The Letter

I was doing a stint of reviewing, covering the student drama festival for a week; by the time Thursday had come I had had enough, thank you very much. I had sat through play after avante garde play that probably meant a lot to the authors but meant little to me, and what's more did not entertain me either.
So I took an afternoon off and went to see Somerset Maugham's "The Letter" in the New Theatre, Cardiff. It had Honor Blackman in the cast as the woman who shoots her lover and gets away with the crime (to a certain degree anyway). I thought "What a fantastically good play this is." I still think it an excellent play but it was "fantastically" good then because it was being compared conciously and maybe unconciously too with all those student productions I had seen.
The film is better than that production. Bette Davies at her troubled finest, with Herbert Marshall as her long suffering husband. But the great performance in the film comes from someone whose name is not exactly a household name: James Stevenson.
He was nominated for an oscar but did not get it - he should have. It was one of those performances that only a supporting actor can give - astonishing because you don't expect it.
I am told that Jerry Lewis used to give a funny imitation of Bette Davies in "The Letter": sucking on a cigarette, then tapping its ash everywhere and, like some caged animal pacing back and fo, he'd say: "I must get that damned letter back."
Not funny to tell but I'm told it was.
Nothing like Bette Davies of course, except in the distraught desperation.