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LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, OPHULS

4/5 stars
TERRIFIC movie.  Louis Jourdaine and Joan Fontaine.  Joan falls in love with pianist Louis when she is 15.  She remains in love with him despite the fact that he forgets all about her.  She has his baby, raises the boy, marries, but when he returns--she falls madly in love with him again.  Goodbye son and husband.

She packs her boy off (tears streaming) to his school.  Both he and she sit briefly in a railroad car that has had typhus patient.  Boy dies.  Joan dies . . . but not before writing a letter to Louis explaining her love.

Movie ends with Louis heading off to a duel (which he will lose) with Joan's husband, though it seems unlikely he is aware that it is her husband.  He is, however, aware that by being so self-centered he threw away his one chance at true love.

Joan Fontaine was terrific.

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