‘You hear a gunshot and you see a woman coming out shooting a man’; Leslie Crosbie (Bette Davis) thinks she is going to get away with it until Mrs Hammond (Gale Sondergaard), her lover’s Eurasian widow, turns up with that letter. A great film but the Hays Production Code dictated two changes from the original story that detracted from its moral ambiguities: Gale Sondergaard’s character had to be a wife not a mistress; and Leslie had to be appropriately punished (stabbed by Mrs Hammond).
Perc Westmore was responsible for the makeup.