In old Indian movies, a Telegram would only arrive to signify really bad news - someone died, or something like that. Why else would you pay for that expense? Well, it could also be a job interview or posting. So the connotation there, in that time, was probably not so good.
Old movies in general, Indian or Hollywood. For pretty much the reasons you list.
> I found this telegram tucked into a passage on the Jewish community in Sarajevo [...] The recipient of the telegram was Ann Cottrell Free
I dare say he didn't receive, he found, and it's not his but someone else's telegram.
https://claude.ai/share/b84c491e-3480-4407-ae76-b6cf63ee551d