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Letty Lynton

Alternate Title: Promiscuous Director: Clarence Brown (Dir) Release Date: 14 May 1932 Production Date: 24 Feb--28 Mar 1932 Duration (in mins): 84 Duration (in reels): 9			Print this page Display Movie Summary

Cast:	Joan Crawford	(Letty Lynton)
	Robert Montgomery	(Jerry Darrow)
	Nils Asther	(Emile Renaul)
	Lewis Stone	(Mr. [John J.] Haney)
	May Robson	(Mrs. Lynton)
	Louise Closser Hale	(Miranda)
	Emma Dunn	(Mrs. Darrow)
	Walter Walker	(Mr. [Thomas] Darrow)
	William Pawley	(Hennessey)
	Charles Williams	(Reporter)
	Sidney Bracey	(Waiter)

Summary:

New York socialite Letty Lynton, who has been living in Montevideo, Uruguay, wants to end her affair with Emile Renaul. Because she has left Emile before but has always returned, her maid Miranda is skeptical, as is Emile, who thinks this is just a whim. On the steamship to America, Letty sees wealthy American Jerry Darrow and is immediately attracted to him. At dinner, their attraction increases, and after two weeks at sea, they have fallen in love. On Christmas Eve, a worried Letty tells her maid that they must leave the boat in Havana because she doesn't want Jerry to know about her past, but when Jerry comes to her room to propose, she accepts. In New York, Letty is shocked to see Emile waiting for her on the dock. Making an excuse to Jerry, she leaves the boat 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 in the customs office, Letty goes home, accompanied by Jerry, who tells her that they have been invited to his parents' home in the Adirondacks and will leave that night, after Letty tells her mother about the engagement. Mrs. Lynton is an embittererd woman who shows no affection for Letty, whom she regards as irresponsible as her late, philandering husband. Soon Emile arrives, having read about the engagement in the newspapers, and 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 calls Jerry to change their departure to the next day, then goes to Emile's hotel, taking a bottle of poison with her. Letty begs for her letters, but he refuses and tells her that their affair will only be over when he says so. While Emile goes to the door to talk to a waiter, Letty puts the poison in her champagne glass, planning to drink it herself. When Emile returns, however, he strikes her, then picks up her glass by mistake and drinks the poison, as Letty mutely watches. Letty then lets him carry her to the bedroom, and waits until he starts to feel the poison's effects. As he dies, she screams that she's glad she did it, even if she hangs. She then cleans up the room and leaves. The next day, soon after Letty and Jerry have arrived at the home of his parents, a detective from New York arrives looking for Letty and demanding that she come with him. Jerry, Mrs. Lynton and Miranda accompany her to see District Attorney John J. Haney, who produces the letters and accuses Letty of murder. After she admits that she went to see Emile, Jerry says that the truth is 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. Miranda also corroborates the story, after which Haney says that the case is closed, then leaves the room. After motioning to Letty to be silent, Jerry talks into an office intercom and says he was sorry but he had to tell the truth. At the Lynton home, Letty and Mrs. Lynton think that Jerry will leave, but he stays, and plans to take them both to his parents' house.

Production Company:	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp.	(Loew's, Inc.)
Production Text:	Clarence Brown's Production
Distribution Company:	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corp.
Director:	Clarence Brown	(Dir)
	Charles Dorian	(Asst dir)
Producer:	Hunt Stromberg	(Prod)
	Irving Thalberg	(Exec prod)
Writer:	John Meehan	(Dial and cont)
	Wanda Tuchock	(Adpt)
Photography:	Oliver T. Marsh	(Photog)
	Edward Fitzgerald	(Cam op)
	Kyme Meade	(Asst cam)
	S. C. Manatt	(Stills)
Art Direction:	Cedric Gibbons	(Art dir)
Film Editor:	Conrad A. Nervig	(Film ed)
Sound:	Douglas Shearer	(Rec dir)
	Anstruther MacDonald	(Sd)
	Karl Zint	(Sd)
Country:	United States

