Random Movies

Random Harvest (1942) is a classic, sure, but we generally aren’t big on melodramas, and so we had missed it. But it stars Ronald Colman and Greer Garson, directed by Melvyn LeRoy, so we figured it would be good. And then we found out about the double amnesia.

It starts with Coleman going AWOL from a mental institution. He was apparently a soldier in WWI who lost his memory - and no one knows who he is. While hungry and broke, he meets music hall dancer Greer Garson, who starts taking care of him. To help him recuperate, she takes him to a cottage in the country, where he starts writing.

When he sells a story, he rushes to Liverpool to get a job with a newspaper. But he is struck by a cab, and - BOOM! - double amnesia. He now remembers who he was before the war, but not what he’s been doing since. Since he doesn’t have any ID, he heads back to his rich family and takes up his role as captain of industry. He has a cute teen-aged cousin of some sort who wants to marry him when she grows up - I mainly mention this because she’s played by Susan Peters, who is astonishingly beautiful. He is even running for Parliament.

But did you notice his secretary? It’s Garson. She took the position to be close to him, hoping he will recognize her, or maybe just fall in love with her. But she won’t tell him what was going on during his first amnesia, because she wants him to want her for herself, or something. I think you know how it comes out.

This is truly a romantic film, with great stars. But it is far from perfect. I had problems with the structure - in the second amnesia, it seems like Garson just sort of appears as Colman’s secretary, without showing how she got there (unless I fell asleep for a scene or two - it happens). It makes the second part seem disconnected from the first, and not in a good way. For double amnesia movies, I prefer the Joseph Cotton/Jennifer Jones Love Letters.

Speaking of men in tragic relations with music hall dancers, we also caught up with The Lodger (1944). While loose women are being killed all over Whitechapel, formerly well-to-do Cedric Hardwicke and Sara Allgood take in a lodger. It is Laird Cregar, a devout but somewhat mysterious man. Although they sometimes think he may be up to something, their daughter, dancer Merle Oberon, is quite taken with him. She keeps insisting that he come see her show, although he thinks such goings-on are ungodly. She should have left him alone.

I was quite taken with the atmosphere of this one, and of Cregar’s menace. I now feel like the Lodger should have been a member of the classic monster cadre, at least a junior member, like the hunchback.