The 13th Letter

The script is intriguing, especially in the way it points the finger of suspicion at several different characters as to who is the writer of a series of poison pen letters in a small Canadian town, but it's also talky, and Otto Preminger's direction is strangely lacking in style, for the man who helmed the highly celebrated "Laura". This looks more like a TV movie before TV movies where in vogue. Linda Darnell and especially Constance Smith are gorgeous, Charles Boyer is very good, but Michael Rennie is miscast in the central role. ** out of 4.

A series of poison pen letters roils a small Canadian town.

Boyer and Darnell get top billing, but Rennie gets the screen time and uses it to memorable effect. His aloof Dr. Pearson is a fascinating portrait in guarded emotions. There's one scene where his steely reserve is topped. Catch the old lady, mother of the dead lad, as she brandishes a nasty looking razor while Pearson looks on, hoping it's not meant for him. It's deliciously played.

The movie's a good noirish mystery, benefiting from the Quebec locations, especially during the impressive funeral scene. This was during TCF's neo-realist period when actual locations were widely used. Then too, the French setting lends a kind of exotic air that boosts the unusual poison pen premise.

At first Darnell's role looks like one of her sexually aggressive type-casts, but then the screenplay does an effective job at winning our sympathy. At the same time, I'm impressed with the strikingly pretty Constance Smith holding up so well during director Preminger's extended hospital scene. There's not much info about her or her brief career. Too bad, she certainly had the chops—literally and figuratively—for a starring career. Took me awhile to identify Boyer as the aging doctor and a long way from his usual dashing leading man (sans toupee). After reading his bio, I expect he enjoyed this departure.

Anyway, the solution is rather complex and something of a stretch, for me at least. Nonetheless, the cast and the production carry it off, making for a very watchable 90- minutes.

I used to think of the Hollywood proclivity toward remaking foreign films in English to be a modern phenomenon until I encountered the 1951 remake of Fritz Lang's German classic "M" from 1939. Well, that comment segues nicely into the American remake of "Le Corbeau." "The 13th Letter" doesn't mention the French film as a source nor the historical incident from the 1920s it is based on but refers back only to the novel. It does pay some homage to its French origins. An opening title tells us that the new movie was filmed in its entirety at a "small French-Canadian community in the Province of Quebec." When I reviewed the Hollywood remake of Fritz Lang's "M" (released the same year as "The 13th Letter" but from different studios), I said that if you could, as much as possible, take the new film on its own merits then it had quite a bit to offer. I can't quite say the same for the Preminger effort. The director doesn't seem to be working too hard for a film that falls between "Where The Sidewalk Ends" and "Angel Face" in his filmography. The new film is not quite a shot-for-shot remake but is pretty much a scene-for-scene redo. The only substantial change is right at the end where a fairly long dialog passage goes to explaining the crimes in a lot more detail than Clouzot provided - but I liked the Clouzot approach better. The new young doctor is played by Michael Rennie who can't come close to showing the inner turmoil that Pierre Fresnay brought to his tormented physician. Linda Darnell is good enough as the landlord's flirty daughter if she isn't nearly as seductive and overtly sexual as the French would have it. The only real notable performance is by Charles Boyer who is quite brilliant as the elderly doctor with the young wife who the anonymous letters continually link to Rennie's character. Howard Koch wrote the screenplay. The cinematographer was Joseph LaShelle (Laura, The Apartment, Marty), so there was talent behind the camera. I can neither recommend or not recommend this picture. See it if curiosity leads you that way. It's not really a bad movie but not a very good one either.

Michael Rennie plays a doctor at a Canadian hospital who receives a series of poison pen letters. Soon these letters are sent to others which leads to tension amongst the inhabitants of the small Canadian town.

THE 13TH LETTER is a decent well made mystery which keeps the viewer guessing to the very end who is sending the poison pen letters and why. The cast is quite good, with Rennie giving a stand out performance as noble doctor who is the main target of the nasty letters. It a shame that this film from Otto Preminger is so rarely shown.

Otto Preminger directs "The 13th Letter" from 1951, a remake of the Cluzot film, "Le Corbeau."

This dark and heavily atmospheric film takes place in a small town in Quebec. Doctor Pearson (Michael Rennie) has left a big practice after his wife left him and subsequently committed suicide. Tall and handsome, he is attracting a lot of attention, some from a woman (Linda Darnell) he considers to be a hypochondriac vying for his attention. He has been receiving anonymous poison pen letters, as have others in the town.

The wife (Constance Smith) of Dr. Laurent (Charles Boyer) has received a letter accusing her of having an affair with Pearson. A letter sent to a hospitalized war hero states he has cancer and is just not being told. This causes the man to commit suicide.

Dr. Laurent takes charge of looking for the culprit - and there are many suspects.

Good, solid film with Rennie giving a wonderful performance as a good man trying to move on after a tragedy. Boyer is energetic as Dr. Laurent, an older man married to a beautiful younger woman who doesn't want to lose her. Linda Darnell is beautiful and sultry, on her way to a second career as a femme fatale and a long way from her innocence in "The Mark of Zorro".

Constance Smith won a Hedy Lamarr look-alike contest but her career in films ended in ashes due to her bad attitude and inability to get along with studio heads. At one point, she was imprisoned for stabbing her then-boyfriend, Paul Rotha, whom she later married and stabbed again as well as making several suicide attempts. She turned to drugs and alcohol and died after being in and out of hospitals and occasionally working as a cleaner.

Good film which takes you into the story and keeps you there, wondering about the identity of the villain.