This film is renowned for starting off Ethel Barrymore on her belated screen career (after a couple of tryouts made much earlier, including one – the as-yet unwatched RASPUTIN AND THE EMPRESS {1933} – with siblings Lionel and John!); she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her fine work here – in all, the legendary star would be nominated four times in the 10-year span until her death. Two other notable elements to the movie under review is its being one of only two titles helmed by respected playwright Odets (the other being THE STORY ON PAGE ONE {1959} which, again, I own but still need to go through) and the fact that it landed nominal lead Cary Grant his second and last Academy Award nod (having previously been shortlisted for George Stevens' romantic drama PENNY SERENADE {1941}) until being bestowed with an Honorary "Lifetime Achievement" golden statuette in 1970 (and, in fact, he mentioned these two directors specifically in that speech).
The film was based on a novel by Richard Llewellyn, whose "How Green Was My Valley" had just been brought to the screen by John Ford and managed to sweep, or should I say swipe, five Oscars including Best Picture and Direction at the 1942 ceremony: while an undeniably excellent effort, it notoriously triumphed over such superior candidates as the seminal debut of both Orson Welles and John Huston – namely CITIZEN KANE and THE MALTESE FALCON respectively! It is safe to assume that NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART clearly aimed at repeating the success of HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY: while it did garner a total of four nominations (the other two being in the Best Editing and Dramatic/Comedy Score departments), the narrative in this case did not quite have the necessary to obtain a comparable level of quality. Among Llewellyn's other credits were NOOSE (1948), a little-known but pretty good British noir he personally adapted from his play and which co-starred Maltese character actor Joseph Calleia.
Anyway, Grant here is a wanderer forever flanked by a pitbull who returns to his London home intending to stay for only a short while, but two events (learning of shopkeeper mother Barrymore's terminal illness – their relationship is otherwise strained – and falling for June Duprez – married to scoundrel George Coulouris) lead to a change of mind and eventually ground him. For the young woman's sake, he becomes embroiled in her husband's criminal schemes (one of their victims being Konstantin Shayne, a close acquaintance of Barrymore's, in a robbery sequence which, along with a car crash later on, constitute action highlights amid the general verbosity) and, to complicate matters further, the old woman is herself arrested for dealing in stolen goods! In the end, while resigning himself to his mother's loss, he follows her advise to find a "good" rather than a "cheap" woman – and he settles on musician Jane Wyatt (the title, in fact, refers to a Tchaikovsky composition she plays on her violin: she had loved him all along, but was willing to sacrifice her personal happiness after Grant professed his feelings for Duprez to her!).
Making for unusual wartime fare – which proves interesting without being particularly compelling – the film certainly deserves a mark for trying. Still, the London detail is unconvincing and the cast decidedly variable: the afore-mentioned Grant (rather effective in a rare depiction of his true Cockney origins, apart from the final descent into bathos), Barrymore, Coulouris and Shayne come off best, as well as Barry Fitzgerald (also in HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY and who made Oscar history that same year by being nominated twice for his role in GOING MY WAY – being thus in direct competition with the star in the Best Actor stakes while emerging the winner, and therefore Barrymore's male counterpart, in the Supporting category!); on the other hand, Wyatt and Duprez are somewhat weak under the circumstances, whereas Dan Duryea is thoroughly wasted as a bartender.
The film was based on a novel by Richard Llewellyn, whose "How Green Was My Valley" had just been brought to the screen by John Ford and managed to sweep, or should I say swipe, five Oscars including Best Picture and Direction at the 1942 ceremony: while an undeniably excellent effort, it notoriously triumphed over such superior candidates as the seminal debut of both Orson Welles and John Huston – namely CITIZEN KANE and THE MALTESE FALCON respectively! It is safe to assume that NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART clearly aimed at repeating the success of HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY: while it did garner a total of four nominations (the other two being in the Best Editing and Dramatic/Comedy Score departments), the narrative in this case did not quite have the necessary to obtain a comparable level of quality. Among Llewellyn's other credits were NOOSE (1948), a little-known but pretty good British noir he personally adapted from his play and which co-starred Maltese character actor Joseph Calleia.
Anyway, Grant here is a wanderer forever flanked by a pitbull who returns to his London home intending to stay for only a short while, but two events (learning of shopkeeper mother Barrymore's terminal illness – their relationship is otherwise strained – and falling for June Duprez – married to scoundrel George Coulouris) lead to a change of mind and eventually ground him. For the young woman's sake, he becomes embroiled in her husband's criminal schemes (one of their victims being Konstantin Shayne, a close acquaintance of Barrymore's, in a robbery sequence which, along with a car crash later on, constitute action highlights amid the general verbosity) and, to complicate matters further, the old woman is herself arrested for dealing in stolen goods! In the end, while resigning himself to his mother's loss, he follows her advise to find a "good" rather than a "cheap" woman – and he settles on musician Jane Wyatt (the title, in fact, refers to a Tchaikovsky composition she plays on her violin: she had loved him all along, but was willing to sacrifice her personal happiness after Grant professed his feelings for Duprez to her!).
Making for unusual wartime fare – which proves interesting without being particularly compelling – the film certainly deserves a mark for trying. Still, the London detail is unconvincing and the cast decidedly variable: the afore-mentioned Grant (rather effective in a rare depiction of his true Cockney origins, apart from the final descent into bathos), Barrymore, Coulouris and Shayne come off best, as well as Barry Fitzgerald (also in HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY and who made Oscar history that same year by being nominated twice for his role in GOING MY WAY – being thus in direct competition with the star in the Best Actor stakes while emerging the winner, and therefore Barrymore's male counterpart, in the Supporting category!); on the other hand, Wyatt and Duprez are somewhat weak under the circumstances, whereas Dan Duryea is thoroughly wasted as a bartender.