing with lisa’s position in the previous shot – cavell calls this lisa’s cinematic transfiguration into a nun [ 184 ]). the nun walks among curtained enclosures, until she comes upon the curtain that reveals lisa, who has just given birth to her and stefan’s illegitimate son. this figure is something to keep in mind when noting that lisa’s letter arrives to stefan from a “sister in charge”. furthermore, if we consider this film as a key intertext with vertigo, it gives further depth to the death - precipitating presence of the nun in the latter film .
collect bonus rewards from our many partners, including amc, stubs, cinemark connections, regal crown club when you link accounts .
the day of the waldorf decision, koch publicly disassociated himself from the communist party. in a 26 november 1947 advertisement in the
ophuls was already disillusioned with hollywood, where he had fled during world war ii. he had been fired after only three days shooting his first film there and had been able to complete only one u. s. film to that time, the douglas fairbanks, jr. adventure
oxford bibliographies online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. for more information or to contact an oxford sales representative click here .
after discovering the dead body of her teenage daughter' s lover, a housewife takes desperate measures to protect her family from scandal .
observed :
fraley, a film buff, is known for his savantlike ability to name every best picture winner in history, by year .
thus, koch revisited his 1947 advertisement in his letter to gang, unequivocally distancing himself from the party while making an appeal to first amendment rights. yet, while criticism of the ten was certainly implicit in his 1947 public relations move, he makes it quite explicit in his letter to gang. the gesture was not, however, enough gang’s reply to koch said that the latter would need to provide more “specific” answers. koch met with gang, who advised koch to appear before the committee and to publicize his appearance. first, though, gang thought koch ought to “bone up” on extant committee testimony and to generally avoid acting so “naïve” as he did in his letter. ultimately, koch decided to follow the alternate route suggested by the kohner agency and sign an affidavit for a studio executive (a strange demand, since he had publicized a similar document a decade before). having heard this decision, gang “reversed himself completely, agreeing that this approach was more suitable in my case and ‘less work for both of us. ’”
the diamond earrings of a french aristocrat, a wedding gift from her husband, cause a series of conflicts as they change hands repeatedly .
guarantee the perfect movie night with tickets from fandango. find theater showtimes, watch trailers, read reviews and buy movie tickets in advance .
with his pseudonym, koch once again began to work. his first major project in england was an adaptation of his own science - fiction work ,
and backed progressive party candidate henry a. wallace in the 1948 presidential race. at a two - day conference of the liberal activist group the political citizens association (pca), koch made the following statement: “there is hardly anyone in the wallace movement who would not rather lose with wallace than win with any other man. ”
a public campaign was no longer desirable to the writer. after 1948 (or at the latest 1950), he was a resolutely private figure. koch seems to have avoided ever testifying or “naming names” (although he admitted to considering it in the late 1950s), but he hardly broke or even likely damaged the hollywood lists .
a silent nameless woman who gives up her life for this man. pregnancy outside marriage. death. repetition. we first see the man coming in the morning after the duel has been set. then in the flashback with a woman or women in the morning. he returns with lisa the first time in the dawn, the second, and we end there too. a long night of a life. .
the film spectrum began as a labor of love in may 2005, and after years of obsessive research, launched in october 2011. two months later ,
was distributed in the united states by rko, but as koch’s indifference to the film indicates, it played as the second half of a double bill .
the demure, old fashioned, almost victorian persona that joan fontaine had honed for a decade on film before this project found full flower in this movie .
the closed set, the attention to detail, the luxury of rehearsal time, a fine cast, as well as her clear affinity for the character that she played blended together to make an intensely felt movie. the constant nymph (1943) is probably joan fontaine ‘s least known film today, despite the fact that the actress received an oscar nomination for the role. due to the terms of the author margaret kennedy’s will, this warner brothers film has been mired in litigious limbo for decades. the generosity of a friend who lives abroad enabled me to view a dvd - r of this movie recently .
it is one of the most enjoyable love stories ever created. this film has been requested many times in the recent past. you must have searched all over europe to get a copy of it so it can be shared with your viewing public. this film has the finest cast imaginable. it should appeal to all the women who view tcm. after watching this film from beginning to end you will find that it leaves you with something; a very strong memory of it. after its first showing on your channel you will find numerous requests to show it again and again. when i first saw this movie in 1948, i was a young boy who went home and told my mother all about it. back in the days when the theaters handed out dishes to their patrons my mother and i went to see it together. we both got a dish that night. this is one film that i can watch over and over again and never get tired of seeing it. my mother thoroughly enjoyed this movie and i remember her recommending it to all of her friends at the time .
an image in a government briefing book helped a state department official see “the forest for the trees” in the west bank—and then was shared with the president .
may earn a portion of sales from products and services that are purchased through links on our site as part of our affiliate partnerships with retailers .
in early 20th - century vienna, stefan brand (louis jourdan) is about to leave the city because he faces a duel that he wants no part of. however, before he can do so, he gets an anonymous love letter that changes his life. though stefan is moved by what he reads, he doesn' t realize that it was written by lisa berndle (joan fontaine), a young woman he has known but disregarded for most of his life. when he finally figures out who his admirer is, it may be too late to prevent a tragedy .
i' ve read the synopsis of this movie and have been trying to locate or view it for years... it is not in release i fear. where can i find a copy or who shows it from time to time. it has become an obsession to find and view this movie.
letter from an unknown woman is a 1948 american drama romance film directed by max ophüls . it was based on the novella of the same name by stefan zweig . the film stars joan fontaine , louis jourdan , mady christians and marcel journet . in 1992 , letter from an unknown woman was selected for preservation in the united states national film registry by the library of congress as being " culturally , historically , or aesthetically significant " . 
letter from an unknown woman is a 1948 american drama romance film directed by max ophüls. it was based on the novella of the same name by stefan zweig. the film stars joan fontaine, louis jourdan, mady christians and marcel journet. in 1992, letter from an unknown woman was selected for preservation in the united states national film registry by the library of congress as being " culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant ".
letter from an unknown woman is a 1948 american drama romance film directed by max ophüls. it was based on the novella of the same name by stefan zweig. the film stars joan fontaine, louis jourdan, mady christians and marcel journet. in 1992, letter from an unknown woman was selected for preservation in the united states national film registry by the library of congress as being " culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant ".