Last week's Movie Quiz winners

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Filed under: Imported

Last week's quiz film was The Letter (1940), with Bette Davis and Herbert Marshall (and, in the picture clue, Minnesota's own Gale Sondergaard), directed by William Wyler and script by Howard "Casablanca" Koch, based on a short story by Somerset Maugham.

Most of the people who identified it mentioned how Hitchcock-esque it is, and it has much of the style and mood of the best of his '40s Hollywood pictures. But Hitchcock never had (in my opinion) an actress as good as Davis, whose opening appearance is still a jolt (see pic above), and-- again, as most of the winners agreed-- it's as rich and unmannered a performance as she ever gave. Plus, the picture itself is as impressive an argument for black-and-white as any later noir title you'd care to name. If you've never seen it and you like old Hollywood at its best, check it out, especially now that it's on a great-looking DVD.

So congratulations to the usual quiz winners: Wayne A. Palmer, Steve Perry, Hank Parmer, Evan Cook and Kika Warner.