Obsession, Beauty, Love, Fear, and Death. These are all important themes in Max Ophuls masterpiece, “Letter From An Unknown Woman”. A young piano prodigy moves in the same apartment complex that a young bourgeoisie girl lives in. The young woman quickly falls in love with him, and spies on him in various ways. Her mother is quite domineering, and marries a rich gentleman, causing the family to move out of the apartment complex. This devastates Lisa (the girl, played by Joan Fontaine), and her obsession for the piano musician brings her to his door. She knocks, but he’s nowhere around, and then she spots him returning to his apartment late in the night with another women.

Her controlling mother tries to arrange a fixed marriage for her with a young military officer once they arrive in the new town, but she lies to the officer and rejects his marriage proposal. Then, Lisa travels back to Vienna to seek out the Pianist, Stefan (played by Louis Jordan). They have an affair, but Lisa is impregnated during Stefan’s absence. She leaves and raises the child on her own, eventually marrying Johann, (played by Marcel Journet) the man that was once the young military officer who proposed to her. Johann gives her a good life, but later on she discovers that Stefan is now a hack, and hasn’t played a concert for years. She runs into him at an opera, and later on even sneaks off to see him. He forgets completely that they had the affair all of those years ago, and treats her like another woman he wants to sleep with. She leaves, and sends a letter to him, telling him about the love they could of had, the fact that she had his son, and the that his son has died, and she is to die very soon.

Stefan is left feeling empty, and I can’t help but relate to this film on many levels. Have you ever had a lost love? A relationship that didn’t work, even though everything seemed to click and you believed you had found “the one”. He blindly lost everything he had. She was his muse, and could of led him to a very happy life. Life is sometimes tragic, and even melodramatic. “Letter From An Unknown Woman” freely expresses the pain that comes with love.

4.5 stars