The Letter

Conventional, early-sound treatment of the incident William Wyler used to open his re-make with Bette Davis, as Leslie (Jeanne Eagels), wife of a British rubber plantation owner, confronts her lover (Herbert Marshall), in The Letter, 1929, based on W.S. Maugham.

Opening scene, first appearance by famed stage actress Jeanne Eagels in her only surviving sound film, as British rubber-plantation wife Leslie, in the role later played by Bette Davis, with Reginald Owen as her husband Robert, in The Letter, 1929, from the story and play by W.S. Maugham.

O.P. Heggie as British defense lawyer Joyce in colonial Malaya receives pivotal news from his sneaky assistant On Chi Seng (Tamaki Yoshiwara), his racist catch-phrase closing line not from the original W.S. Maugham play, in the first movie version of The Letter, 1929.