Letter from an Unknown Woman

A woman in a long coat and hat walks along a cobblestone sidewalk at night past a vintage storefront with ornate windows. Inside, people are visible through the glass, and a sign partially reads “Billiard.” A streetlamp casts light on the scene, with a vi

“By the time you read this letter, I may be dead…. If this reaches you, you will know how I became yours when you didn’t know who I was or even that I existed.”

Thus begins the letter from which Max Ophüls's a tragic tale of unrequited love takes its name. Adapted from a short-story by Stefan Zweig, Letter from an Unknown Woman centers on an impressionable young woman Lisa (Joan Fontaine) who develops an obsession with concert pianist Stefan Brandt (Louis Jourdan).

On the verge of fleeing from a duel, Brandt receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember. Writing from her deathbed, she recounts the story of her lifelong love for him, developed over a series of periodic encounters and a brief love affair that Brandt does not remember, but left her with their child. Her revelations force Brandt to reevaluate his life and reckon with his fate.

Told through a series of flashbacks that transport the view to turn-of-the-century Vienna, Letter from an Unknown Woman is considered one of the finest example of melodrama, focusing on the inner life of a woman whose very existence seems tied to her consuming delusion. Ophüls's precise visual style heightens the emotional intensity of even the most quotidian scenes — the staircase that Brandt once traversed, the window from which Lisa stole a glance at the man she loves, the train platform that took him away from her forever — and culminates a tragic ending that rarely leaves a dry eye on the house.

Part of our "Midcentury Melodrama" series. Courtesy of Paramount and Swank Motion Pictures