Doctor Pearson, who works at a hospital in Quebec, Canada, receives a series of poison-pen letters. More letters, all signed with the mysterious picture of a feather, are delivered to others in the small town. Cora Laurent, the wife of Dr. Laurent, receives a letter accusing her of having an affair with Pearson. Another letter informs shell-shocked veteran Mr. Gauthier that he is dying of cancer, causing him to commit suicide. The townsfolk begin pointing fingers at all possible suspects.
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther called the film "a moderately intriguing mystery" and contrasted it with Le corbeau: "[P]lainly the morbid cynicism that ran through that notorious French film and implied a pervasion of corruption among the small-town middle classes in France is not in this 'poison-pen' fable ... Perhaps that omission is fortunate—at least, for those who would enjoy a mystery film—for 'Le Corbeau' was so venomous and gloomy that it was well-nigh ridiculous. The dust of demoralization that rose from the lengthy parade of small-town connivers and neurotics was so dense and oppressive that it was hard to observe ... Mr. Koch and Mr. Preminger have been hasty to do something about that. ... [T]hey have dropped the implications of a whole pattern of community disease and let it appear that just a couple of queerish people in a conspicuously religious town are in bad health."[1]
References
1 2 3 Crowther, Bosley (1951-02-22). "The Screen: 3 New Movies at Local Theatres". The New York Times. p.27.
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