This ernest turn at portraying Cockney life quickly becomes a fascinating story with strong characterisation. The initial narration, a touch overdone, gives a tantalising glance at future events that never appear in the film. At first, Grant seems to be playing his part with a strange over-zealous streak but we rapidly understand that this is the nature of his Ernie Mott (like Nic Cage in Wild at Heart, this is a man with clothes that represent his sense of independence), a happy-go-lucky character with a brooding sense of social injustice. Everything bad comes with a dose of sugar, a kiss if you like, to sweeten the experience and make life seem better than it really is. This is one of those pictures that plays out like a languishing soap opera - insightful and compassionate with moments of excitement - just enough to keep 'Ma' happy. This would probably work today as a remake but I suspect the directors would play up the sex and violence to such a level that the real essence of 'want and need' would be lost. Worth watching.
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Popey-612 November 2003
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rupie17 March 2000Thanks to American Movie Classics for bringing us this fine old film. With script and direction by Clifford Odets, success is almost guaranteed going in, and it is ensured in the event by the fine performances of Ethel Barrymore and Cary Grant, who in Ernie Mott plays one of his most substantial roles. Set in the underbelly of between-wars London, this multifaceted story has engrossing characters and a story that draws us in. The inconclusive ending puts it more or less in the category of 'slice-of-life' drama, but what a slice. Worth watching.
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planktonrules8 February 2009It had been some time since I'd last seen this movie and reviewed it, so I watched it again this weekend. Surprisingly, the film definitely improved when seen a second time, though I must still admit that this film was a serious misfire for Cary Grant--almost as bad as his decision to make ONCE UPON A TIME--also in 1944.
Cary plays a character perhaps more like he was in real life. Born "Archie Leach" to working class parents, Cary for once gets to play a character more akin to his roots--not the suave and sophisticated upper or middle-class swell. Here in NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART, he plays a cockney guy in a film without a single cockney (or similar) accent!! His mother is played by Ethel Barrymore (an American) and one of his lady friends is Jane Wyatt (also an American). Barry Fitzgerald probably sounds closest to a cockney, but he's Irish. There were a few Brits on board as well (including Grant) but they all sounded too prim and proper and the total effect was "London-like"--having some of the attributes of the city but mostly seeming like a Hollywood back lot. Now considering that the city was in the midst of the Blitz, I really can't completely blame them, but so little effort was made in getting the details right that it annoyed me.
As for the story, it was interesting and quite a stretch--but it also ended on such a vague and unsatisfying note that I am not a big fan of the film. Depressing and at times seemingly pointless, it is nevertheless an interesting portrait of a very complex character--who is far more than what first meets the eye. Overall, an interesting failure with enough about it to make it a decent time-passer or a curio for the curious. -
This 1944 movie is a masterpiece of black and white photography by Director Clifford Odets. The subtilty of background lighting and the shadow effects in the street scenes are magic. There are moments of sheer brilliance with Cary Grant as the independent unorthodox Cockney son Ernie Mott, who comes home and decides to run the secondhand furniture shop and care for his sick mother, Ethel Barrymore. Jane Wyman, makes money playing the cello and patiently loves Ernie from across the street. Mott has 'perfect pitch' and can tune pianos and does odd jobs. Grant brings this quirky character to life and makes us love him. Ernie is a combination of dark brooding and sanguine pathos. All the actors are excellent and bring the poetic language of the script to life. June Duprez as Ernie's girlfriend Ada is riveting. Barry Fitzgerald as genial family friend Henry Twite is special. Even the Dog called Nipper stole every scene. As you can see I loved this movie, hope you do too....
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SnoopyStyle19 February 2018Ernie Mott (Cary Grant) is an irresponsible vagrant roaming the streets of London. His father had died in the Great War. His mother (Ethel Barrymore) runs a small shop by herself. He plays the piano, fools around with a gangster's ex Ada Brantline (June Duprez), and has a friendship with nice neighborhood girl Aggie Hunter (Jane Wyatt). After learning about her mother's cancer, he stays to run the shop despite their combative past.
