Perhaps the finest American film from the famed European director
Max Ophüls, the film stars
Joan Fontaine
as a young woman who falls in love with a concert pianist. Set in
Vienna in 1900, the story is told in a complex flashback structure as
the pianist, Stefan Brand (
Louis Jourdan), comes upon a letter written to him by Lisa Berndl (
Fontaine),
a girl who has been in love with him for years. Stefan is in the
process of fleeing Vienna on the eve of fighting a duel. As he prepares
himself for the nocturnal journey, the letter arrives. It begins, "By
the time you read this letter, I may be dead." As Stefan sits back in
his study to read this letter, it turns out to be a confession of
unrequited love from Lisa. The story flashes backs to when Lisa was 14
years old and Stefan was her neighbor. After following Stefan with a
girlish obsession, the romance gets much more serious, and they have a
brief encounter. Stefan promises to come back to her after a concert
tour, but he never does. Meanwhile, Lisa marries another man when she
discovers that she is pregnant with Stefan's child. When she runs into
Stefan years later, he doesn't remember her and tries to seduce her.
After Stefan reads the letter, he wants to rush to her side, but now
poor Lisa is dying from typhus.
