Thursday, May 16, 2019

Thursday Movie Picks-Letters


There are, actually, many films involving letters and I was even thinking some very new films but my heart belongs to the older movies. I have a feeling the wonderful film, “Can You Ever Forgive Me”, starring Melissa McCarthy, will be popular today and it is a worthy film to see. Let’s see which films will be chosen over at Wandering Through The Shelves, here are my 3...

1. THE LETTER-1940


This film, starring the great Betty Davis, is about a young woman living in Malaya on a plantation with her husband. We see, at the beginning of the film, Leslie( Bette Davis) shooting a man multiple times and is, then, arrested. We find out, during her trial, that there is an incriminating letter she wrote and she wants it back. Bette Davis was in top form as one of the best actors during this time and it shows in this film. I have to say that I loved Gale Sondergaard in this film as the Eurasian widow who plays her role to the hilt.

2. CASABLANCA-1943


I know I have chosen this film before but I don’t care because it is simply brilliant. I love this film and it deserves all the accolades. You have some great stars from Humphrey Bogart to Ingrid Bergman and the huge cast of character actors that make this film great not to mention the brilliant writing. It all takes place at Rick’s ...his posh nightclub where so many under-handed dealings are going on it’s hard to keep up. One of them concerns Letters of Transit stolen by a petty criminal, Ugarte, played, memorably, by Peter Lorre(his character name is Ugarte not Umgara which is what Tarzan often says to the animals), who asks Rick to hide them. Now, just about everyone is after those letters. We even get a backstory with Rick in Paris who receives a letter from the love of his life saying she can’t go with him and, as the letter disappears amidst the rain, he crumples it as he boards the train. We actually have 2 letters in this fabulous film.

3.  A LETTER TO THREE WIVES-1949


This is a gem of a film starring one of my favourite gals, Jeanne Crain, who is not really known any more but she was quite famous in her heyday and I wish she was better known now. 3 women, all friends, have received letters from the unseen nasty bitch, named Addie Ross, who has told them she has gone away with one of their husbands but has not told them which one. As we watch the 3 women we see their lives with their husbands and how each husband can’t tell what a bitch this ....bitch is. Kirk Douglas is one of the spouses who seems to love his special record, from said bitch, he receives for his birthday than anything else. I will add that Linda Darnell plays another wife, (Ann Sothern is the third), and she is great in her role as a jaded woman from the wrong side of the tracks. It is a great study on characters and marriage and the heartache one person can create.

Which 3 would you choose?

45 comments:

  1. I'm stumped, but you chose three good movies. I haven't seen any of them in ages and other than Casablanca, I can't remember how any of them end. Now I may have to re-watch, lol

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    1. I hope you do and you can let me know your thoughts

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    2. i am ERIC BRUNT by name. Greetings to every one that is reading this testimony. I have been rejected by my wife after three(3) years of marriage just because another Man had a spell on her and she left me and the kid to suffer. one day when i was reading through the web, i saw a post on how this spell caster on this address AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com have help a woman to get back her husband and i gave him a reply to his address and he told me that a man had a spell on my wife and he told me that he will help me and after 3 days that i will have my wife back. i believed him and today i am glad to let you all know that this spell caster have the power to bring lovers back. because i am now happy with my wife. Thanks for helping me Dr Akhere contact him on email: AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com
      or
      call/whatsapp:+2349057261346










      i am ERIC BRUNT by name. Greetings to every one that is reading this testimony. I have been rejected by my wife after three(3) years of marriage just because another Man had a spell on her and she left me and the kid to suffer. one day when i was reading through the web, i saw a post on how this spell caster on this address AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com have help a woman to get back her husband and i gave him a reply to his address and he told me that a man had a spell on my wife and he told me that he will help me and after 3 days that i will have my wife back. i believed him and today i am glad to let you all know that this spell caster have the power to bring lovers back. because i am now happy with my wife. Thanks for helping me Dr Akhere contact him on email: AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com
      or
      call/whatsapp:+2349057261346

      Delete
  2. Hi, Birgit!