Ernie is not really an appealing character and that's tough to do for Cary Grant. I'm also annoyed by his relationship with Ada. I want more time with Aggie and have more love triangle action. The character would be appealing as an exuberant youth struggling to find his way in the world. Cary Grant was 40 by then. I can see this as a lower class melodrama like a Mike Leigh movie but Cary Grant doesn't really fit the role. It's interesting nevertheless. -
wralph-9914426 December 2018The enjoyment in this movie comes from dialogue that anyone of us would wish to have said - rather like the dialogue written by Raymond Chandler in his Marlowe novels. Other reviewers have mentioned the best lines, but I would add one spoken by June Duprez to Cary Grant - "I told him I had about 20 kisses left in me, and he wasn't getting one of them." She is excellent in the role of Ada, plausible, lovely to look at, and delivers the best lines flawlessly.
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secondtake2 March 2014None but the Lonely Heart (1944)
An odd but actually really interesting American movie set in London (and made on a huge soundstage built for the filming in California). At first you might twitch at Cary Grant's slightly affected accent—except that he grew up in working class London, though with a different neighborhood accent than this. His mother, played by Ethel Barrymore, doesn't even pretend at an accent, which is fine. She's tough as nails and she fights for her son's dignity with maternal hardness. "A breath of homeless wind," she calls him.
This makes sense in context—the movie is from the big turning point and gruesome zone of World War II. It seems the Germans are losing ground at last, and Britain, a short Channel away from enemy soldiers, is desperate to keep morale up. A final scene has some badly done shadows of planes falling on a third major character, as he and Grant look up at the sky.
There are a hundred great moments here, many of them in the clever, homey script (which is filled with old school aphorisms like, "They milk the cow that stands still"). And then there's the moment when Grant appears at the bottom of the stairs in a new striped suit. What a sight!
Underneath all this is a tender, sad, triumphant story amidst the ruins of this mother and son family. You can read it two ways. The first is simple: a gadabout young man hasn't paid much attention to his aging, widowed mother and the two have to find ways of getting to know each other again. Both of the leads are terrific actors, and though they might seem mismatched in style, they are decent enough to pull of this seesaw of emotions.
The other story is a social message about young men with skills coming to the aid of those who need them. In the bigger picture this means Great Britain in its fight against the Nazis. As the personal ups and downs fly around us while we watch (there is tumult of romantic and criminal activity), the bigger truth is developing—Grant's troubled character has to find some inner stability to make him a useful, happy human being. It's not about being a homeless wind after all.
Overall there is a stage-like stiffness to part of the film (Odets was a playwright above all), but it's so moving at times, and so well written at others, I recommend it anyway. A classic? No. But it helps fill in some gaps in Grant's career (he just finished filming "Arsenic and Old Lace") and it does satisfy some dramatic impulse in me.
An example of a great tidbit? Midway, Grant is making advances on the leading lady, and she rebuffs him flat. "Rolled a nice cold pickle jar down my back, you did," he says. A little later she says, "There's about twenty good kisses left in me but you'll never get one." Where the heck does this kind of great, old-fashioned, writing come from? The writer of the movie, of course, Clifford Odets, who also is directing. This is one of two movies the great writer directed. And this, in the end, is why to see it. He's not a terrific director, but he knows how to respect a good writer when it's himself. And there is so much that works here amidst the slightly awkward direction it's worth seeing.
For those who love old movies, that is. And for anyone trying to get a grip on the effect of WWII on England, and London, and regular folk. -
writers_reign14 May 2012You'll go a long way to find a greater fan of Cliff Odets than me so I was interested to see how he'd handle a very English story written by a Welshman with a flair for poetic language. Odets himself of course had a poetic way with words but the East Side of New York is more than the geographical three thousand miles from the East End of London. Most of the reviews I've read on IMDb were written by Americans and/or non-English people who, not unnaturally, have no idea how wayward the 'cockney' accents are - Dan Duryea, for example, doesn't even attempt one - and one reviewer even referred to Grant's own background in London when in fact he was born and brought up in Bristol a good two hundred miles away. Despite her failure to master cockney Ethel Barrymore walks away with the acting honours and fully deserved her Best Supporting Actress gong and despite what other reviewers have written I felt that the cast were in three or four different films with no sense of an ensemble at work. Given that he adapted the novel himself and also directed Odets can blame no one but himself for the lack of 'Odets type' dialogue, in fact on only one or two occasions do we hear anything even approaching his trademark speech. On the other hand Odets excelled at chronicling social injustice which is the same the world over and he clearly instructed the cameraman to stress light and shade throughout. Interesting rather than memorable but certainly worth seeing.
