DVD : Letter from an Unknown Woman [Region 2]

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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Binding: DVD
EAN: 3259130213768
Format: Full Screen, NTSC
Region Code: 2
Sales Rank: 118757

Editorial Review:

Amazon.com essential video:
"By the time you read this letter, I may be dead," reads aging bon vivant Louis Jourdan from a letter found in his tiny hotel room. With tousled hair and a tux tired from yet another night of meaningless flirtation, he's startled by these opening lines and suspends his preparations to flee a duel in order to read the history of a love affair that he can't remember. For the rest of the film we're transported to the life of Joan Fontaine's awkward young Viennese woman, who has been hopelessly enthralled by the dashing pianist ever since adolescence. For a moment she was his lover, the emotional pinnacle of her life but for the philandering rogue simply another fling in a blur of women passing through his bedroom. This was Max Ophüls's first personal project in Hollywood, and he injects this exquisitely stylish romantic melodrama (based on a novel by Stefan Zweig) with his continental sensibility. Both lush and restrained, the endlessly moving camera tracks, cranes, and circles around the characters while maintaining a measured distance. Fontaine delivers one of the best performances of her career, vulnerable and yearning without lapsing into sentimentality--and ultimately showing a hidden strength as she risks all for one more moment with the love of her life. Jourdan is genial and callow, an empty figure faced with the meaningless of his life and shamed with self-discovery. It's a sensibility more European than American, right down the empty gesture that concludes this sad melodrama. --Sean Axmaker

Average Rating:

Rating: - "Lifelong obsession" with this film!?
Hmm. O.K. Here goes!
I first saw this film 50 years ago. Had to wait another 25 years to see it again. It was just as hypnotic as I remembered.
Now another 20 years have passed and I finally HAVE a copy!
This has been my favourite film all my life.
I hate the fact that I am becoming more "critical" of it, but that is probably normal when you have thought about a work of art many times?
So, although (almost) everyone who first sees it seems inevitably to side with LISA ... Read More

Rating: - "A Beautiful Love Story"
A lovely romantic story. I was delighted to find this movie on DVD format available now here at Amazon.A romantic movie to watch again and again.

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Rating: - A Piece of Art...
I must say that there have been few movies (dramas) which have emotioned me so much as this work of art by master director Max Ophüls (credited as Opuls here)...only films like "Portrait of Jennie" or "Dodsworth"...this was another one-of-a-kind experience for me.

I had read so much about it, that I had to SEE it...so I bought this VHS here, at Amazon.com marketplace sellers, where I've always made great transactions & had very good overall experiences, especially when it comes to ... Read More

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Rating: - An odd, brittle melodrama
Joan Fontaine stars as Lisa, an odd, possibly mentally disturbed young woman who adopts a stalkerlike, lifelong fixation on a rakish concert pianist, played by Louis Jordan, who beds her then forgets her, leaving her with child yet still obsessed with her one true love. Fontaine's cockeyed performance may project more creepiness into the role than was originally intended -- her Lisa is a genuinely disturbing character, and her clumsy attempt at an Austrian accent (the story is set in late-19th Century ... Read More

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Rating: - Unforgettable... An Exceptional Film
"Letter From an Unknown Woman" is a touching, emotionally-involving movie about a
woman's life-long obsession with a handsome, charming musician who is truly not worth all of her
love and devotion. This is the kind of movie you watch when you want to lose yourself in
a whole other world--it's that engrossing. Joan Fontaine and Luis Jourdan are excellent in
their roles, and Fontaine is especially convincing as a woman hopelessly in love with
Jourdan (or the perfect man she imagines ... Read More