    The only one of these I have seen is Casablanca. It's another movie classic that I studied in my college film history class. The graphics in the trailer for the first film, The Letter, contain more glowing superlatives than a Trump stump speech. Then there's the inevitable closeup of two lovers kissing passionately. In films like this one, murder and mayhem usually follows. I like the leading lady. She's got Bette Davis eyes. :)

    Ingrid Bergman was a beauty and a great actress. i also enjoyed the acting of Peter Lorre. Yessum, I remember Johnny Weissmuller shouting "Umgara" to the herd of elephants, summoning them to stampede and attack the bad guys. Do you remember the time Jane caught Tarzan in the arms of another woman and uttered the line: "Me Jane - you Cheeta"?

    Letter to Three Wives looks like a fun film. i certainly do remember the lovely Jeanne Crain. One of my favorite guilty pleasure movies is one of her last - Hot Rods To Hell (1967) in which she plays the mother of teenagers. I loved Ann Sothern as "Susie" MacNamara in Private Secretary. How about the overlapping dialogue between Sothern and Darnell in that scene in the trailer? That's great stuff! I also appreciated character actor Paul Douglas. How awful that Linda Darnell died from burns suffered in a house fire at age 41! Meanwhile, Kirk Douglas lives on. He'll turn 103 later this year!

    Thanks for the entertainment, dear friend BB!

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    1. Like you, I love the old film trailers and you can always count on Herbert Marshall to play the jilted husband. I don't remember that line from Tarzan..or are you pulling my loincloth? Linda Darnell died too young and she lived for a few days after even though she was burned over 70% of her body...poor thing. This is why no one should smoke when lying down. Kirk turns 103 in Dec and Olivia Turns 103 in July!

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  3. You like movies from the 1940's.
    Brain isn't working this morning so I'll go with a movie about email letters - You've Got Mail.

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    1. The 40's have great movies from the Noir, war and Hitch to musicals. We've Got Mail works well

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  4. I haven't seen any of these, but I have Casablanca on my Blind Spot list so I'll eventually get to that one this year!

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    1. Oh good! I will be dumbfounded if you don't care for it...my favourite is Claude Rains

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  5. The only movie I remember seeing with "letter" in the title as "The Love Letter" with Kate Capshaw (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166252/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_16). It wasn't all that memorable...

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    1. It sounds like a hokey romance one. Letter doesn't have to be in the title

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  6. Wow a double match!!! So I'll start with our non-match, Casablanca. Wonderful film stacked top to bottom with perfectly cast performers. Funny that it was put together on the fly which usually leads to disaster.

    The Letter isn't my favorite Bette Davis but its up there in the top 10 maybe even 5. Fantastically shot and performed. Have you ever seen the remakes-The Unfaithful (with Ann Sheridan & Eve Arden) or the TV film The Letter with Lee Remick? Neither match it but on their own have good things in them.

    Jeanne Crain is one of my lesser favored Golden Age actresses but Linda Darnell is my all-time favorite actress and this is her best performance (she was ROBBED of an Oscar nomination!!) Excellent film.

    Aside from our matches I went with an obscure John Huston Cold War thriller

    A Letter to Three Wives (1949)-Three well to do suburban wives (Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern and Jeanne Crain) are preparing to chaperone a children’s outing to an island picnic when they receive a letter from their mutual fremeny Addie Ross that she won’t be joining them because she’s left town and in so doing has taken one of their husbands with her. Cut off from the world for the day each wife reviews her marriage wondering if she’s the one now husbandless. Incisive look at personal relationships was nominated for many Oscars (and should have garnered a few more) and won best screenplay and director for Joseph Mankiewicz.

