Country: USA
Year: 1948
Duration: 86'
Vienna, the early 1900s. Stefan, a once-successful pianist and an incorrigible seducer, receives a letter. A woman has written to him telling him that she has loved him all her life, that she had had a child by him but that their son had recently died of typhus. Only now that she, too, is soon to die has she found the strength to write to him, to relive the passion which has burned inside her ever since, still a young girl, she used to listen to him play from the window of her house.
Biography
film director
Max Ophüls
Max Ophüls (Saarbrücken, Germany, 1902 - Hamburg, Germany, 1957) was unanimously considered one of the maestros of sentimental melodramas. After directing his first films in Europe, including successful movies like Love Story (1933), Everybody’s Woman (1934) and There’s No Tomorrow (1939), the rise of Nazism forced him to seek refuge first in Switzerland and then in the United States, even though he was able to find work only after the war ended. His film Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) was one of his most successful films, a cornerstone of classic Hollywood cinema, elegant and formally impeccable, as were the films he shot after returning to France: La Ronde (1950); Le Plaisir (1952), based on a work by Maupassant; The Earrings of Madame de... (1953) and Lola Montès (1955).
FILMOGRAFIA
Une histoire d’amour (Amanti folli, 1933), La signora di tutti (1934), Divine (1935), La tendre ennemie (La nostra compagna, 1936), Sans Lendemain (Tutto finisce all’alba, 1939), Letter from an Unknown Woman (Lettera da una sconosciuta, 1948), Caught (Nella morsa, 1949), The Reckless Moment (Sgomento, 1949), La ronde (Il piacere e l’amore, 1950), Le plaisir (Il piacere, 1952), Madame de... (Gioielli di Madame de..., 1953), Lola Montès (1955).
Declaration
film director
“Since the studio chiefs were very apprehensive, they arranged for a preview. [...] The spectators fill in cards which can prove decisive for the film’s release. [...] We were terribly eager to know the results, so we waited just by the cinema, under the neon sign of a men’s outfitters. Finally, we got the first bundle of cards. One of us read aloud. One card: ‘Did you like the film?... Not at all. Was the story clear?... No.’ The head of the studio drew out the cards one by one. At each ‘yes’ or ‘no,' he looked at me, pleased or annoyed, approving or very reproachful.”
Cast
& Credits
regia/director
Max Ophüls
soggetto/story dal racconto Lettera di una sconosciuta di/from the short story of the same title by Stefan Zweig
sceneggiatura/screenplay Howard Koch
fotografia/cinematography Franz Planer
montaggio/film editing Ted J. Kent
scenografia/production design Alexander Golitzen
costumi/costume design Travis Banton
musica/music Daniele Amfitheatrof
suono/sound Glenn E. Anderson, Leslie I. Carey
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters Joan Fontaine (Lisa Berndle), Louis Jourdan (Stefan Brand), Mady Christians (Frau Berndle), Marcel Journet (Johann Stauffer), Art Smith (John), Howard Freeman (Herr Kastner), Erskine Sanford (il portiere/porter), Betty Blythe (Frau Kohner), John T. Bambury (il nano/midget) produttore/producer John Houseman
produzione/production Rampart Productions
soggetto/story dal racconto Lettera di una sconosciuta di/from the short story of the same title by Stefan Zweig
sceneggiatura/screenplay Howard Koch
fotografia/cinematography Franz Planer
montaggio/film editing Ted J. Kent
scenografia/production design Alexander Golitzen
costumi/costume design Travis Banton
musica/music Daniele Amfitheatrof
suono/sound Glenn E. Anderson, Leslie I. Carey
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters Joan Fontaine (Lisa Berndle), Louis Jourdan (Stefan Brand), Mady Christians (Frau Berndle), Marcel Journet (Johann Stauffer), Art Smith (John), Howard Freeman (Herr Kastner), Erskine Sanford (il portiere/porter), Betty Blythe (Frau Kohner), John T. Bambury (il nano/midget) produttore/producer John Houseman
produzione/production Rampart Productions
