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Letter from an Unknown Woman
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Letter from an Unknown Woman
| Duration | 86 |
| Year | 1948 |
| Categories | Romance, Drama |
| Cast | Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians, Art Smith, Marcel Journet, Carol Yorke, Howard Freeman |
| Written By | Stefan Zweig, Howard Koch |
| Directed By | Max Ophüls |
| Produced By | Rampart Productions, Universal International |
| Distributed By | BFI |
| Film Details |
One of cinema's most achingly poignant romances, Max Ophüls' version of Stefan Zweig's novella is also, despite being shot in a Hollywood studio, one of the great films about fin-de-siècle Vienna. About to leave the city in order to avoid a duel, concert pianist Stefan Brand receives and reads a letter from a woman he can no longer remember â€" Ilse, who first nurtured a crush on him as a schoolgirl neighbour and whose later encounters with him were considerably more intimate… Both the flashback structure and Franz Planer's long, sinuous camera movements trap the lovelorn heroine â€" Joan Fontaine, magnificent throughout â€" within a cruel cycle of obsessive longing born of romantic fantasy (in which regard Louis Jourdan's suave, slightly shallow beauty fits Brand perfectly).
A wry meditation on memory, misplaced desire and the options open to women in patriarchal society, the film is at once darkly ironic and deeply moving.
â€" Geoff Andrew