Letty Lynton Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.5

Letty Lynton Blu-ray Movie Review

Lost and found.

Years before Joan Crawford was unfairly labelled "box office poison", her lead role in Clarence Brown's 1932 film Letty Lynton -- one of her many profitable dramas during this era -- helped it succeed at the box office and also featured an actual bottle of poison. But the real story behind this particular production is its long-running status as a "lost" film, one that was unavailable for 90 years after a 1936 federal court ruled that certain details too closely resembled the 1930 play Dishonored Lady (later made into a 1947 film), whose authors were awarded 20% of Letty Lynton's net profits. Ahead of its 2027 copyright expiration, Warner Archive's long-awaited Blu-ray finally resurrects this lost production for a wide audience and is expertly sourced from a recent 4K restoration that helps it to shine like new.

As for the actual plotline of Letty Lynton, it's ironically kind of secondary. It doesn't run especially deep, and its front-loaded structure leaves all the juiciest bits -- including that crucial bottle of poison -- for the home stretch. This leaves the bulk of Letty Lynton's first hour for a budding whirlwind romance between its title character (Crawford) and wealthy Jerry Darrow (Robert Montgomery, her frequent co-star), who first lock eyes on a voyage from Montevideo, Uruguay to New York. Socialite Letty has booked passage to escape the aggressive pursuit of her long-time South American lover Emile Renaul (Nils Asther), a Pepe le Pew prototype whose amorous advances trump her clear signals that things are finally over between them. Safe in the arms of Jerry, she agrees to marry him after only about three weeks together; that's even before they dock in New York, where Emile is somehow waiting for her arrival.

Unsurprisingly, rabid jealously is the primary fuel of Letty Lynton's main antagonist, but there are very strong hints from the start that Letty herself suffers from deep depression and other emotional issues that have been exacerbated by a turbulent relationship that she just can't seem to get away from. The film's second half shifts, then, to something of a game of cat and mouse as Emile continues his pursuit of Letty... who's now on her home turf, but it doesn't prove to offer much of an advantage. A threat of self-harm finds Letty back in his company, hopefully for the last time, but their late-night rendezvous leads to an unexpected event that shifts Letty Lynton's tone and trajectory dramatically. Her beau and a few family members, including her distant mother (May Robson, who actually adds a bit of unexpected levity to the proceedings), are left to pick up some of the pieces in their collective search for the truth.

End spoilers.

Letty Lynton is strongly led by the performance of Joan Crawford; here, she achieves a very convincing amount of dramatic depth during some of the film's darker scenes and actions, which could only have been realized before the Production Code was put into effect a few short years later. She's flanked nicely by the dependable Robert Montgomery and Nils Asther (who I'm not nearly as familiar with, but is apparently described as "the male Greta Garbo"), while the aforementioned May Robson certainly holds her own as well. Yet as much as Letty Lynton is a film that's clearly fueled by its rock-solid performances, it's also fondly remembered for its glamorous costumes: long-time MGM designer Adrian Adolph Greenburg (typically credited by his first name only) supplied all the numerous gowns and outfits including one unofficially known as the "Letty Lynton dress"; that little number was apparently replicated by Macy's department store later that year, who managed to sell more than 50,000 of them to fashion-conscious shoppers.

Needless to say, Letty Lynton landed with quite a splash in its day... making it all the more surprising when it up and vanished sometime around 1936, only to officially resurface in recent months thanks to the efforts of Warner Archive's George Feltenstein as well as Crawford's grandson, Casey LaLonde. The boutique label's new 4K-sourced restoration premiered theatrically as part of the TCM Classic Film Festival back in May, where both Feltenstein and LaLonde were special guests, and now that same restoration can be enjoyed by all on this very welcome new Blu-ray. In addition to great picture and sound, it also includes a number of thoughtful extras including a feature-length documentary about the film's producer, Irving Thalberg, as well as vintage radio programs featuring Joan Crawford. Not surprisingly, this is one of the year's most important discs and, in all honesty, will be a "Holy Grail" release for some.

