Word: dere
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Letter to a Hero (RKO-Pathe) is written by a small-town schoolteacher (played by Ann Dere) to an erstwhile pupil, a soldier who has just been decorated. While the soldier-whose face never appears-reads it, her voice speaks it. While she speaks, the camera wanders gently and perceptively among the people and places to which she refers-the classroom, the main street by day and by night, the church, the school bus, the soldier's home (a farm) and his parents, the war work of various auxiliaries, a Friday night dance at the High School, a parade...
Hammerstein's lyrics are as right and renovating as his book. The seductive Seguidilla becomes Dere's a Café on de Corner; the Quintet turns into Whizzin' Away Along de Track. Carmen gets a load of Joe, and her famed flirtatious Habanera becomes Dat's Love...
...Dere as an aging maiden aunt is a bit different from the sophisticated authoress she played last week, more in the vein of here three-year "Tobacco Road" part, but still good. The rest of the cast is capable, with actor-director Bob Perry playing well Dorothy Lambert handling a finicky mother part adequately, and Louise Valery making a nice finance to inventor-mechanic Richard Hart...
...social drama, the play is gentle, perhaps slightly suggestive of the Woman's Home Companion. The cast is able, with Leatrice Joy Gilbert, the guest star doing very nicely, thank you, and a pretty lass at that. Orchids go to Ann Dere, whose fine portrayal of Katherine Markham, a difficult part, is the best performance of the play...
...combination of Bill Mendrek and Dere we have little to say. They carry their scenes well, don't botch lines as Ruth Hermansen does, almost spoiling her otherwise well done job as the novel writer who sounds as though she might have written this play...