“Random Harvest” and “The Uninvited” which I did here some time ago have one big thing in common. I thought they were both British made movies but both turned out to be American–at least technically and legally. I was not wrong, however, in their basic character. They are both British to the end in their inspiration and style and in their overall point of view and attitude. ” Harvest” also was based on a British novel(same name)by James Hilton(“Shangri La” and “Goodbye-Mr Chips”)

“Harvest” was made in 1942 and directed by Mervin Leroy, one of the fine directors of fairly early American sound pictures. It received 7 Academy Ward nominations but won none. Greer Garson in a sense beat herself by winning the Award that year for “Mrs. Miniver,” the stirring if slightly melodramatic salute to the British resistance to Hitler, particularly the resistance of civilians(She was not a nominee for “Harvest”)

“Harvest” begins at the end of WWI and we meet a British officer(Ronald Coleman) whose name and identity are unknown and who, as a result of his war injuries can’t remember anything of his former life. He has been assigned the name “John Smith.” He is in an institution for war wounded in 1918 and he is about to be visited by an aging couple whose son disappeared during the war, Could he be their son? They and he hope so, but they do not recognize him and all are disappointed.

In the furious celebration of victory over the Germans a door at the asylum is left unguarded and he wanders off and into the local town. There he meets a showgirl, Paula,(Garson)who figures he’s a victim from the asylum but likes him and feels sorry for him which leads to a friendship. I don’t think it will be a big spoiler to add that eventually they marry and begin a new life together. Then an accident gives him back his old memories but wipes out all memories since his war injury.

Now Paula is in a jam–married (and a mother) to a man who no longer knows his wife and son, but has remembered his wealthy, big business family and now returns to them. The family is largely ungrateful and not very warm to him, but he decides to stay and turns out to have a talent for business(He had been working on a writing career in his time with Paula). And the family is happy enough to have him take over their sagging fortunes and revive them.

NOW–you may think you can guess at least some of what happens next. As a matter of fact, you’re likely right to some extent, you could hardly miss on some of it–but there are a couple of surprises along the way and you may not guess all of it, particularly not how things happen or when.(Rather like “Vertigo” in that–see my blog on Hitchcock if I ever get around to finishing and publishing it).

That is all I’m gong to tell you about the story. It appears every now and then on TCM and likely other movie channels too. If you get the chance I strongly recommend you see it, you’ll likely like it and maybe be very moved by it. Of course you have to be careful with me. I have a liking for stories about the British Upper and Upper Middle classes between the wars and into Churchill’s era. And I suspect that behind my defensive sarcasm and humor I am really a romantic-at least on even numbered dates. So this would influence my choices of–well, many things, certainly movies and music.

The leads, Coleman and Garbo are superb in this. My only logical complaint is that the “showgirl” Garson is at the beginning of the film is a bit too civilized, a bit too classy sounding and looking to be entirely believable. I thought “showgirls” back then were disrespectable by definition and she seems to have just returned from a wealthy tea party. But other than that there is nothing wrong with her performance which is outstanding. And Garson is always believable as a well bred lady for whom a well bred man might fall head over heels. And Coleman does.

One of the critics(the original ones, that is) complained that his presence in the movie seems that of a man older than he ought to be and there is some truth in that. He seems nearing middle age at the start and most British officers at the front in 1918 were younger than that. But he doesn’t miss a trick otherwise. He is the ultimate war victim, the decent, lonely, abandoned gentleman searching for love and acceptance and finding it, temporarily at least, in Paula. He is always a gentleman, not only in his outward behavior, but in his sense of honor and his performance brought to my mind a quotation I think I’ve used before, from “Ten North Frederick”–“He was a gentleman in a world that had no further use for gentlemen.” But this one was successful.

Watching these two people, deeply in love with each other at one time, then the one having forgotten the other one-whose feelings obviously have not changed-is gut-wrenching and LeRoy both plays this for all it’s worth and at the same time does it in a cultivated and restrained way. It could have been a mess, an insult to both of the leading characters, but LeRoy had the good sense to make it a waltz, not a Rhumba, and it worked.

The reaction of the critics has been curious. Although a big hit and monetary success, it was not well received by most of the important critics at the time of its release. Bosley Crowther of the NYT(“Bosley Crowther who can always be counted upon to miss the point” Pauline Kael once called him–maybe this is an example)stated “for all its emotional excess, Random Harvest is a strangely empty film.” The highly and much admired James Agee was funnier. He thought it was a film for “those who can stay interested in Ronald Coleman’s amnesia for two hours and who can with pleasure eat a bowl of Yardley’s shaving soap.”

But the passing of time made another generation of critics more generous. Jonathan Rosenblum of the Chicago Reader thought it had “a kind of deranged integrity and sincerity on its own terms,” a back handed compliment perhaps, but definitely a compliment. Leonard Maltin, author of famous movie books found it a “supremely entertaining MGM treatment with Coleman and Garson at their best.” Movie historian Hal Ericson said “the magic spell woven by the stars and by author James Hilton …transforms the wildly incredible into the wholly credible.”

And this was likely necessary. The coincidences and chances of the movie are notable None of them is close to “Impossible,” but the whole plot taken together would fall into the category of “unlikely.” It required good writing, outstanding performances and the steady hand of an accomplished director to to hold things together and pull this off and it worked admirably. If you like them traditional, longing, and historically transporting, this one almost certainly will please you. It is done like what it is, an “old movie” from that first generation of film makers who knew how to integrate story, character and feeling and usually succeeded. This is one of the successes.

I have this fantasy of NBC having a “Saturday Night ” sketch in which some of the characters from “Everything, Everywhere” go to see this film and flip out from the order and self-restraint. Well, I’d better not follow that one too far.