Cheap Letter from an Unknown Woman [Region 2] (DVD) (Max Ophüls) Price

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Customer Reviews of Letter from an Unknown Woman [Region 2]

A Piece of Art...
I must say that there have been few movies (dramas) which have emotioned me so much as this work of art by master director Max Ophüls (credited as Opuls here)...only films like "Portrait of Jennie" or "Dodsworth"...this was another one-of-a-kind experience for me. <
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> I had read so much about it, that I had to SEE it...so I bought this VHS here, at Amazon.com marketplace sellers, where I've always made great transactions & had very good overall experiences, especially when it comes to obtain, these "out of stock/print", kind of elusive gems. <
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> Joan Fontaine gives what one can easily be, the most wondrous, poetic, performance, she ever gave, including "Rebecca" and "Suspicion"...Here she simply is at her very best, close to perfection...just as Jennifer Jones, gave (IMHO) THE performance of her career in the aforementioned "Portrait of Jennie". She convicingly grows from an "innocent" adolescent who falls deeply in love with an artist (Louis Jourdan), looking him, following him, listening to him, "in hiding", "in the shadows", quietly, living her life only "for/because of him"... although he's unaware of that. This obsession of hers with this man, reaches to a point where nothing makes sense to her without him. It's platonic love & adoration, taken to extreme limits, almost to the boundaries of insanity, yet so disarmingly naive and true! <
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> Louis Jourdan is equally effective, as the debonair, devil-make-care, playboy, man of the world, pianist, who realizes too late, what has been going on. <
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> Wonderful art direction, sets, mood, atmosphere, cinematography, narration...excellent "raccontos/flashbacks"...great camera work, gowns, period detail...everything is so right...especially the truth in Lisa's (Fontaine) very deep love for this man, who becomes the only reason of her life, of her "breathing", of her "existence". <
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> Max Ophüls really made a work of art, out of this movie...which by the way, I read somewhere, had a similar plot than the 1933 "Only Yesterday", which marked the debut in the american cinema, of that gorgeous actress, Margaret Sullavan; although Ophüls' film, is by far superior...'cos it "trascends" the "Tearjerker" status; it has an ethereal quality all of his own. <
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> Not since watching "Shadowlands" in March of this year, I had felt & been so moved by a film. Really, ROMANTIC, unrequited love, at his best. And I tell you, I'm not an "easy" person...in other words, I do not "emote" easily, and at the film's conclussion, I have no shame in admitting that I cried like a baby. It reached my heart & soul. <
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> This film ought to be restored and released on dvd format, since it is one of the landmark films of all time. Although I must say the Republic VHS Edition, is decent indeed.

An odd, brittle melodrama
Joan Fontaine stars as Lisa, an odd, possibly mentally disturbed young woman who adopts a stalkerlike, lifelong fixation on a rakish concert pianist, played by Louis Jordan, who beds her then forgets her, leaving her with child yet still obsessed with her one true love. Fontaine's cockeyed performance may project more creepiness into the role than was originally intended -- her Lisa is a genuinely disturbing character, and her clumsy attempt at an Austrian accent (the story is set in late-19th Century Vienna) gives her lines that much more of a twisted feel. It's an odd film: Jordan's character is a complete cipher, and nothing in the script redeems either one of them, really. It's hard to tell what the moral of this melodrama may be, but it will definitely elicit a visceral reaction, either of repulsion or boredom.