Gloopy melodrama starring the wildly overrated Jennifer Jones at the height of her screen popularity. She plays a woman who marries a man based on the romantic thoughts expressed in his letters to her from the battlefronts of WWII, but finds herself disappointed when the reality doesn't match the fantasy. It doesn't match, you see, because all of the letters were actually written by Joseph Cotten, a sensitive sad sack and friend to Jones's husband. But then the husband dies under mysterious circumstances, Jones develops amnesia because of said mysterious circumstances, and Jones's and Cotten's lives intersect without either knowing who the other is.
I hate the term "women's picture," because it's so condescending, but this movie is an example of what people mean when they use that phrase. This film, and many others like it, was made to capitalize on war sentiment and give ladies escapist romantic stories far removed from the actual horrible realities. I can understand in historical context why films like this were popular, but it doesn't make them enjoyable now. In fact, they're damn near intolerable -- there's not a sincere sentiment to be found.
I do not understand Jones's appeal at all. Cotten is good and probably the best thing about the film. Gladys Cooper is also always a welcome presence, and she's on hand to play a major role in unraveling the mystery at the film's center.
Jones received four Oscar nominations in a row between 1943 and 1946, and this was the third in the string. She had won the Best Actress award in 1943 for "The Song of Bernadette" and was then nominated in the supporting category the next year for "Since You Went Away." The year after "Love Letters" she would be nominated for the so-bad-it's good "Duel in the Sun," and then almost a decade later would receive her fifth and final nomination for the equally gloopy "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing."
"Love Letters" also received Oscar nominations for its black and white art direction (unremarkable), its dramatic score (there were a whopping twenty-one nominees that year, so it wasn't a huge honor to be nominated), and its title song, which I never even heard in the movie. Poor Victor Young received his sixteenth and seventeenth nominations for this film. He would eventually win an Oscar, but not until he was dead: he won posthumously in 1956 for scoring "Around the World in 80 Days."
Grade: C-
I hate the term "women's picture," because it's so condescending, but this movie is an example of what people mean when they use that phrase. This film, and many others like it, was made to capitalize on war sentiment and give ladies escapist romantic stories far removed from the actual horrible realities. I can understand in historical context why films like this were popular, but it doesn't make them enjoyable now. In fact, they're damn near intolerable -- there's not a sincere sentiment to be found.
I do not understand Jones's appeal at all. Cotten is good and probably the best thing about the film. Gladys Cooper is also always a welcome presence, and she's on hand to play a major role in unraveling the mystery at the film's center.
Jones received four Oscar nominations in a row between 1943 and 1946, and this was the third in the string. She had won the Best Actress award in 1943 for "The Song of Bernadette" and was then nominated in the supporting category the next year for "Since You Went Away." The year after "Love Letters" she would be nominated for the so-bad-it's good "Duel in the Sun," and then almost a decade later would receive her fifth and final nomination for the equally gloopy "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing."
"Love Letters" also received Oscar nominations for its black and white art direction (unremarkable), its dramatic score (there were a whopping twenty-one nominees that year, so it wasn't a huge honor to be nominated), and its title song, which I never even heard in the movie. Poor Victor Young received his sixteenth and seventeenth nominations for this film. He would eventually win an Oscar, but not until he was dead: he won posthumously in 1956 for scoring "Around the World in 80 Days."
Grade: C-