The 13th Letter

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.

The film stars out as an interesting mystery with an atypical premise. Then it deflates and gives you a disappointing ending.

Boyer is the only Quebecianite who has a French accent and as usual, he really pours it on.

I thought "The 13th Letter" was a pleasant surprise, a good mystery that keeps you guessing until the end of the picture. In hindsight, it seems a good idea to place the film in Quebec - it seemed a little quirky when the film began but you gradually get used to it. Acting was good all around, especially the two old pros, Michael Rennie and Charles Boyer. Director Preminger uses all cast members as suspects and sprinkles suspicion around liberally - so much so that you can't pinpoint the culprit until late in the movie.

As noted in the site's summary, someone is writing poison pen letters to the new doctor in town (Rennie), and copying in various and sundry townspeople. The letters accuse the doctor of an affair with the wife of the head of the local hospital (Boyer). This is a well done mystery which I can't recall as being on TV. I think it would be well-received if it were dusted off by FMC - it was produced by 20th Century Fox and must be in their vaults somewhere.

1st watched 5/30/2000 - (Dir-Otto Preminger): Well-done whodunit which revolves around a series of letters written supposedly to defame a local doctor in a Canadian town, but ends up becoming more fatal.It keeps you guessing until the end which is pretty much the measuring stick for this kind of movie.