The Letter is a 1927 play by W. Somerset Maugham, dramatised from a short story that he had published in Hearst's International Magazine in 1924, and in his 1926 collection The Casuarina Tree. The story was inspired by the real-life Ethel Proudlock case which involved the wife of the headmaster of Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur who was convicted in a murder trial after shooting dead a male friend in April 1911. She was eventually pardoned.
Adaptations (3)
The Letter has been adapted into 3 films, from 1929 to 1947. The most recent is The Unfaithful (1947).
The Letter1929 · film · 65 min · dir. Jean de Limur · IMDb ↗IMDb6.7A plantation owner's wife goes on trial for shooting a man she says attacked her, but a handwritten letter reveals otherwise.
The Unfaithful1947 · film · 109 min · dir. Vincent Sherman · IMDb ↗IMDb6.8Christine Hunter kills an intruder and tells her husband and lawyer that it was an act of self-defense. It's later revealed that he was actually her lover and she had posed for an incriminating statue he created.
