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The Letter (1940)


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Title: The Letter [IMDb]


Film Structure




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Release date: November 23, 1940
Studio: Warner Brothers
Runtime: 95 minutes
IMDB genres: crime, drama, film-noir, mystery, romance
Award Nominations: Oscar: Best Music, Original Score
BYU holdings: https://search.lib.byu.edu/byu/record/lee.6909230

Synopsis [hide]

The wife of a rubber plantation administrator shoots a man to death and claims it was self-defense, but a letter in her own hand may prove her undoing.

Plot keywords (from IMDb): adulteress, adulterous wife, adultery, arrest, band, bar, based on novel, based on play, bead curtain, birthday, blackmail, ceiling fan, chinese, chinese ghetto, cigarette smoking, clerk, cocktail, colonialism, confession, courtroom, crime of passion, crime wave, crying, dagger, dancer, dancing, dead body, death, deception, dog, drink, drinking, dutch, electric fan, english, eurasian, evidence, extortion, extramarital affair, eyeglasses, family relationships, fan, fate, food, girls with guns, gun, gunshot, hammock, husband wife relationship, hypocrisy, imperialism, infidelity, investment, judge, jungle, jury, justice, kiss, knife, lace, lace shawl, lawyer, letter, malay peninsula, malaya, malaysia, melodrama, mirror, miscegenation, money, moon, moonlight, mortgage, murder, nurse, orchestral music score, packing, party, passion, pipe smoking, plantation, planter, prison, protection, race relations, racism, revenge, rubber, self defense, servant, shadow, shawl, shooting, singapore, stabbing, storytelling, subjective camera, suitcase, sumatra, suppression of evidence, tapping finger, tatting lace, tears, trial, unfaithfulness, vengeance, veranda, wealth, whiskey sour, widow, wind chime, rubber plantation

Cast and Crew

ActorRole
Bette DavisLeslie Crosbie
Herbert MarshallRobert Crosbie
James StephensonHoward Joyce
Gale SondergaardMrs. Hammond
Victor Sen YungOng Chi Seng

William Wyler: director

Hal B. Wallis: producer

Max Steiner: composer

Leo F. Forbstein: musical director

Hugo Friedhofer: orchestrator


Film Statistics

Stats
Film duration: 1:35:03
Music duration: 01:02:02
Pages in score: 194
Total themes: 39
Themes with variants: 16
Total variants: 82
Total gestures: 3
Total underscoring sections: 11
Total underscoring duration: 00:03:25
Total instances: 152

Themes

Name Uses Variants
Leslie 58 40
Mrs. Hammond 19 12
Leslie B 11 5
Glass Curtains 8 0
Robert and Leslie 8 5
Deception 7 2
Letter 7 3
Foxtrot No. 1 4 0
Foxtrot No. 3 4 0
Native 3 2
Sociable 3 1
Law Office 2 1
Alternate Ending 1 0
Chinese Quarter 1 0
Chinese Shop 1 0
Creeping 1 0
Denial 1 0
Distress 1 0
Foxtrot No. 1 B 1 0
Foxtrot No. 2 1 0
Foxtrot No.1 C 1 0
Lento Mysterioso 1 0
Mr. Hammond Has Been Shot 1 0
Murder 1 0
Native 2 1 0
Plantation 1 0
Policeman 1 0
Runners 1 0
Shadow 1 0
Signature 1 0
Waiting 1 0

Other films borrowed from:

Gold Is Where You Find It (1938)

Combinations

Name Uses
Leslie + Deception 4
Mrs. Hammond + Glass Curtains 3
Leslie + Foxtrot No. 3 2
Leslie B + Glass Curtains 2
Mrs. Hammond + Foxtrot No. 1 2
Andante Doloroso + Leslie 1
Leslie + Foxtrot No. 1 1
Leslie + Glass Curtains 1

Gestures

Name
Collapse
Film wipe
Kiss

Underscoring

Name
Dark
Dramatic
Mysterious
Tense