    This was one of my selections for Dell’s Girl Week a few years back.
    https://dellonmovies.blogspot.com/2016/11/girl-week-2016-letter-to-three-wives.html

    The Letter (1940)-The film opens on a pan of a sleepy night on a Malaysian plantation when the peace is shattered by a gunshot. A man stumbles out of the house and down the stairs followed by a woman (Bette Davis) emptying her revolver into him. She tells her husband and the law that the man, a family friend, was attacking her and maintains her innocence throughout a trial but suddenly the dead man’s Eurasian wife sends word through an emissary that she possesses a letter that holds secrets. Top notch drama contains one of Davis’s best, most contained performances guided by William Wyler.

    The Kremlin Letter (1970)-An unauthorized letter is sent to Moscow alleging the U.S. government's willingness to help Russia attack China. Former naval officer Charles Rone (Patrick O'Neal) and his team are sent to retrieve the missive. Going undercover they successfully reach out to Erika Kosnov (Bibi Andersson), the wife of a former agent, now married to the head of Russia's secret police (Max von Sydow). Their plans are interrupted, however, when their Moscow hideout is raided by a cunning politician (Orson Welles). Decent cold war thriller directed by John Huston loaded with familiar faces including George Sanders and Max von Sydow.

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    1. So glad we match! Linda Darnell is a great actress, beautiful but quite intelligent and it shows. She was robbed..I agree! The Letter is a great film that is lesser known Davis vehicle than some others but it shouldn't be. I don't know The Kremlin Letter but now it is marked down and I hope to see it one day

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  7. I know who Jeanne Crain was. Of course, I was paying attention to older movies for a while now. Good choices. I have no idea what I'd pick as no movies occur to me at the moment.

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    1. I knew you would know her. I bet some films will pop into your head all of a sudden:)

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  8. I don't remember "The Letter", yet it does sound vaguely familiar, so maybe I did watch it. The other two I know I've seen, more than once. ☺ Great picks! One movie about letters that comes to mind is "The Lake House", starring Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves and Christopher Plummer (2006). It was good!

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    1. I never gave The Lake House a chance because it sounds so...mushy but maybe I will give it a go because I like Christopher Plummer

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  9. I've seen Casablanca but not the other two. I know there are so many movies involving letters but not many come directly to mind. I remember something about a letter in Kiss Me Deadly but I can't recall it being a key plot point.

    I've seen several good episodes from Alfred Hitchcock Presents where letters were central to the plot. There's a very nice plot line in the movie Green Book where the Don Shirley character helps his driver write letters that impress the man's wife and family--it's sweet and funny. I highly recommend that film if you haven't seen it yet.

    Arlee Bird
    Tossing It Out

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    1. I have seen Greenbook and it is an excellent film. I love the scenes with the letters-great choice!

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  10. BIRGIT ~
    Any time you get a chance to list 'CASABLANCA', I think you probably should. Absolutely one of the all-time great classics that is not overrated in the slightest.

    My Pa really liked Jeanne Crain. I think it was she and Elizabeth Taylor whom my Pa was most attracted to on the silver screen.

    I haven't seen your other two choices, but one that came into my mind was
    '84 Charing Cross Road'. I saw it many years ago and thought it was pretty good. It's a kind of long-distance correspondence romance story:

    When a humorous script-reader in her New York City apartment sees an ad in the Saturday Review of Literature for a bookstore in London that does mail order, she begins a very special correspondence and friendship with Frank P. Doel (Anthony Hopkins), the bookseller who works at Marks & Co., 84 Charing Cross Road.

    ~ D-FensDogG
    STMcC Presents BATTLE OF THE BANDS

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    1. Your dad had good taste:) althoughTaylor was more the nympho sister of Crain. I will have to mark down the name of this film because it sounds quite good and, besides, I like Anthony Hopkins

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  11. Birgit,

    Casablanca is the only of the three flicks I've seen but the other two look like great recommendations. The Letter looks like a suspenseful drama and A Letter to Three Wives might be rather playful to try to unravel which husband has gone off with Addie. BTW, do you know if Paul and Kirk are related? Thanks for sharing another superb review and recommendations!

