If you can get past the fact that Ronald Colman is a bit too old to play the main character in Random Harvest, a nominee for Best Picture of 1942, you will quickly find yourself entranced by a sad, beautiful love story between a man who has lost his memory and the woman who stands by him even when he forgets who she is. Colman, with that marvelously fluid voice of his, is Smith (or "Smithy"), who has lost his past thanks to shell shock from World War I. Greer Garson, a possessor of quite a beautiful voice in her own right, is the woman who rescues him from life in an asylum only to lose him again after several years of idyllic existence. These two actors are so well matched, and their chemistry is so strong, that they make Random Harvest one of the most romantic films of the 1940s.
Colman's Smith is at the Belbridge County Asylum recovering from his injuries when the war ends. He has faced one disappointment after another as people have come to the hospital looking for lost sons and husbands; no one recognizes him. When the guards leave their posts to celebrate the end of the war, he walks out of the asylum and into the streets of town, where he is quickly overwhelmed by the crowd. He's in his military uniform, so he's treated with a great deal of respect and generosity, but the crowd gets to be too much for him. Thankfully, Garson's Paula takes him to her dressing room to get a break from the noise of the streets. She decides to take care of him when he readily admits to his mental problems. She just thinks that he needs to be on the outside and he'll recover. She's the one who dubs him "Smithy."
After a guard from the asylum comes looking for Smith in town, Paula takes him to the countryside, abandoning her life as a stage performer in order to be with him. Before they depart, we're actually treated to one of her numbers, a truly awful song about a girl named Daisy that she performs in a deep Scottish brogue. If that's the quality of the material she has to perform, she's probably made the right choice in leaving the stage behind and assuming control of Smithy's life. He seems to be much calmer and even starts writing articles for a newspaper in Liverpool. He wants to ask her to marry him, but she says to him, "Do I always have to take the initiative?" That must have been a rather bold statement to make in a film in 1942, given its potential implications. They marry, have a child, and begin to enjoy a peaceful life in the country.
While in Liverpool for a job interview for a permanent post at a newspaper, Smith is hit by a car as he is crossing the street. A series of images of the war, including exploding bombs and attacks in foxholes, indicate that he's experiencing a flood of memories from his past. He realizes that he's really Charles Rainier, and he's lost three years of his life since the end of his service. He's also forgotten all about Paula and his child. He returns to his family's home, Random Hall, on the day of his father's burial and gradually starts to assume control of the family business. He even picks up an admirer, a girl named Kitty (played by Susan Peters), who is only 15 but seems to know just what she wants in a future husband. I should point out here that Colman was in his 50s when this film was made, and he looks far too old to have been merely a captain in the army and much too old to have some 15-year-old girl chasing after him. No amount of make-up can erase the obvious gap in their ages. Colman is really a good actor, and he is very effective in the role, but I just couldn't accept the romance between these two. Maybe that's what the film's creators were hoping too: that we'd see what a better match Garson's Paul is for him.
After the passage of a few years, we see him talking to his secretary, the efficient Miss Margaret Hanson, who is (of course) Greer Garson. She has seen his photograph in a newspaper and come to work for him in the hopes that he will remember her. Their child has died, and she's been unsuccessful at a series of jobs, so she imagines that he will recognize her when he sees her. He doesn't, though, and his announcement of his impending marriage to Kitty shocks Paula. She's still in contact with Smith's doctor from the asylum, but the doctor advises her not to tell Smith who she is during such a delicate time. He worries about the possible consequences for Smith's health of such a confrontation. Realizing that he will marry someone else without ever realizing who she is, Paula has Smith declared officially dead so that she can move on with her life (and he won't be considered a bigamist).
There are moments when Smith has momentary flashes of his years with Paula. A piece of music at the wedding rehearsal, for example, is all the signal Kitty needs to realize that he loves someone else even if he doesn't remember who it is. She leaves him, and he then starts to devote himself to his career. He's even elected to Parliament, but he tells Paula that he cannot be an MP without her support. He proposes marriage, not in a romantic sense but as a "sincere friendship." Perhaps out of a desire to regain his love, she agrees. You know that she's going to be frustrated that he still doesn't recognize who she truly is and that she's going to be upset when their relationship remains platonic rather than becoming romantic. It's an amazing performance that Garson gives her. She's got to show us just how much it pains her to be by the side of the man she loves but not have him realize it.
There are clues all around Smith, if he would only pay attention. He's been carrying a key that was found on him when he was struck by the car in Liverpool. He doesn't know what it fits, but it's always on his key chain. He sees a necklace he gave Paula when they were enjoying their romantic days in the countryside, but it fails to register with him. Paula has even tried jogging his memory by having him look for evidence of why he was in Liverpool, anything to bring Smith back to her. It's a very odd series of circumstances, resulting from his attempts to settle a strike at the Melbridge Cable Works, that leads to him having increasing awareness of what happened to him during those three years he was Smith instead of Rainier.
No doubt a modern viewer of Random Harvest would question the likelihood of so many coincidental occurrences, and the film does sometimes stretch credulity. However, it really isn't the mystery of what happens that draws us into these people's lives. It's the love they have for each other and our growing desire to see them reunited as they once were. We perhaps empathize with Paula the most as the movie progresses because she is our surrogate in wishing to have Rainier's memory restored to him. What we know now about repressed or lost memories might make the ending itself seem unlikely, but emotionally, the payoff is tremendous. There's a joy to be found in Rainier's pushing the key into the lock of the cottage he shared with Paula--make of that whatever metaphorical importance you'd like--and her calling him Smithy (and him recognizing her as his wife). Only a cynic would argue with the outcome of that last scene in Random Harvest.
No comments:
Post a Comment