A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember, who may hold the key to his downfall.A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember, who may hold the key to his downfall.A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember, who may hold the key to his downfall.
- Awards
- 1 win
Patricia Alphin
- Pretty
- (uncredited)
Edit Angold
- Middle-Aged Woman
- (uncredited)
Lois Austin
- Elderly Woman
- (uncredited)
Polly Bailey
- Passenger
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- Howard Koch
- Stefan Zweig
- Max Ophüls(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaIn the beginning of the film, Lisa is 16 and played by Joan Fontaine who was 30 years old at the time the film was made.
- GoofsWhile most signs in the movie are written correctly in German, since the movie is set in Austria, parts of them are in English, e.g. Stefan Brand's concert flyer, which says "Concert Program" instead of "Konzertprogramm".
- Quotes
Lisa Berndl: The course of our lives can be changed by such little things. So many passing by, each intent on his own problems. So many faces that one might easily have been lost. I know now that nothing happens by chance. Every moment is measured; every step is counted.
- SoundtracksUn sospiro
(uncredited)
Music by Franz Liszt
Played on piano by Louis Jourdan (dubbed by Jakob Gimpel)
Also used as main theme in the score
Featured review
White Rose is a Symbol of Neverending Love
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.
helpful•112
- Galina_movie_fan
- Nov 21, 2005
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Language
- Also known as
- Brief einer Unbekannten
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross worldwide
- $852
- Runtime1 hour 27 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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![Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan in Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BY2VhMDdlM2UtYjViZi00OWFjLWI5YjUtYjY4NjRjOTJhOGNlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjc0MzMzNjA@._V1_QL75_UX90_CR0,1,90,133_.jpg)
Top Gap
By what name was Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) officially released in Canada in English?
Answer