Letter from an Unknown Woman

"[It's right] if all you are after is an hour and a half of wistfulness, of lingering love-lorn expressions and pseudo-Viennese 'schmaltz' (...) But if you are looking for sensibility and reasonable emotion in a film, beware of this over-written 'Letter'." 

"Ophüls’s direction is, as ever, florid and extravagant (...) Ophüls’s truest moment comes the moment Lisa and Stefan’s second date reveals itself to be something crushingly disappointing (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)" 

"Ophüls’s bravura camerawork and decorative sense conjure an exquisitely calibrated romanticism." 

"A breathtaking, bitter, exquisitely orchestrated exploration of love and selfishness (...) A graceful and ironic film that never once falls captive to its own cliches." 

"Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan (...) prove to be a solid combination (...) The taste with which the film has been put together in all departments under John Houseman’s production supervision makes it a valid and interest-holding drama" 

"Heartbreaking and uplifting (...) Swift, swooping, dizzying, Ophüls's shooting style matches brilliantly the vertiginous melodrama of his story. The lighting, too, intensifies the agonies of a doomed romance" 

"ts flimsy, not entirely plausible story of a young girl's pure love for an egocentric, womanising pianist (Louis Jourdan) is given depth and visual texture by the performances and by Ophüls's delicate direction"