"The Love Letter" was shown as a made-for-TV movie on, I believe, CBS. It upset me a bit because the plot, while not exactly spectacular, was a bit unusual and had more been done with it, I'm sure this could have been at least a semi-decent movie. But more was not done with it. In fact, much, much less was done with it.

The first thing that got me about this movie was the quality of the acting. To be more specific, the *low* quality. The male lead is just about the worst actor I've ever seen -- his lines are all delivered in monotone, and I've not noticed him having the ability to show any facial expressions, much less any real emotions. His fiancee is almost as bad, but she can come pretty close to doing "hysterical," with the slight William-Shatner-esque twist of having a loooooooooong pause after every third or fourth syllable. His mother is quite the opposite: everything she does and says is *so* overblown, I couldn't keep from laughing at it.

The plot, also, is undeveloped. For those who don't know, it centers around a desk purchased by Male Lead that used to belong to Female Lead (the one half way decent performance in the entire movie) in the Civil War era. He finds a zillion-year-old love letter in the drawer, and, for whatever reason, replies to it. Somehow, Female Lead gets it (this is never explained). They fall in love by writing letters back and forth; she has no trouble believing that he is from twelve billion years in the future, and eventually meets his Civil War alter ego, falling in love with him. Of course, Civil War Captain dies, she gets all despondent, and for some reason she and Male Lead stop writing to each other (also never explained). He meets her present day alter ego, and they go out for coffee. End film.

This movie disappointed me since, as I said, the premise is interesting enough that something could have been done with it. There's still plenty of bad-movie-badness to laugh at, though; the fire at the post office deserves special attention. The post office catches on fire, and he must get his letter delivered! So he rushed into the burning building (the cops stop him the first time, but then let him through) and drops the letter into the box. Apparently, this is all that is required for Female Lead to receive the letter; the box must have some magic properties. But this, alas, is never explained. He then runs out of the burning building, coughs unconvincingly a couple of times, and life gets back to normal. Here's the question: he lives in Boston. Boston! There is another post office within driving distance of his house! Yet he still feels the need to run into this burning building, despite the fact that it is far more likely that the letter will be incinerated than that it will reach Female Lead (which, of course, it does anyway).

And which one of their special effects wizards thought there were land mines in the Civil War? Or is that the orbital support firing on them? Whatever it is, the explosions are coming straight up from the ground...and, of course, this is never explained.

Rating: two turkeys.

Scene to watch for: Running into the burning building; the battle scene.

Best line: I dunno...they're all pretty lousy.

Things that make you go "Huh?": Lots of stuff...none of it is ever explained....