UW Cinematheque | When You Read This Letter (1953)

After her parents’ sudden death, Thérese (Gréco) decides to leave the convent to run the family business and care for her younger sister, who is involved with local lowlife Max (Lemaire). Before the startling conclusion, there will be attempted suicide, blackmail, a rigged car accident, and a one-sided love affair. The third feature from director Melville (Le Samourai, Army of Shadows) displays “sophisticated observation and flashy repartee involving those two great Noir topics: money and sex… Melville irresistibly pulls you into an enticing if often nasty world in which desire, often forbidden and/or duplicitous, rules his characters’ every feverish action” (David Noh, Film Journal International).