Letty Lynton Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Like the majority of MGM films made during Hollywood's Golden Age, Letty Lynton's original nitrate camera negative was destroyed in the tragic 1976 George Eastman House fire... but luckily, the studio had already "backed up" most of their catalogue during the 1960s with safety fine grains made from the still-surviving negatives. This means that Letty Lynton's exclusive new 1080p transfer, which was sourced from a recent 4K scan of that safety fine grain, won't fully be mistaken for a true OCN scan but it comes dangerously close on many occasions. Those who have already seen similar restorations of "best preservation elements" by Warner Archive should know what to expect here: a very satisfactory amount of fine detail, true film-like textures with plenty of grain, and deep blacks that only suffer from slight amounts of crush where the strongest shadows are concerned. As usual it's a very clean presentation, thanks to the boutique label's proprietary manual cleanup process, and it's also been authored on a dual-layered disc that runs at a high and supportive bit rate throughout. In short, the only "speed bumps" here are fully tied to Letty Lynton's surviving source material so, from that perspective, this is yet another outstanding rescue job from Warner Archive.

Letty Lynton Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As usual, Warner Archive's careful touch with audio restoration can also be heard in this DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio track, which presents Letty Lynton's monaural elements in a split two-channel container for wider playback. Though expectations should be kept in check due to the source material's original condition (which included a slightly lower than normal volume level that required a volume increase on my part), this is a largely very clean track that hasn't been artificially boosted or sweetened and, quite simply, sounds like an optimal version of exactly what you might expect from a 94 year-old film. Again, aside from totally unavoidable source-related issues (which include sporadic amounts of his and mild distortion at the high end), I have no real complaints about what we get here.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during the main feature only, not the extras below.

Letty Lynton Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with vintage poster-themed cover art; several great extras are included.

• Irving Thalberg: Prince of Hollywood (74:04) - This feature-length 2005 Turner Entertainment Company documentary concerns the short life and prolific career of immensely talented producer Irving Thalberg, whose body of work included Letty Lynton, Grand Hotel, Mutiny on the Bounty, A Night At the Opera, and many others. Written and directed by Robert Trachtenberg, it's loaded with heartfelt interview clips featuring friends, family members, and contemporaries, all of whom pay tribute to "The Boy Wonder", as well as plenty of vintage photos, home video footage, and of course supportive clips from the many great films he produced.

• Radio Shows - Five vintage radio productions featuring Joan Crawford.

• Good News of 1938 (52:27) - This hour-long installment of NBC's radio show features Fanny Brice, Frank Morgan, and Margaret Sullavan, and of course Joan Crawford, who performs a dramatic interlude during the play "Dark World" portraying a deceased patient named Carol Matthews.
• Good News of 1939 (56:53) - The joint venture between NBC and Maxwell House continues with another hour-long show featuring Crawford, Billie Burke, Judy Garlard, Frank Morgan, and others.
• Lux Radio Theatre (59:33) - An abridged 1938 performance of "A Doll's House" with Joan Crawford and Basil Rathbone, adapted from a three-act show written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.
• The Silver Theatre (29:37) - The short drama "Train Ride" featuring Joan Crawford, directed by Conrad Nagle and written especially for Crawford by Charles Martin.
• Gulf Stream Guild Theater (31:25) - "None Shall Part Us" with Joan Crawford, Lew Ayres, and Ronald Colman, and Oscar Bradley, dutifully hosted by Robert Pryor.

Letty Lynton Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Clarence Brown's Letty Lynton is a pre-Code drama that disappeared for 90 years, but it's finally been brought back to life thanks to the tireless efforts of Warner Archive. Their very welcome new Blu-ray applies the boutique label's white-glove treatment to the film (whose original negative, like most of MGM's Golden Age films, no longer exists), boasting rock-solid A/V merits and a thoughtful assortment of extras. It'll likely be new to all who see it... but regardless of your familiarity with Letty Lynton (or total lack thereof), this will feel like buried treasure. Highly Recommended.