Table of Contents

1. Acknowledgements 2. Introduction 3. Production 4. Reception 5. Critical Appreciation 6. Notes 7. Credits 8. Bibliography

Promotional Information

A study of Max Ophuls' 1948 melodrama Letter from an Unknown Woman in the BFI Film Classics series, by eminent film scholar James Naremore.

About the Author

James Naremore is Chancellors' Professor Emeritus at Indiana University, USA. Among his books are The Magic World of Orson Welles (2015), Acting in the Cinema (1988), More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts (2008), On Kubrick (2007), Sweet Smell of Success (2010), An Invention without a Future: Essays on Cinema (2014), and Charles Burnett: A Cinema of Symbolic Knowledge (2017).

Reviews

James Naremore’s BFI Classic… [is] guaranteed a rewatch off the back of this succinct breakdown of its novella roots, feminist-theory legacy and ‘wheels within wheels’ aesthetic.
*Total Film*

[A] fine addition to the BFI Film Classics series … Naremore, an expert in adaptation and film noir, is well placed to capture the various elements that elevate this film beyond the stock conventions of Hollywood.
*Times Literary Supplement*

James Naremore’s style and insights are as elegant as a Max Ophuls tracking shot. In this generous, nuanced, and impeccable work, a perfect film has found the ideal film scholar.
*Eric Smoodin, Professor, American Studies, UC Davis, USA*

With a balanced approach and lucid prose, James Naremore does more than any other writer on Letter From an Unknown Woman to situate the film historically, technically, and aesthetically, in this way accounting for its intellectual and emotional importance to a broad range of critics and viewers
*Susan White, Professor, Film and Comparative Literature, University of Arizona, USA*