![WHERE EAGELS DARES](/images/headline/6754.png)
Some people handle interpersonal conflict with dialogue. Don't you wish I were one of those people?
![](/images/postimg/where_eagles_dares.jpg)
This rather threatening photo shows U.S. pre-Code actress and former Ziegfeld Girl Jeanne Eagels seeming to gleefully aim for the gonads. She goes way back, having made her first screen appearances in 1913. She also died very young, of the oldest of Hollywood bugaboos, an overdose, a year after this photo was made. It was shot as promo for her drama The Letter in 1929.
![LAW OF THE LETTER](/images/headline/5086.png)
I'll give you one more chance to get it right. It's spelled without a “y” but pronounced like there is one.
![](/images/postimg/law%20of%20the%20letter.jpg)
Bette Davis was born with the first name Ruth, but nicknamed Betty from childhood. As an actress she changed the spelling to Bette after Honoré de Balzac's La Cousine Bette, and people mangled the pronunciation routinely until she became a huge star. Speaking of letters, this promo photo is from her 1940 drama The Letter, based on a play by W. Somerset Maugham. Remember how we talked about how outward looking Hollywood was during its golden period, how it set so many films in exotic corners of the world? The Letter is another prime example. It's set on a rubber plantation in Malaya. Thanks largely to Davis's golden touch the film was nominated for numerous Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Score. It won nothing, but we assume the film is good anyway. We'll watch it and report back.