Jeanne Engles is almost a physical ghost here. Everyone seems to be in love her as an actress. Based on this, I'm not that hooked but she definitely does get your attention.

In this movie, the racism out in the open and cuts both ways which is closer to the real world. The movie does well to bring that forward. Unfortunately, here, as usual, Hollywood fell into bizarre caricatures and images when portraying the Chinese.

With Anna May Wong in Europe at the time, Tsen Mei is cast as Li-Ti and only manages to extract a very average presence. It is difficult to imagine her as a love interest. (Tsen Mei went on to run theatres in New Jersey) With Anna May Wong in that role (and advising the directors), the movie would have been elevated considerably and the confrontation-over-the-letter scene likely would have become an all time classic.

Technically, this movie is crude, especially the sound but a restored version might be a different story.

Jeanne Eagels is one of those film figures who are notorious rather than famous. She was a beautiful stage actress who scandalised Broadway with her erotic performance as Sadie Thompson, the hooker in Somerset Maugham's "Rain". Her film career started promisingly, but her drugs addiction became increasingly difficult to conceal. By the time she made her last film, her arms and legs were nearly as thin as broomsticks, and she resembled a blonde skeleton. She died in her thirties. Like a few other movie figures (Houdini, George M. Cohan, Fanny Brice) her own movies are less well-known than the movie ABOUT her, in Eagels's case the bio-pic starring Kim Novak (who was much more beautiful than Eagels ever was).

'The Letter' is Eagels's first of two talkies. Like her most famous role, this film is based on material by Somerset Maugham, and takes place in that same Oriental tropics milieu: in this case, Singapore. This early talkie is a very crude effort. There was apparently a music soundtrack which is now lost, so (except for one sequence) there's no music at all, and several sequences which *ought* to have music are now silent. Elsewhere, we see various exterior shots in which silent action (of a car moving soundlessly down the road, for example) contrasts jarringly with the dialogue sequences. One reel change occurs *during* a shot, when Mrs Crosbie (Eagels) takes the witness stand, so the last frames of one reel are repeated at the start of the next reel. On the positive side, this movie (filmed at the Astoria Studios in Long Island) creates a credible facsimile of the Singapore jungles.

This is the same story that was remade with Bette Davis, but there's one major difference. The remake begins with Mrs Crosbie (Davis) killing her lover: we don't know what led to this, and as the action unfolds we must decide whether she is lying. In Eagels's version, we see the argument between Mrs Crosbie and her lover, so we know the truth. The remake's gambit is much better.

Herbert Marshall appears in both versions: here, as the murdered lover; in the remake, as the cuckolded husband. Marshall had lost a leg in the trenches of the Great War, and wore a prosthetic limb through his entire film career. In his later films, he had a clumsy lurching walk. Here, he rises from a couch quite gracefully. I usually like Reginald Owen, but here -- as the cuckolded husband -- he's stiff and mannered, lumbered with Victorian dialogue.

There are some regrettably racist comments about Orientals in this story, including the famous line 'Damn peculiar, these Chinese'. Eagels's character berates a Chinese woman as 'a vile yellow thing', and this really doesn't stand out from the mood in the rest of the film. The Issei actor Tamaki Yoshiwara, playing a Chinese man educated by whites, speaks his dialogue in one of the strangest accents I've ever heard: is this genuine, or did the director impose it on him? O.P. Heggie gives a fine performance in a contrived role, as the barrister who (implausibly) compromises his professional ethics by shelling out $10,000 of his own money to buy evidence illegally, without bothering to find out if his client will reimburse him. Did Singapore have $1,000 banknotes at this time? When Mrs Crosbie hands $10,000 cash to her enemy, the whole dosh is a mere handful of paper.

Several American actors here play British roles with Yank accents. In her early scenes, Jeanne Eagels attempts an upper-class English accent: this is unfortunate, as we have so few recordings of her voice. By this point, her drugs addiction was running its course. In several scenes, Eagels stands awkwardly or fidgets: she's playing a woman who's on trial for murder, yet she acts as if she has more urgent business elsewhere. (Maybe a hypo and her next fix, waiting in her dressing room?)

But, in the magnificent last scene of this film, Eagels abandons the faux accent and shows the fiery talent that made her (so briefly) a great actress. Abandoning all her dishonesties, she tells the husband who has spent his life's savings to gain her freedom: 'With all my heart and all my soul, I still love the man I killed.' At this moment, Eagels is superb. What a shame that this great actress destroyed herself. For all its crudities, 'The Letter' is of vital historic importance, and I'll rate it 8 out of 10 ... mostly for that final scene.

"The Letter" is an absolutely fascinating early talkie. The only surviving talkie made by the legendary stage actress, Jeanne Eagels (whose skill as a Broadway stage actress was obvious in the delivery of her lines - particularly the final scene, which I found mesmerizing) cries out for a restoration! The print of the film I viewed had a very poor visual quality (although I could always discern the action), but became all the more tantalizing - this film probably looked great in 1929, and would still look wonderful in a refurbished print. For a very early "talkie", I was very surprised at how natural and "unstodgy" the dialogue is (and the soundtrack was remarkably clear and strong, with even a little bit of profanity, which I'm sure it raised a few eyebrows in 1929!) It is very unfortunate that Eagels' other talkie "Jealousy" is now lost, and all the more reason that "The Letter" (being the only sound document of this legendary actress) should have a wider distribution. I hope someone some day will spearhead such an undertaking.

A 2011 update: I recently acquired the DVD release of "The Letter" from Warner Archives. It is a revelation - an amazingly good print, particularly considering it is mastered from what is apparently the sole surviving 35mm print. Some segments lack musical background, but the dialogue is intact, and the visuals are far better than I expected (or hoped for!). Congratulations and many thanks to Warner Archives for finally making this treasure available!