Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.

January 2005 activity

Total Log Entries: 58

Total Comments: 19

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Random Harvest / USA / 1942

Random Harvest is a devious movie. The first hour is nearly flawless filmmaking: Ronald Colman gives a convincing performance as a shell-shocked veteran of World War I and Greer Garson is luminous as the woman who heals his emotional scars. Then, suddenly, the second hour topples over into saccharine melodrama with plot turns and revelations designed specifically to milk tears out of the audience. It is very nearly shameless, but the strong foundation of the first half and the assured direction of Mervyn LeRoy are enough to make the film hold together until its final, tear-filled scene.

As a side note, this was one of five titles selected in Warner Bros. and Turner Classic Movies’ DVD decision contest. Though this is one of the strongest of the five choices (you can read my opinion of the others elsewhere on the site), it came in the place of an earlier, better Mervyn LeRoy film, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, which was also eligible for selection. I enjoyed Random Harvest, but the bitter taste in the back of my throat from knowing my enjoyment was at the expense of a release of one of the best films of the 1930s was hard to wash away.

by Matt Bailey | Source: Warner Bros. DVD
15 Jan 2005 8:40 PM | Submit Comment

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