Ne'er-do-well drifter Ernie Mott (Cary Grant) returns home to London, where he learns his mother (Ethel Barrymore) has cancer. He decides to stay and help her run her shop but falls in love with a gangster's ex-wife and turns to crime. The film directorial debut of playwright Clifford Odets is a dreary, unexciting tale with nice performances from Ethel Barrymore and a miscast Cary Grant. The character in the book this is based upon is much younger than Grant is in this. The part's rewritten with him in mind but still feels like it would have been a better fit for a younger man. Grant does a decent job, though. The supporting cast includes lovelies June Duprez and Jane Wyatt, as well as the great Barry Fitzgerald. Unfortunately, he's not utilized to his full potential here. It's an unmoving social drama that goes on too long and has some rather forced WW2 elements that feel tacked-on. There's also a stagy feel to things, in large part due to the talky script where one can easily imagine Grant or Barrymore speaking to an audience instead of the other characters in the film.
Review of None But the Lonely Heart
None But the Lonely Heart
(1944)
"They say money talks. All it's ever said to me is goodbye."
11 January 2015