Greer Garson and Ronald Colman co-starred in Random Harvest, a 1942 Hollywood film that is one of the great sentimental romance films of all time. Early critics scoffed at the film, but it was an immediate box office success and is now an enduring favorite. Introducing the film on Turner Classic Movies a few years ago, the late Robert Osborne said he loved the film, and guest host Gene Wilder claimed that while it was not the best film he had ever seen, it was still his favorite.
My own experience confirms their opinion. On a couple of occasions, I have presented Random Harvest at my local senior center and the audience, mainly women, loved it. I can watch good films over and over and my wife often balks at watching Random Harvest for the umpteenth time, but once the credits roll, she is all in. Why?
What is there about Randon Harvest that made it MGM’s biggest hit back in 1942, and that still makes it enjoyable today? Based on a 1941 novel by James Hilton, best known for Lost Horizons, and Goodbye Mr. Chips, the screen adaptation seems somewhat implausible. Colman plays a British soldier who has lost his memory due to shell shock during World War I. He was captured by the Germans who included him in a prisoner exchange before the end of the war. He winds up in a mental asylum in an English manufacturing town still with total loss of memory, and hardly able to utter a sentence. He is given the name John Smith.
Implausibly, one night he is able to walk off the asylum in the hubbub arising from the news that the war is over. He gets into town, unaware of what is going on, and is surrounded by a host of cheering revelers. He stumbles into a tobacco shop whose proprietor senses that something is wrong with him and calls the police. Even more implausibly, an attractive young woman, played by Garson, takes pity on him and spirits him away. She is an entertainer in a travelling vaudeville show and takes him under her wing. Her name is Paula and eventually, she nurses him back to health, they fall in love and marry although he still has no memory of his past life. She calls him Smithy.
They proceed to live a normal life. She has a baby and he becomes a writer to the point where a Liverpool newspaper offers him a job. He travels to Liverpool to take the job but suffers a head injury after being hit by a car. His memory comes back and he remembers that he is the scion of an aristocratic English family. Incredibly, he has no recollection of the last three years with Paula.
What happens next, I will not describe but just say that the remainder of the film deals with Colman’s return to his family home and business, but still haunted by the gap in his recent memory, and Garson’s determined search for Smithy who has disappeared without a trace.
Implausible yes, but the acting puts the film over. I think it safe to say that no one ever spoke like Ronald Colman. Although his good looks made him a silent film star, his voice was a revelation when talkies arrived. In Random Harvest he plays two roles superbly. He plays the mentally handicapped veteran, as well as the aristocratic polished gentleman businessman.
Colman’s performance was more than matched by Greer Garson, an extremely beautiful, mature actress of great talent. She also plays two roles. First, she is the vivacious, music hall performer who can put over an unforgettable song and dance routine in front of a packed house celebrating the end of the war. Later, she seems perfectly at home playing a sophisticated woman who can eventually travel in the highest rungs of English society.
Ronald Colman’s performance earned him a well-deserved Best Actor nomination. Greer Garson was not nominated for this role probably because the studio nominated her for her performance in Mrs. Miniver, the story of a courageous British housewife during the dark days of WWII, a role for which she did win the Best Actress award. It is interesting to note that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill credited Mrs. Miniver for building British morale as well as American support for the success of the war effort. Nevertheless, Mrs. Miniver seems dated today while Randon Harvest endures. Colman and Garson were an incomparable pair.
125 minutes. CC.
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