Customer Reviews

Love Letters [VHS]

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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"I think of you, my dearest, as a distant promise of beauty untouched by the world-a promise to be reached in spite of the terror and ugliness around me. If I never see you again, my last thought will be that I had fought for you and lost-but I had fought." So reads a letter penned by a British officer on the Italian front, in the 1945 movie "Love Letters." The story was based on a little-known novel by an obscure author, Chris Massie. The screenplay was written by Ayn Rand.

The movie, directed by William Dieterle, stars Jennifer Jones as the mysterious Singleton and Joseph Cotton as British officer Alan Quinton. Victor Young composed the lush, romantic music score, which was nominated for an Academy Award.

"Love Letters" contains scenes of an emotional intensity found in no ordinary story-scenes that no one short of a Victor Hugo or an Ayn Rand could have conceived. I can never forget Jennifer Jones seated before her cottage fireplace, dazed, as the love letters she treasured go up in flames-a knife in her hand, blood smeared across her dress, and her husband dead at her feet. Or her scream, years later, as she sees red berries crushed against her white dress, and remembers.

Seeing "Love Letters" is like discovering a new work of fiction by Miss Rand-for the movie departs so radically from the unfocused novel it was based on that it almost constitutes an original work. She took a few suggestions and situations from Chris Massie's sprawling, unfocused book, and developed them entirely along her own lines: intensifying the moral conflict inherent in one man writing another man's love letters, and building events logically to a stunning climax.

It was she who conceived of the central event of the movie, the horror of which Alan Quinton first learns of in the basement of a London newspaper. Following up mysterious hints about the woman he is trying to trace-the unknown woman he wrote love letters to-he searches through the back issues that the office boy brings him, until he finds the article he is looking for, yet dreads to find: "Officer Murdered; Wife Held." He sits there for hours, reading it over and over, stubbing out one cigarette after another in dead silence. "Who was the murderer?" the office boy asks him, as he finally walks away. "I was," he says.

It was Ayn Rand, who in 1945 was just mapping out the plot of "Atlas Shrugged," who invented the central situation of the screenplay: the irony of an impossible love, in which a woman cannot be told that she is her own rival who is stealing her husband's love away. And it was Miss Rand who invented the horrendously powerful climax-in which we see the murder of the man who "tried to get happiness by stealing another mans soul"-with Singleton sitting before the fireplace, staring dazedly at the knife in her hand, her hands and dress smeared with her husband's blood-as the camera zooms in on the words of a burning letter: "I think of you, my dearest, as a distant promise of beauty untouched by the world ..."

Miss Rand, believe it or not, brings this tragedy to a benevolent conclusion.

"Love Letters" is full of joy, tragedy, idealism, and ultimate triumph. I urge everyone who wants to preserve a glorified view of life, to try to see it.

Josephy Cotton and Jennifer Jones appeared together, I believe, in either four or five movies. This is probably the least known of their movies together. As I once heard a TV reviewer remark, Cotton brought out the best in Jones, who was twice nominated for the Best Actress Oscar when teamed with Cotton.

Cotton plays a sensitive, sincere WWII soldier who, while in France, writes love letters on behalf of a shallow, callous fellow soldier. The Cyrano-like gesture brings only torment, madness, and death after the woman falls in love with the latter soldier.

After being wounded in combat, Cotton is sent back to England for the duration of the war. He quickly finds out that the soldier he wrote the letters for was killed shortly after marrying the girl to whom the letters were addressed. At that point, the movie shifts gears into a murder mystery, with the guilt-ridden Cotton attempting to discovery what happened--and what role he played in the events.

While Cotton is a bit stiff in the role of Alan Quinton, he does ably exude a quiet, calm determination to piece together the truth. The ever-radiant Jennifer Jones plays a mysterious woman known only as Singleton, who may or may not be the key to unraveling the mystery.

Highly recommended for fans of an old-fashioned murder myster/love story.

This was Jones' third major film and she is ethereal and breathtaking! She is starred with Cotten who would be co-starred with her more than any other leading man and they do make a fine team!

