Deeply moving story from one of cinema's great stylists, Max Ophuls (Le Ronde, Earrings of Madam De
, Lola Montes), stars Jane Fonatain as Lisa, a young woman hopelessly in love with dashing but callous piano player Stefan (Louis Jordan). Fontain played perhaps the best role of her career and was incredibly touching and convincing as a teenage girl (she was 31 when she took the part) that fell in love from the first sight and whose whole life was under the spell of this rare unrequited love that was recognized, alas, too late. One may ask how such a beautiful, sublime, and charming creature like Lisa would carry a torch through the years for a man who uses her without pity and does not remembers her name or her face well, the mystery of love is unsolvable. King Solomon, one of the wisest men ever lived said once, "There are three things I can't explain, and one, I can't understand - the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a ship in the sea, the way of a snake crawling up the mountain, and the way of a man to the heart of a woman." I guess, nowadays we can explain the first three mysteries but never will be able to understand the fourth one... Max Ophuls' who had worked in many European countries and "gave camera movement its finest hours in the history of the cinema" made romantic and elegant "The Letter from an Unknown Woman" in Hollywood and it is regarded as his best American movie.
Review of Letter from an Unknown Woman