Source Text:	Based on the novel Letty Lynton by Marie Belloc Lowndes (New York, 1931).
Authors:	Marie Belloc Lowndes

Copyright Claimant	Copyright Date	Copyright Number	Passed By NBR:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corp.	6/5/1932 dd/mm/yyyy	LP3015	Yes

Physical Properties:	b&w:
	Sd:	Western Electric Sound System


Genre:	Melodrama

Subjects (Major):	Engagements
	Letters
	Mistresses
	Mothers and daughters
	Murder
	Romance

Subjects (Minor):	Adirondack Mountains
	Alibi
	Christmas
	Hotels
	Montevideo (Uruguay)
	New York City
	Poison
	Steamboats
	Tango (Dance)

Note:	Marie Belloc Lowndes's novel was inspired by an actual trial that took place in Glasgow, Scotland in 1857. The twenty-one-year-old defendant, Miss Madeleine Smith, was accused of poisoning her lover, Pierre Emile L'Angelier. Smith's explicit love letters to L'Angelier were produced during the trial, but she was acquitted of the crime, due to insufficient evidence. Descriptions of the Smith trial have been included in several books on famous British court cases, as well as in a Vanity Fair article in Aug 1926. The conclusion of that article, and the books, was that Smith was guilty of poisoning her lover because she was tired of him. According to information contained in the file on the film in the MPAA/PCA Collection in the AMPAS Library, M-G-M production and clippings files at the USC Cinema Library, and contemporary news items, M-G-M bought the rights to Lowndes' novel in Dec 1931 after the Hays Office refused to approve production of a film version of the Edward Sheldon and Margaret Ayer Barnes play Dishonored Lady (New York, 4 Feb 1930). That play, like the Lowndes novel, was inspired by the Smith case. In early 1931, M-G-M agreed to buy the rights to the Sheldon-Barnes play for $30,000 if it could be approved for production by the MPAA. The office would not approve the play, and M-G-M bought the rights to Letty Lynton . MPAA records prior to the film's production include a detailed comparative analysis of Dishonored Lady and the Letty Lynton script, which was also called Redeemed and Promiscuous . In the analysis, which Col. Jason S. Joy and Lamar Trotti of the MPAA office in Hollywood thought necessary to dispell any hint of plagiarism, six major points of similarity were illuminated: in both stories, the female protagonist has affairs "because of the sex urge, not love"; the murder is similar in execution in both instances; the man is Argentine in both cases [the exact nationality of the character Emile Renaul is left vague in the final version of the film]; in the play the girl's mother has run off, but in the script her father has been unfaithful; in the play a friend provides an alibi, while in the film, the fiancé does; and in the play the father perjures himself, while the mother does in the film. According to letters from Joy and Trotti to M-G-M production head Irving Thalberg and producer Hunt Stromberg, the "happy ending" of the script was a major difference in tone from the "punishment" that the play's character received at the end. The conclusion was that the Lowndes novel could be filmed, but that critical exception might be raised after the film's release, due to its similarities to the play. Letty Lynton was approved for production and release by the MPAA, but, a few states and the countries of Switzerland and Italy either rejected the picture for distribution or accepted it only after deletions. Shortly after the film's release, depositions were filed against M-G-M by Sheldon and Barnes charging copyright infringement of their play Dishonored Lady . Though a preliminary hearing in Jul 1932 in a New York Federal District Court "exonerated" M-G-M of the charge, a formal suit was filed a short time later. Over the course of the next eight years, the case moved from court to court in both California and New York. The case was dismissed in one court in 1934, then a decision was made for the plaintiff in another court in Aug 1936, which M-G-M appealed. During the course of the suit, several news items in trade publications pointed out that the case was causing other studios to worry about plagiarism cases that might be directed at them, and that the outcome of the case would have a bearing on the entire motion picture industry. The U. S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, and hearings on the appeal continued until May 1938, when Special Master Gordon Auchincloss of the U. S. District Court fixed damages for copyright infringement against all of the defendants, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Corp., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corp., parent company Loew's, Inc., and foreign distributor Culver Export, Inc. The damages collectively equalled $587,604, the amount of the film's net profits, plus various legal fees and court costs. M-G-M appealed the size of the award, but it was only reduced to $532,153 in Jan 1939 by Federal Judge Vincent L. Leibell, who denied M-G-M principal attorney John W. Davis' claim that the judgment was too harsh. In his judgment, Leibell stated, "In my opinion it is punitive and unjust to award all the net profits of the motion picture Letty Lynton to the complainants in this case. Yet under the wording of the Copyright Act as interpreted by the decisions of the appellate courts, I can do nothing less." The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, not to consider a reversal of the decision, but to determine whether or not the plaintiffs were entitled to all or part of the profits from the film. In Mar 1940, the decision was handed down by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes that the authors were only entitled to $167,528, one-fifth of the profits of the picture, because movie stars, not authors, were the chief drawing cards for motion pictures. An 18 May 1940 news item in HR reported that "a satisfaction of judgment of $4,723 against the Moredall Realty Co." by Sheldon and Barnes for showings of Letty Lynton at the Capital Theatre in New York had been filed the previous day. No additional information on the Capital Theatre judgement has been located. According to a pre-production news item, Robert Young was initially considered for the part of Jerry Darrow, and E. B. Derr was originally set to produce the picture. Hunt Stromberg, who became the film's producer, produced another screen adaptation of the Sheldon and Barnes play, Dishonored Lady , in 1947, directed by Robert Stephenson, and starring Hedy Lamarr and Dennis O'Keefe. A British film inspired by the Madeleine Smith trial was directed by David Lean under the title Madeleine in 1949, starring Ann Todd and Leslie Banks.

