Ayn Rand does Cyrano de Bergerac

One of those old movies I'd seen show up several times on the TCM schedule but never got around to recording or watching was the 1945 film Love Letters. With that in mind, the last time it ran on TCM, I made a point to put it on my DVR to get around to watch later. I've finally watched it, so now you get the review.

The movie starts off in Italy in World War II. Serving near enough to the front to hear the bombs are Alan Quinton (Joseph Cotten) and his friend Roger Morland. Roger has a girlfriend back in England named Victoria (Jennifer Jones), but Roger isn't much of a romantic, so he has Alan write the love letters to Victoria on behalf, which seems like nonsense since surely Victoria would recognize this as not her fiancé's writing. Worse, however, is that Alan realizes he's falling in love with Victoria even though he's never met her, while Victoria is in love with the letters, not with Roger.

At any rate, the letters are about to stop in part because Alan doesn't want to write any more, while Roger is going to be going back to England anyhow to train as a paratrooper. And on top of that, Alan gets injured in combat too and faces a lengthy recuperation before going back to England, no longer having to fight in the war. Roger visits Alan's parents, and has them tell Alan that he's married Victoria.

Some months later, Alan finally returns to England and visits his parents. He's had an aunt die in the meantime and bequeath him a place in County Essex, which is good because he knows that's near Longreach, which is the place where Victoria lived. However, Victoria isn't going to be around since Roger died in an accident before Alan got back to England. Meanwhile, Alan also has a fiancée himself, except that he's come to learn that since writing all those letters to Victoria, he's no longer in love with his fiancée.

Unfortunately, by this time Roger has died in an accident. Alan's brother tries to cheer him up by taking him to a party, wher he meets a woman named Dilly who happens to know Victoria and realizes that a drunken Alan is talking about Victoria when he talks about having written those letters for Roger in Italy. Alan finally goes to Longreach, only to learn that Victoria is dead too, which is not actually the case. The real truth is that Dilly is Victoria's cargiver, and that Victoria stabbed Roger to death, only to immediately develop a case of amnesia, taking the name Singleton. Dilly is terrified of what's going to happen should Singleton remember that she's really Victoria and especially if Victoria figures out she's talking to the guy who actually wrote those love letters for Roger.

Love Letters has what to me is a fairly ridiculous premise, but one that I suppose will appeal to people who like a certain type of romantic movie, such as Random Harvest. Not that I liked Random Harvest, although for me Love Letters didn't sink to being quite as mawkish as Random Harvest. Still, Love Letters is definitely another of those movies where you're going to need to watch and draw your own conclusions.