The film has since become famous partially due to its unavailability after a 1936 court case (see §Legal status). It is remembered for the "Letty Lynton dress" designed by Adrian: a white cotton organdy gown with large ruffled sleeves, puffed at the shoulder.[3]Macy's department store copied the dress in 1932, and it sold over 50,000 replicas nationwide.[4]
Plot
Joan Crawford wearing Adrian's Letty Lynton gown
New York City socialite Letty Lynton has been living in Montevideo, Uruguay and wants to end her affair with Emile Renaul. After several failed attempts to leave him, the only way she can is by leaving the country. On a steamship to the United States, Letty sees wealthy American, Jerry Darrow, and she immediately is attracted to him and he to her. Both unknowingly bribe the purser to be seated for meals at the same table. At dinner, their attraction increases, and after two weeks at sea, they have fallen in love.
On Christmas Eve, the captain gives passengers their telegrams as gifts in a game. Letty has none, being alone on the hasty trip home, and Jerry feigns the same, the gesture touches Letty and the two kiss for the first time. She starts to believe she can start her life over and when Jerry comes to her cabin to propose, she accepts.
In New York, Letty is shocked to see Emile waiting for her on the dock. Arranging to meet Jerry later, she leaves the ship before him and learns from Emile that he flew from South America to see her and plans to take her back with him. After she leaves Emile on the docks with her trunk, Letty hurries home to speak with her mother. Jerry phones telling her that they have been invited to his parents home in Upstate New York and will leave that night, after Letty tells her mother about the engagement.
Letty's mother, Mrs. Lynton, is an embittered woman who shows no affection for Letty, whom she regards as irresponsible. Soon, Emile arrives to have the talk Letty dodged on the pier, now having read about the engagement in the newspapers. He warns her to meet him in his hotel room that night or he will show Jerry her explicit love letters. Letty is revolted and resolves to commit suicide rather than spend her life with Emile. She clings to a slim hope; convince him to give her the letters or let her go.
She calls Jerry to change their departure to the next day, then goes to Emile's hotel, taking a bottle of poison with her. She first tries to ask for a chance at happiness, explaining how it is her one shot at real love, but Emile will have none of it — stating she can never be anyone's but his. Letty then begs for her letters, but he refuses and tells her that their affair will only be over when he says so. While Emile answers a knock at the door and talks to a waiter, Letty puts the poison in her champagne glass, planning to drink it herself, choosing death over Emile.
When Emile returns, however, he strikes her then picks up her glass drinking the poison, as a shocked Letty mutely watches.[5] He then grabs up Letty and he carries her to the bedroom, attempting sex, when the poison starts to take effect. As he dies, she screams hysterically that she's glad he's dying, even if she hangs for doing it. She then cleans up fingerprints in the room and leaves.
The next day, soon after Letty and Jerry have arrived at the home of his parents, a police detective from New York arrives looking for Letty and requests that she come with him. Jerry and Letty, along with Mrs. Lynton and Letty's maid, go with him to see District Attorney John J. Haney. He begins questioning everyone and accuses Letty of murder, confronting her with the letters.
Letty admits that she went to see Emile, but Jerry interrupts by saying that he and Letty spent the night together at his apartment after she left Emile's, and that he knew all about the letters. Mrs. Lynton corroborates Jerry's story by saying that she followed Letty to Jerry's apartment. She also says that she overheard Emile say he would kill himself if Letty did not return to him. Letty's maid, Miranda, also corroborates the story, after which Haney says that the case is closed and Letty is free to go.
Photoplay wrote "The gripping, simple manner in which this picture unfolds stands it squarely among the best of the month...Joan Crawford as Letty is at her best. Nils Asther is a fascinating villain. Robert Montgomery gives a skillful performance...The direction, plus a strong cast, make Letty Lynton well worth seeing."
Motion Picture Herald noted "Almost everything one can wish for in entertainment has been injected into this superbly acted and directed production. The gowns which Miss Crawford wears will be the talk of your town for weeks after...and how she wears them!"
Box office
According to MGM records, the film earned $754,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $418,000 in other markets, resulting in a profit of $390,000.[1][6]
Legal status
Letty Lynton has been unavailable since a federal District Court ruled on January 17, 1936 that the script used by MGM followed too closely the play Dishonored Lady (1930) by Edward Sheldon and Margaret Ayer Barnes without acquiring the rights to the play or giving credit. On July 28, 1939, the Second Circuit awarded one-fifth of the net of Letty Lynton to plaintiffs Sheldon and Ayer Barnes in their plagiarism and copyright infringement action against MGM.[7][8] This case was incorrectly said to be the first copyright decision ever to direct the apportionment of profits on the relative basis as in patent suits where a patent has been appropriated.[9] A previous similar decision had been made in 1921 in the case of the plagiarism case regarding Al Jolson's 1920 song "Avalon".
MGM petitioned the United States Supreme Court to overturn the Court of Appeals ruling entirely, and the playwrights cross-petitioned. They argued that because the questions arising in the suit were predicated solely upon the copyright laws of the U.S., the court of appeals had erred in relying on principles of patent law to apportion the damages, rather than grant the plaintiffs 100% of MGM's profit. The Supreme Court accepted the playwrights' petition but in 1940 unanimously affirmed the Second Circuit's decision that granted them one fifth, not all of the profits.[10] As a result of the finding of copyright violation, however, the film has remained largely unavailable save for some bootlegged copies.[11] The 1932 film should become readily available at the latest upon the eventual expiration of the play's 1930 copyright, or sooner if the Warner Archive Collection, which presently owns the film, can make a deal with the play's current rights-holder.
