Letty Lynton **** (1932, Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Nils Asther) – Classic Movie Review 5,965

Joan Crawford’s 1932 scorcher Letty Lynton gets its first legal screening in 90 years.

Director Clarence Brown’s 1932 melodrama movie Letty Lynton is an enthralling, little-known early Joan Crawford vehicle that sees our heroine donning the shoulder pads and cloche hats as Letty Lynton, a lovely wealthy socialite lady of loose morals, accused of poisoning her jealous ex-boyfriend Emile Renaul (Nils Asther), whom she has met on a trip to South America.

She returns to New York, abandoning Renaul, who has threatened to reveal her old letters, after she has taken up with another man, Jerry Darrow (Robert Montgomery), she meets on the ship back home.

The screenplay by John Meehan and Wanda Tuchock (adaptation) is based on the 1931 novel Letty Lynton by Marie Belloc Lowndes, author of The Lodger. The novel is based on an alleged historical murder, supposedly committed by Madeleine Smith.

It is lovely to see Crawford here in her prime and in her element. The stars and the MGM character actor support players help to make this a great fun, all-stops-out-melodrama, done with every ounce of conviction that such hokum needs to make it work. And of course Crawford looks dressed to kill in a snazzy Adrian-designed wardrobe.

May Robson is splendid as Crawford’s mother Mrs Lynton, Lewis Stone, Louise Closser Hale (Crawford’s maid) and William Pawley are notable, while Emma Dunn and Walter Walker steal a few scenes as Montgomery’s parents.

Letty Lynton is shot in black and white by Oliver T Marsh, is produced by Hunt Stromberg and is designed by Cedric Gibbons.

Adrian’s Letty Lynton dress – a white cotton organdy gown with large ruffled sleeves, puffed at the shoulder – became the toast of the town, and Macy’s department store in New York copied it in 1932 and it sold more than 50,000 of them.

The film has long been officially unavailable since a US federal District Court ruled on 17 January 1936 that the script used by MGM followed too closely Edward Sheldon and Margaret Ayer Barnes’s 1930 play Dishonored Lady without owning the rights. It was therefore withdrawn in 1936 and not screened legally for 90 years. However, bootleg copies are available and it is available on the Internet.

Letty Lynton producer Hunt Stromberg later did buy the rights to the play and made a film adaptation: Hedy Lamarr stars in director Robert Stevenson’s 1947 film Dishonored Lady, based on the play by Edward Sheldon and Margaret Ayer Barnes.

The 1950 noir Madeleine, directed by David Lean and starring his then wife Ann Todd, is closer to the facts of the original case.

Four works of Marie Belloc Lowndes are adapted for the screen: The Chink in the Armour (published 1912; adapted for the screen 1922), The Lodger (1913; adapted several times), Letty Lynton (1931; adapted in 1932 as Letty Lynton starring Joan Crawford), and The Story of Ivy (1927; adapted into the 1947 film Ivy starring Joan Fontaine).

Her most famous novel, The Lodger (published 1913), is based on the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.

The Lodger was filmed in 1927 by Alfred Hitchcock as The Lodger, and it was adapted again in 1932 as The Lodger, and in 1944 as The Lodger, and again as Man in the Attic (1953).

Things change. Letty Lynton screens at the TCM film festival on 1 May 2026 in Los Angeles, its first legal screening in 90 years, and is then released on Blu-ray by Warner Archive.

The legal reappearance of the film is partly because of Joan Crawford’s grandson, Casey LaLonde. As the copyright on the play expired on 31 December 2025, LaLonde argued that it would now be legally safe to show the film, and Warner Bros, who own the rights to many MGM films from before 1986, has restored the film in 4K.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5,965

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