Random Harvest
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Movie Reviews of Random Harvest
Movie Review: What movies are meant to be!
Summary: 5 Stars
Random Harvest is truly one of the most romantic, well written and acted movies of all time. This movie captures the essence of why we go to the movies. Ronald Colman, an amnesiac from the Great War, is found by Greer Garson, in her most engaging of all films, wandering the streets, and she cares for him. She helps him heal with love despite the best psychiatric care available to wounded soldiers, and they fall in love and marry and then she becomes pregnant. His pre-War brilliance begins to emerge, and he is hired to write for a newspaper in Liverpool; while securing the job, he is struck by a car and his memory returns...and he forgets his life with her. In one of the most clever plots ever, they are reunited, but he is still unable to remember her. It's heart wrenching, but the finale still makes me cry. I met Greer Garson in 1976 at my college where she and her husband were benefactors (College of Santa Fe in NM), and she aired this movie to the college for the students to enjoy! (I sat right in front of her crying my eyes out!) She loved it too! She was wonderfully generous to the College of Santa Fe and its students. Despite her fame and great beauty even late in life, she was so kind to everyone. She shared a story about Random Harvest; she told me that she would call Ronnie when RH was played on late night TV in the New York area to reminisce about how wonderful RH still was many years later! I believe she said this was her favorite film, and it is one of mine. I even named one of my dogs, Smithy!Movie Review: Not just a "woman's movie"....
Summary: 5 Stars
Yes, this is a tearjerker. But no way is it a simple "chick flick". This movie has two protagonists, one male, one female. Each of them has something they want desperately, and though their goals are slightly different, the motivations behind them speak to the hopes of every human being.
The second half of the movie focuses on the secret wish of a secretary to the rich Charles Rainier. The first half focuses on an equally desperate desire by wounded World War I vet Smithy. Either half in itself makes an interesting story. Bound by what the two haves have in common, the story becomes a classic that will resonate long after the credits roll.
James Hilton (who wrote the novel this movie was based on), had a unique and special talent for getting at the the heart of what drives human beings most deeply: the need to connect and to belong. One of the most touching moments in this film is a scene in which the mute and amnesiac Smithy is brought face to face with an elderly couple. They have lost their son in the War and travel to the sanitorium, mistakenly believing that he might be Smithy. As the two old people sadly shake their heads and turn away, actor Ronald Coleman stretches out his hand, and makes a small gesture toward them. It's a little thing, very staged, and it could never work in a film today, but its candid pathos is so touching, I've never forgotten it. See this film, you won't regret it.
Movie Review: Oh, Smithy...
Summary: 5 Stars
What would happen if a man got amnesia and forgot completely about his wife, family, and life before? Would it be possible for the couple to reunite? It sounds absolutely impossible, but that is what Random Harvest is about. Charles Rainer (Ronald Colman) was a soldier in WWI when a shell went off and left him with no memory of his life. He does not even remember his name; his adopted moniker is John Smith. When the news of the end of the war reaches the assylum where he is kept, John manages to escape and meets a friendly redhead in the street. Paula (Greer Garson) takes a liking to the strange man, dons him "Smithy" and takes him away with her to start a new life. They marry and all seems well until Smithy goes for a job in the city. He has an accident that brings his memory back but destroys the three years he lived after the war.
Random Harvest exhibits the talent of many amazing figures of classic Hollywood. Colman is tremedous in his part. He brings the character to life but appropraitely shifts his personality with each memory lapse. It is a difficult role, but he makes it look easy. Garson is absolutely beautiful; each emotion is strongly conveyed in a subtle way. The story by James Hilton is an enchanting tale of love and loss.
Only classic Hollywood could have gotten away with such an outrageous story and made it believable. It works very well and captures a unique era in history.
Movie Review: Based on a novel by James Hilton
Summary: 5 Stars
I am being simple in my description but it is the action and interaction of the character that make the movie, not really the story line.
John 'Smithy' Smith (Ronald Colman) not his real name wakes up in an asylum with no memory of who is. One day the door is left open and he wonders out or escapes. A dancer Paula Ridgeway (Greer Garson) spots him and eventually takes him in like a lost puppy. They eventually set-up house in a cottage in the country and have a son. He goes to a new job in Liverpool. Then it happens; he is hit by a truck and now has no memory of the three lost years as the happy and caring Smithy. He realizes he is Charles Rainier the heir of an industry and a good size house. He also has a niece Kitty Chilcet (Susan Peters) that really is not related, who is growing up fast with matrimony on her mind.
Will he marry Kitty?
Will he (or we) ever see Paula again?
Is Smithy dead?
The same actors are found in other Hilton stories; such as Ronald Colman in "Lost Horizon" (1937), and Greer Garson in "Mrs. Miniver" (1942). Greer was up for the Best Actress Oscar for this movie. However she got it for "Mrs. Miniver" and the rules say that you can only have one award per year.
Susan Peters was on the way up in the movies when she had an accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. She died 10 years later at the age of 31.
Movie Review: A Great Story, Beautifully Done
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a classic "tear-jerker". Delightfully performed by Colman & Garson. Beautifully photographed in dramatic black & white. The story begins during the last days of WWI in an industrial town in South England. Ronald Colman is an amnesia victim who wanders off from an asylum when he serendipitously meets an engaging stage singer/entertainer(Greer Garson).
They marry and have a child, all the while he still cannot remember his past life. On a business trip, he is struck by a car, becomes unconscious and his past memory comes back, but he now does not remember anything of his life with Garson.
As with all melodramas, his true life is as a wealthy aristocrat who excells in business all the while privately tormented by the vague memory of another life. Also to keep the excitement, Garson has become his secretary/assistant who never reveals to Colman any hint of who or what she had been to him even as she watches him almost marry another woman and then agrees herself to marry Colman "in name only" and helps him to rise in prominance in the English government.
The years go by and the last scene in the movie when Colman finally recalls all the years of his life is maybe by todays standards a bit corny, but so beautifully done.
It's a great film for history buffs and romantics of any age.