Bibliographic Sources:	Date	Page
Daily Variety	1 Aug 34	p. 2.
Daily Variety	4 Aug 36	p. 4.
Film Daily	30 Dec 31	p. 6.
Film Daily	6 Mar 32	p. 4.
Film Daily	1 May 32	p. 10.
Film Daily	30 Jul 32	p. 1.
Film Daily	9 Aug 32	p. 2.
HF	12 Mar 32	p. 8.
HF	6 Aug 32	p. 8.
Hollywood Reporter	1 Aug 32	p. 1.
Hollywood Reporter	11 Feb 32	p. 1.
Hollywood Reporter	13 Feb 32	p. 1.
Hollywood Reporter	28 Jun 32	p. 1.
Hollywood Reporter	11 Oct 32	p. 3.
Hollywood Reporter	21 Dec 34	p. 3.
Hollywood Reporter	20 Jan 36	p. 1.
Hollywood Reporter	6 Jul 38	p. 1.
Hollywood Reporter	Dec 38	p. 1.
Hollywood Reporter	14 May 40	p. 4.
Hollywood Reporter	18 May 40	p. 4.
International Photographer	Jul 32	p. 29.
Los Angeles Examiner	21 May 1932.
Los Angeles Examiner	5 May 1936.
Los Angeles Examiner	30 Dec 1938.
Los Angeles Examiner	26 Mar 1940.
Los Angeles Times	5 Apr 1936.
Motion Picture Daily	23 Apr 38	p. 1.
Motion Picture Daily	10 May 38	p. 1, 9
Motion Picture Herald	7 May 32	p. 28, 30
Motion Picture Herald	14 May 38	p. 38.
Motion Picture Herald	1 Jan 39	p. 29.
New York Times	30 Apr 32	p. 19.
Vanity Fair	26 Aug	p. 48, 98
Variety	May 32	p. 14.

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The American Film Institute is grateful to Sir Paul Getty KBE and the Sir Paul Getty KBE Estate for their dedication to the art of the moving image and their support for the AFI Catalog of Feature Films and without whose support AFI would not have been able to achieve this historical landmark in this epic scholarly endeavor.



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