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    1. The letter is quite good and The Letter does have suspense but, as far as I know, those 2 are not related

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    2. Paul and Kirk don't favor but I thought they might be cousins, so I thought I'd ask. :) I checked both of our streaming services - Netflix and Amazon Prime for these movies with no luck. Have a good weekend, my friend!

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  12. Casablanca sure must be a winner this week. You've got mail is one I can think of.

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    1. I don’t think it’s the winner, I think The Notebook is.

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  13. Casablanca is definitely a fabulous film (a top choice of mine) and I haven't seen the other films to compare it to. I'm not good at thinking of films for themes, but there is a scene in When Harry Met Sally where is mails letters one at a time and keeps checking the box after each one. That's about all I can think of. Happy Thursday! hugs-Erika

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    1. That is a good choice and I like that movie

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  14. OK, I guess you realize I have never seen any of these, but if Casablanca ever comes to TCM, I'll be sure to watch it. I've heard it was fabulous. I would be stumped on this theme. I wouldn't know where to begin because you know I'm not into Chick Flicks!!

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    1. Not all are chick flicks...Letters From Iwo Jima is excellent

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  15. Of the three, i’ve only seen Casablanca which is great. It could fit so many themes so no reason not to choose it again.

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    1. It does fit many themes and I bet I will use it again...and again.

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  16. The only one I have seen is Casablanca- but the others sound great as well. :)
    ~Jess

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    1. They are great and glad you saw Casablanca

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  17. I JUST watched A Letter to Three Wives the other night! In fact, when I saw your title and subject, I planned to mention this movie in my comment. I saw it only once before, as an adolescent, and remembered none of it. I fell in love with Linda Darnell (although I'd seen her before at least once, being a big Zorro fan), and was very glad to see that the DVD I'd purchased has an episode of Biography featuring Linda's unfortunate life. Anyway... Did I mention that I actually enjoyed the film?

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    1. So glad you saw this film and that you saw it when I posted about this movie. Linda Darnell did have a sad life and she should be more well known

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  18. Congrats on the Rockin Award. It's certainly well deserved.

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    1. Hey, thank you! Wasn’t that super nice of Alex? I was very humbled by this

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  19. Hi Birgit - I've only ever watched Casablanca once - and probably should watch it again. I did love I've Got Mail ... fun easy going film ... so glad you put up movies many of us wouldn't think about - cheers Hilary

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    1. Hey, at least you saw Casablanca and You’ve Got Mail and the movie it was based on, “The Shop Around the Corner” and the musical remake with Judy Garland, “In The Good Ole Summertime”, are also great

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  20. i am ERIC BRUNT by name. Greetings to every one that is reading this testimony. I have been rejected by my wife after three(3) years of marriage just because another Man had a spell on her and she left me and the kid to suffer. one day when i was reading through the web, i saw a post on how this spell caster on this address AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com have help a woman to get back her husband and i gave him a reply to his address and he told me that a man had a spell on my wife and he told me that he will help me and after 3 days that i will have my wife back. i believed him and today i am glad to let you all know that this spell caster have the power to bring lovers back. because i am now happy with my wife. Thanks for helping me Dr Akhere contact him on email: AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com
    or
    call/whatsapp:+2349057261346










    i am ERIC BRUNT by name. Greetings to every one that is reading this testimony. I have been rejected by my wife after three(3) years of marriage just because another Man had a spell on her and she left me and the kid to suffer. one day when i was reading through the web, i saw a post on how this spell caster on this address AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com have help a woman to get back her husband and i gave him a reply to his address and he told me that a man had a spell on my wife and he told me that he will help me and after 3 days that i will have my wife back. i believed him and today i am glad to let you all know that this spell caster have the power to bring lovers back. because i am now happy with my wife. Thanks for helping me Dr Akhere contact him on email: AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com
    or
    call/whatsapp:+2349057261346

    ReplyDelete