The film is a 'moody' and 'gothic' piece which is enhanced by the performances of the leads. Particularly refreshing is the fact that Jones' performance holds none of the 'facial contortions' that marred many of her later portrayals. She truly deserved the Oscar nomination that she received for this film and in my opinion, should have won over Joan Crawford's tepid and overrated portrayal of "Mildred Pierce" that year.

This film is great to watch on a rainy day, cuddled up in front of the fireplace with your sweetheart. Truly a film for the true romantics....from its cinematography to the 'haunting' musical score.

It is one of the best from the "Golden Era" of Hollywood!

Love Letters is one of the best romantic movies ever made. The plot, though simple, is ingenious and quite moving, and the writing is excellent. Jennifer Jones is as beautiful as I've ever seen her in films, and she and Joseph Cotten convincingly play the roles of two tormented people who slowly come to realize that they are each other's ideal lover. I suppose that to some people Love Letters will be hopelessly romantic mush. However, to everyone with a sense of romance -- including me -- Love Letters is a classic to be savored over and over again. I hope it will be released on DVD soon. It certainly deserves to be readily available in the latest format.

With apologies to Mr. Maltin, who apparently hasn't a clue about what's going on here-- LOVE LETTERS is a poignant exploration of the nature of time, memory, pain & regret, & the healing power of non-judgmental love freely given. I am moved again each time I see it-- Jennifer Jones is at her most radiantly beautiful as Singleton-- a girl I would marry in an instant-- but of course delightfully dry Joe Cotten is on hand to claim his "pinup girl of the spirit". This is one of those "ensemble" movies where every part is played to perfection, but Cecil Kellaway is a stand-out as Joe Cotten's resident "gargoyle". LOVE LETTERS is highly recommended if you feel like being misty-eyed & uplifted at the same time!

I watched this movie at a very young age. This was a movie that I will never forget. They do not make movies like the "Classics" anymore. Action, drama, and suspense, all wrapped in one. I plan to order a copy of this original movie. The woman in the movie (Jennifer Jones) did a fantastic job. She truly did not know what had happened the night her husband was killed. She actually thought that she had killed him. The man (Joseph Cotten)in the movie who actually wrote the "love letters" had a voice to die for. There are so many great things I could say about Love Letters but my husband is standing, wanting to take his turn on the net! My conpliments to the writer and director of the movie. They did a great job!

"Whatso it profiteth a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?" *Love Letters* follows nearly every permutation of this question. What is to be gained if you *lend* your soul to another man, by writing love letters for him? What does one gain by covering one's soul with another's, to win a woman? And what is left to seek in the world, when one discovers one's only value in the world to be a fraud?

These are some of the classic Ayn Rand bits that saved Chris Massie's original story.

But if the story isn't clever enough, the dialogue is inimitable Rand. "We commit unspeakable crimes, we kill each other, we go to war, we blast our cities to rubble, we blast all sense out of our brains. And yet, always there before our eyes is that vision of beauty--a beauty we've never seen, but which makes everything we do see, unbearable." Or: "When a man's been hurt pretty badly, and all open wounds inside, if he can say 'mine'--about anything at all--the wounds are healing." Or: "Thank you for seeing life, not as a burden or a punishment, but as a dream of beauty which we have made real."

In other words, here's a great love story. The people in love are actually smart and admirable. The villains have motives beyond "be bad." Suspense, mystery, and ideas charge the plot from start to finish.

Love Letters is one of my all-time favorite movies. Jennifer and Joseph Cotten are great together. My best friends and I are always trying to imitate Jennifer's mysterious attitude!

The dialog in this movie was such a refreshing change from any that I've seen in the last 30 years, except for The Fountainhead (also by Ayn Rand). The characters speak as if every word was too important to say anything unnecessary - ever. I felt cleaner after watching it; and energized - ready to attempt the impossible.

Watching Cotton and Jones in either Love letters or Portrait of Jenny shows us how much we have lost within our movie making culture. Gone are acting and well wrtitten scripts replaced by special effects. I have watched each of these films over 50 times since I was a child of 12 (now 62) and am drawn into the depth of the characters. Those were the days of giants! Love Letters has as a side note a rather strong antiwar message, unusual for a film of that era.