Random Harvest (1942)

A soldier (Ronald Colman) suffering from amnesia wanders away from an asylum just as Armistice is declared. On the verge of being discovered, he is assisted by a stage actress (Greer Garson) who for some reason takes a shine to him. Love blooms, but there are complications.

Neither Garson nor Colman had particularly long careers and I had only seen one film each. But they have been in some pretty noteworthy films, a couple on my watch list. Una O’Connor makes an appearance. This is the seventh film we’ve seen her in. Reginald Owen (A Christmas Carol) and Alan Napier (Batman) have brief appearances.

Pretty Susan Peters has a problematic role and I won’t go into detail. She had a sad, short life. Already a screen veteran, twenty year old Peters was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar. Three years later a hunting accident would put her into a wheelchair and end her Hollywood career. One comeback was attempted but she would shortly pass, a victim of pneumonia, depression, and anorexia. She was 31.

I don’t believe this film would have been on my radar had it not been for a young woman on YouTube, who absolutely loves it. A pure romantic film and unapologetically sentimental, Random Harvest is squarely outside of my cinematic wheelhouse. And were I to pick nits, there are some story issues. Let's just say in a world that even vaguely resemble our real one, things would not play out anything like this.

Still, Random Harvest a well written, very well acted, and beautifully shot film. Call it fluff, but it’s expertly crafted fluff. AMRU 4.

The Broadway Melody (1929)

The Mahoney Sisters, Harriet and Queenie (Bessie Love and Anita Page), move to New York to take their chances on old Broadway. Love will bloom.

We are introduced to the sisters while they move into their new apartment and get partially undressed. Harriet, oddly called Hank, gushes to sister Queenie about how beautiful she is and how much she loves her, punctuating with kissing her square on the lips. I’m not sure what the filmmakers were trying to communicate outside of standard pre-code titillation.

This seems to be the spiritual godmother of the “young women trying to make it big on Broadway” trope that was so popular in the 1930’s. This prototype isn’t as interesting as some that came later. The musical numbers are a bit tedious and the melodrama is laid on a bit thick, but it does have one thing: a Best Picture Oscar.

Young Queenie succumbs to the advances of Jacques Warriner (totally not Jack Warner) to the dismay of big sis Hank, who knows he is only interested in one thing. More interesting is that Anita Page revealed much later in life that she left Hollywood because she refused sexual advances from studio big-wigs Irving Thalberg and Louie Mayer. Life imitates art?

Broadway Melody was a huge success and spawned three sequels, not to mention inspiring Warriner Brothers' five ‘Gold Diggers’ films. (Yes, I know the Gold Diggers films were actually a remake of a silent film, but I'm building a narrative here!) And despite this being the Best Picture progenitor of the genre, it stands as the lowest rated of the lot. Tedious and melodramatic at times, but despite its flaws, it's amusing enough. AMRU 2.5.