Joan Crawford was an American actress. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her parts, Crawford launched a publicity campaign and built an image as a nationally known flapper by the end of the 1920s. By the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hardworking young women who find romance and financial success. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money. By the end of the 1930s, she was labeled "box office poison".
Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Rayner Lowndes, who wrote as Marie Belloc Lowndes, was a prolific English novelist, and sister of author Hilaire Belloc.
Edward Brewster Sheldon was an American dramatist. His plays include Salvation Nell (1908) and Romance (1913), which was made into a motion picture with Greta Garbo.
Madeleine Hamilton Smith was a 19th-century Glasgow socialite who was the accused in a sensational murder trial in Scotland in 1857.
Mammy Two Shoes is a fictional character in MGM's Tom and Jerry cartoons. She is a middle-aged African American woman who is the housemaid in the house which Tom and Jerry reside. But the fact that she has her own bedroom in the short Sleepy-Time Tom (1951) raises the possibility of her being the owner of the house, as no other human is present in the house in shorts she appears. She would scold and discipline Tom whenever she believed he was misbehaving; Jerry would sometimes be the cause of Tom's getting in trouble.
Adrian Adolph Greenburg, widely known mononymously as Adrian, was an American costume designer whose most famous costumes were for The Wizard of Oz and hundreds of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films between 1928 and 1941. He was usually credited onscreen with the phrase "Gowns by Adrian". Early in his career he chose the professional name Gilbert Adrian, a combination of his father's forename and his own.
The Bitter Tea of General Yen is a 1933 American pre-Code drama war film directed by Frank Capra and starring Barbara Stanwyck, and featuring Nils Asther and Walter Connolly. Based on the 1930 novel of the same name by Grace Zaring Stone, the film is about an American missionary in Shanghai during the Chinese Civil War who gets caught in a battle while trying to save a group of orphans. Knocked unconscious, she is saved by a Chinese general warlord who brings her to his palace. When the general falls in love with the naive young woman, she fights her attraction to the powerful general and resists his flirtation, yet remains at his side when his fortune turns.
Margaret Ayer Barnes was an American playwright, novelist, and short-story writer. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
Nils Anton Alfhild Asther was a Swedish actor active in Hollywood from 1926 to the mid-1950s, known as "the male Greta Garbo". Between 1916 and 1963 he appeared in over seventy feature films, sixteen of which were produced in the silent era. He is mainly remembered today for two silent films – The Single Standard and Wild Orchids – he made with fellow Swede Greta Garbo, and his portrayal of the title character in the controversial pre-Code Frank Capra film The Bitter Tea of General Yen.
Years of Grace is a 1930 novel by Margaret Ayer Barnes. It won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1931. Despite this recognition, it is not her best-known work; that honor belongs to Dishonored Lady, a play she co-wrote with Edward Sheldon, which was adapted twice into film.
They All Kissed the Bride is a 1942 American screwball comedy film directed by Alexander Hall and starring Joan Crawford and Melvyn Douglas.
The Kiss is a 1929 American synchronized sound drama film directed by Jacques Feyder, starring Greta Garbo, Conrad Nagel, and Lew Ayres in his first feature film. The film has no audible dialogue but featured a synchronized musical score and sound effects. The soundtrack was recorded using the Western Electric Sound System sound-on-film process. The soundtrack was also transferred to discs for those theatres that were wired with sound-on-disc sound systems.
The Single Standard is a 1929 American synchronized sound romantic drama film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer directed by veteran John S. Robertson and starring Greta Garbo, Nils Asther and Johnny Mack Brown. The film has no audible dialogue but featured a synchronized musical score and sound effects. The soundtrack was recorded using the Western Electric Sound System sound-on-film process. The soundtrack was also transferred to discs for those theatres that were wired with sound-on-disc sound systems.
Wild Orchids is a 1929 American synchronized sound drama film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer directed by Sidney Franklin and starring Greta Garbo, Lewis Stone and Nils Asther. Only these three stars received cast credit. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using both the sound-on-disc and sound-on-film process. The plot is very similar to Garbo's later sound film, The Painted Veil (1934).
The Cardboard Lover is a 1928 American silent romantic comedy film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring Marion Davies, Nils Asther and Jetta Goudal. It was produced by Cosmopolitan Productions and distributed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer.
Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 572 U.S. 663 (2014), is a United States Supreme Court copyright decision in which the Court held 6-3 that the equitable defense of laches is not available to copyright defendants in claims for damages.
The Night of January 16th is a 1941 American film directed by William Clemens, based on a 1934 play of the same name by Ayn Rand. The story follows Steve Van Ruyle and Kit Lane as they investigate the apparent murder of Lane's boss, in an attempt to clear her as a suspect.
But the Flesh Is Weak is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy film directed by Jack Conway and written by Ivor Novello based on his 1928 play The Truth Game. The film stars Robert Montgomery, Nora Gregor, Heather Thatcher, Edward Everett Horton, C. Aubrey Smith and Nils Asther. The film was released on April 9, 1932, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. But the Flesh Is Weak was remade in 1941 as Free and Easy.
Sheldon v. Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corp., 309 U.S. 390 (1940), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held, in the case of an unauthorized adaptation, courts may elect to award only a portion of an infringer's profits to the plaintiff. The proportion that the defendant is entitled to keep is in proportion to the amount of original creative work that went into the adaptation, and the court may be assisted in determining that by expert witness testimony. The Court found that awarding more to the plaintiff "would be to inflict an unauthorized penalty."
Letty Lynton is a 1931 novel by the British writer Marie Belloc Lowndes. It is loosely inspired by the case of Madeleine Smith, a young woman accused of murder.
References
1 2 3 The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles, California: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
↑ "AFI|Catalog". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved January 20, 2019.
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