Kino Lorber
I first encountered the Paramount movie Dear Ruth in a television airing in the 1980s.
It’s about a young woman who writes to a soldier during WWII and one day, that soldier turns up at the home where she lives with her parents…and her older sister.
At the time I watched it, I had no earthly idea that my own parents met in much the same way!
When both my parents were around, it never even occurred to me to ask how they had first met, but later an older relative explained to me that my mother chose my father’s name from a “write to a soldier” piece in True Story magazine.
They corresponded when he was overseas during WWII and for a few years afterward, with her in North Carolina and him back home in Kentucky. Then he went to visit her in person and romance blossomed.
The difference between my parents’ story and the story of Dear Ruth, is that it was NOT Ruth who corresponded with the soldier, but her younger sister Miriam, who used Ruth’s name!
Sixteen-year-old Miriam is introduced as an early feminist, canvassing the neighborhood with a petition to the Secretary of War to get women drafted out of fairness. “We resent being no more than producers of children,” she says. Miriam is also a stereotypical headstrong teenager, dead certain that she knows better than all the adults, about everything.
At one time, Miriam started a group she called “Bundles for Our Boys” where she sent presents and letters to a soldier—about 60 of them. She alternated talking about her family and global politics with poetry copied from the likes of Shelley and Keats. Lieutenant William Seacroft grew increasingly enamored of his pen pal, writing back multi-page responses.
“I sent him hope and faith and the will to go on,” a defiant Miriam tells her parents after the Lieutenant shows up on leave one weekend, just before being shipped back overseas. He still thinks it was Ruth writing him, and not knowing that Ruth had just that day gotten engaged, hilarity ensues as the decision is made not to tell him otherwise. After all, he would be gone in two days and possibly never make it back!
Dear Ruth was originally a very funny stage play by Norman Krasna, with the family in the story said to be based on the family of Krasna’s close pal Groucho Marx. The movie’s screenplay, however, comes from Arthur Sheekman, another close pal of Groucho’s and, in fact, the writer who wrote all three of the funniest Marx Brothers films—Duck Soup, Monkey Business, and Horsefeathers! That may well explain why the film has so many quotable funny lines. There’s even a joke here ABOUT a Groucho joke!
It also has a splendid cast. In fact, as this is the first of three films based around Judge Wilkins’ family, they reminded me a little of Judge Hardy’s franchise across town at MGM. This judge is played by the great character actor Edward Arnold (looking very much like my father, here!). Mary Phillips, the second of Humphrey Bogart’s wives, has lovely jokey chemistry with Arnold as his wife, reminding me a bit of Harriet Nelson, one of the great sitcom moms.
Worldly-wise Miriam, who proclaims, “The game of man and woman maneuvering in pursuit of a mate I consider on the level of a game of checkers.” is the absolutely delightful Mona Freeman. Her delivery on her comic lines is superb. I wish she had been in it more.
“I wonder if we should have Miriam psychoanalyzed,” says her sister Ruth at one point. Ruth is Joan Caulfield, a lovely blonde who endears herself to viewers but to be honest would be almost incidental if the plot wasn’t built around her.
A miscast Billy De Wolfe appears as Ruth’s actual fiancée, playing pretty much the same prissy character he played throughout his long career. Miscast, yes, but always fun to see.
The real star of the picture, though, is the young William Holden, just out of the service in real life and right back in uniform here. His smiling, over-the-top, whirlwind courtship of the woman he thinks he loves is more comical than romantic but then this is a romantic comedy so that works out great! Holden, of course, aged before his time by alcohol, would become better known for more serious roles in films like The Wild Bunch, Network and The Towering Inferno. It is both sad and delightful to watch him so bright and shiny here in Dear Ruth, lighting up the screen and with such promise ahead of him.
Lighting up the screen is exactly what Dear Ruth, directed by William D. Russell, does, too. It may be nearly 80 years old but it’s still filled with plenty of genuine feel-good laughs, not just nostalgic humor.
Extras include audio commentary.
Booksteve recommends.
Kino Lorber
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