Memories rekindled

Turner Classic Movies (TCM), the Ted Turner golden oldies network, saluted Louis Jourdan last week with a night of his movies, an evening that sure brought back memories. The highlight of the evening was the 1948 Letter from an Unknown Woman, based on a story by the tragic Stefan Zweig, a great writer who despaired of the world and ended his life by his own hand in South America during the second world war. The film does his story justice. It is about an egotistical concert pianist and his heedless treatment of a woman who has loved him since childhood. Louis Jourdan is the pianist, the wonderful Joan Fontaine is the almost biologically bewitched girl and later on woman.

For me, the real star is Vienna at the turn of the century. The film is black and white, and the Austrian capital is perfectly captured, insular and full of ghosts, with a faint, heady air of isolation and rotting elegance.