Random Harvest (1942)
Random Harvest (1942)
This essential romance drama was one of my best TCM discoveries (e.g. a film I’d never heard of until I started watching the channel). It’s a terrific "soaper" with Ronald Colman (this may have been the first film I saw him in too) as a man who suffers from amnesia and the woman (Greer Garson) who loves him. This is said to be Ms. Garson’s favorite of all her films. The cast also includes Philip Dorn who plays Dr. Benet Henry Travers who plays Dr. Sims Reginald Owen Rhys Williams Una O’Connor Margaret Wycherly Alan Napier and Norma Varden (among many others). Nominated for seven Academy Awards: Best Picture Colman for Best Actor Best Supporting Actress (Susan Peters) Best Director (Mervyn LeRoy) B&W Art Direction-Set Decoration Score and Screenplay. George Froeschel Claudine West & Arthur Wimperis adapted the James Hilton novel – the four of them won the Oscar for their work on that same year’s Best Picture winner (& Garson’s Best Actress performance in) Mrs. Miniver (1942). #36 on AFI’s 100 Greatest Love Stories list.
Colman plays Smithy a World War I veteran who meets and marries Paula Ridgeway. Theirs is a perfect love and he couldn’t be happier until he has an accident which enables him to remember that he’s actually Charles Rainier a wealthy industrialist. He’s forgotten completely about Paula and his post-World War I life with her. Peters plays Kitty a lovely youngster Charles knew back when who’s grown into a beautiful nubile young lady. When Paula finds out that her Smithy is really Charles Rainier she gets hired on as his secretary and hopes that her proximity to him and other familiar things will bring him back to her. She becomes invaluable to Charles in his business such that he wants to marry her for appearances and to not lose her as the excellent "partner" she is to him. Obviously this is bitter sweet for her. Eventually on a business trip he recalls the period of time when he walked out of the asylum he’d been in (Rainier had been found in the trenches with no memory of who he was); he vaguely recollects the town & the post World War I celebrations during which he’d met Paula … as Smithy! The film’s ending is unforgettable a tear-jerking moment to be savored.
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