Today was an official Charbroiler, 107 degrees, with accompanying 30% humidity that made the air feel like a swamp. In other words, it was a nice Summer day, haha. What wasn't nice is that it was still 94 degrees at 10pm! Good Lordy Moses!, as Dad would say. I don't mind the daytime heat but I do like it to cool down to at least 80 degrees at night. :)
Tonight's movie was an absolute classic called "Love Letters" (1945), created by the same team who brought you "Portrait Of Jennie" : director William Dieterle and stars Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten.
"Jennie" is one of my favorite movies, as you may know, and "Love Letters" could be considered a companion piece to it, as it also deals with the subjects of mysterious love, and destiny, and amnesia.
In "Jennie", Jennifer Jones plays a young girl who seems to be just a Spirit, although she is very real to Joseph Cotten, who meets her in a park. In "Love Letters", Jones is a young woman with no past, because she has no memory of her past. So in that way, she is ephemeral, just as her character was in "Portrait Of Jennie". With her looks and wide-eyed facial expressions, Jones was born to play these types of innocent but haunted characters. Since I first saw her in "The Song Of Bernadette", she has been one of my most favorite and iconic actresses, and the tall, understated and gentlemanly Joseph Cotten was the perfect male lead with whom to pair her in romantic mysteries. "Jennie" and "Love Letters" are the kinds of movies it would be difficult if not impossible to pull off today, because we live in an Age Of Irony. As such, the quality of innocence has been pushed back. It still exists of course, but we don't pay it much attention because hardness and/or jadedness are now the qualities that are called for.
Therefore, these movies are treasures and must be viewed as such. Don't bother watching unless you believe.
As the story begins, Joseph Cotten (a Lieutenant) and a fellow soldier are sitting in a restaurant in Italy. It is wartime (WW2), and Cotten is writing a letter to a girl back in England. Only, she isn't his girl. He is writing the letter for his friend, the other soldier, who has Cotten write his love letters for him, because he is not very eloquent himself. In fact, the other soldier is facile and dishonest. He flirts with the Italian waitress while Cotten is writing a letter to his supposed love. But the love letters do their trick. Victoria, the girl to whom the letters are addressed, falls in love with this soldier, whose name is Roger.
She has never met Roger, however, and has only fallen in love with him because of his words to her, in the letters which were written not by him but by Joseph Cotten.
From there, so much story unfolds that anything I could tell you would be a spoiler, so I will say nothing further.
Huge credit, however, must go to director Dieterle, who was expert in bringing out the mystical and intangible qualities in a burgeoning love affair, to demonstrate the unseen spiritual connections that lead to love. He would use Jennifer Jones in close ups, and have her recite philosophical dialogue that was related to the story but could almost have been pulled out and set apart from the movie as poetic soliloquies. If you watched "Love Letters" you would know which scenes and close ups I am talking about. She is photographed in classic gauzy Hollywood Glamour Lighting and appears as if she is from a dream.
In these movies, "Portrait Of Jennie" and "Love Letters", this creative team set out to tackle the subject of love from it's root.
Where does love come from? Does it exist through time, through separation, through loss of memory, and even through death?
The process of the recovery of memory is instrumental in both movies to answering these questions.
Only through the recovery of memory can the depersonalized spirit become whole again, and love - naturally - is the force that overcomes the fear of the past that is blocking the reintegration of self and soul.
"Love Letters" is shot in expressionistic B&W, with sets and backdrops that give it the feel of a play, though it is certainly cinematic and not claustrophobic. It looks like a movie, in other words, not a stage production.
Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten knock it out of the park in the lead roles. She was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. The supporting cast loom large in the background, and there may be a twist or two in the works, though I cannot give even the merest hint.
I loved "Love Letters" because it hits so close to home for me. Therefore, I not only give it my Two Biggest Possible Thumbs Up, but I also say that if you only see one older movie all year, make it this one. And then watch "Portrait Of Jennie", too.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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