"Love Letter" Mail Miffs Media

Mon., Apr. 26, 1999 3:45 PM PDT by Bridget Byrne

DreamWorks threw a cupid's dart at the media, but it misfired.

Last week many of the nation's film reporters received an unsigned mash note, apparently written on a home computer and mailed in an envelope with no return address.

It began: "Dearest, Do you know how in love with you I am...?" and continued for four paragraphs with such lines as "I have fallen in love without taking a step" and "When I'm close to you, I feel your hair brush my cheek when it does not." The billet-doux concluded, rather blandly, "Yours."

The letter struck several reporters as spooky, possibly an unsolicited missive from a stalker.

It was in fact a publicity gimmick DreamWorks had dreamed up to promote the May 21 release of the movie The Love Letter. This was made clear three days later in a follow-up note, also addressed to "Dearest," but featuring the company logo and film credits. But, unfortunately, the stunt occurred during the week the nation was reeling from the Colorado high school shooting and many in the press were weirded out. (Some journalists say they never received the second letter.)

Says Daily Variety's Bill Higgins, "I had no idea this wasn't real because it came to a home address, the envelope was handwritten and the postmark was from a distant Los Angeles suburb.

"It aroused a mix of feelings--I felt disconcerted, flattered, nervous. When I discovered it wasn't real it made me think a great deal about how something mysterious like this could rattle almost anyone. I seems like one of those clever ad guy ideas that a wiser head should have overruled."

"I thought it was probably something promotional, but it was slightly creepy and I admit for a moment I thought it could be from someone who had seen my picture on the contributors' page of a magazine or something," says Los Angeles-based entertainment writer Gregg Kilday.

Jennifer Barr, a senior editor at Elle magazine, also called the letter "creepy and disconcerting," and Holly Millea, a senior editor at Premiere, told The New York Times, "It's a turnoff. It's right up there with sending a ticking clock for a terrorist film. Not funny."

The Love Letter stars Kate Capshaw, wife of DreamWorks cofounder Steven Spielberg, who was himself the target of an obsessed stalker. However, this movie, in which Capshaw plays a woman trying to track down the writer of an unsigned love letter, is a relatively harmless romantic comedy.

DreamWorks feels no need to apologize. Over 700 letters were mailed and as one company spokesperson says, "With the exception of a small handful, who took it way too seriously, the responses have been overwhelmingly positive. Most people received it in the spirit it was intended--mixing mystery and romance, as does the movie."

Or, as studio PR czar Terry Press tells the Times, "Lighten up."