Jezebel / The Letter

JEZEBEL, 1938, Warner Bros, 103 min. Bette Davis won an Oscar for her performance as a tempestuous Southern belle torn between her prime suitor (George Brent) and the man she truly loves (Henry Fonda). In addition to the top-notch performances, director William Wyler provides some gorgeous set-pieces, from the dance to which Davis wears her scandalous red dress to a sequence depicting the yellow fever epidemic.

THE LETTER, 1940, Warner Bros, 95 min. Dir. William Wyler. CASABLANCA co-writer Howard Koch adapted Somerset Maugham's play about the wife of a plantation owner who commits murder and then enlists the aid of local colonialists to cover it up. Bette Davis gives one of her great performances as the killer, eliciting the audience's sympathy for a woman who, on the surface, hardly deserves it. With Herbert Marshall as her mortified spouse.