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bkoganbing9 June 2006Cary Grant wanted to do something different than being a comedic or romantic leading man. He'd have liked to do more serious things like None But the Lonely Heart a good deal more frequently.
In point of fact Grant understood the character of Ernie Mott far better than any of his other more upper class characters. Ernie Mott was the kind of fellow Cary would have run into back in the days when he was Archie Leach. Grant came from a hardscrabble background growing up in London. In many ways Cary Grant was the greatest role he ever played.
Grant had played cockneys before on the screen, but in a more comic vein in Sylvia Scarlett and Gunga Din. However what we've got in None But the Lonely Heart is far more serious.
It's an original screenplay by Clifford Odets and adapted from a novel by Richard Llewellyn who also wrote How Green Was My Valley. Odets was at that time a sensation on Broadway with a whole string of dramas of social significance from the Thirties. The grinding effects of poverty are just about the same whether it's the Lower East Side of New York or the cockney slums of London. Odets also directed this film, one of only two times he did that.
Grant understood that very well and he turned in one bravura performance as Ernie Mott who wants desperately to get ahead and makes a few bad choices in trying to do so. The only one who understands him is his mother played by Ethel Barrymore who returned to the screen for the first time in a decade.
It was a great performance for Cary Grant and it lost a fortune for RKO Studios as the public as Sam Goldwyn said, stayed away in droves. They would not accept Grant in a dramatic part. Cary got his second and last nomination for Best Actor, but lost the Academy Award to Bing Crosby in Going My Way.
Ethel Barrymore won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar that year for this film. It led to a permanent break from the stage and she spent the rest of her life in Hollywood in a variety of films. Unlike brother Lionel she wasn't tied down to a long term contract to one studio and she picked and chose wisely in roles when she stayed in Hollywood.
George Coulouris is the best from the rest of the cast as a small time racketeer in the neighborhood who Grant gets mixed up with. Coulouris always exudes menace, one of the best in doing that.
What happened to Cary Grant is the same thing that happened to Tyrone Power when he appeared in Nightmare Alley, great critical reviews and the public wouldn't buy it. Both of those guys were limited by type casting their entire careers. Power did manage to do Witness for the Prosecution at the premature end of his career, the closest Grant did to a dramatic part after this was Crisis which also was a commercial flop. -
AlsExGal11 September 2018... well, not really, and Grant never turns in a cartoonish performance, but still this guy is a layabout with a chip on his shoulder and yet the women are crazy about him.
In NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART, you can definitely hear the Common Man expounding upon the human condition in a way that the Coens foud ripe for satire. Cary Grant delivers some speeches in this film. Though this was one of only two films for which Grant ever got an Oscar nomination (they were both, ironically, for heavy dramas - Grant criminally never got nominated for the light comedy at which he was so masterful), I found him to be a bit of an odd fit in this film. IMDB says he considered himself to be way too old for the part. I'm not sure how old the character was in the original novel. There is a line of dialogue in the film where Grant says he's pushing 35 to establish the character as somewhere close to his real age of 40 at the time. But 35 seems quite old to be filled with wanderlust and an aversion to responsibility and domesticity, especially in those days, when 35 was already middle aged.
I went into it having no idea where the story was going. I found it very slow moving at first (okay, he's established he's leaving town, but like Hamlet, he just keeps hanging around, not really doing anything but giving a lot of speeches). Then in the second half, it gets very noirish. I wasn't expecting that at all. June Duprez was new to me. She delivers one unforgettable line of dialogue when Grant asks her what the weather's supposed to be like on the day he intends to marry her: "A chance of rain, followed by suicide in bed". Oh my God, that's dark! I also liked the other potential love interest played by the lovely Jane Wyatt, whom I would like to learn more about. Her pining for Grant is presented in a refreshingly low-key, dignified sort of way. And star of the night Ethel Barrymore is terrific, of course. The genuine but largely sentiment-free love she and Grant have for one another is also a refreshing change from the more maudlin sort of mother-son thing we see in, oh I don't know, say Jimmy Stewart movies for example.
Glad I finally saw it. It has more to recommend than not, but I still can't figure out why a woman would want to marry a man who amounts to Andy Capp -
TheLittleSongbird7 January 2020Saw 'None But the Lonely Heart' as somebody who loves Cary Grant and has done for a long time, though was intrigued as to how he would fare in such an against type role. In fact, there are some very talented names in the cast here. Also the title of the film is also the English-language title of one of my favourite songs by Tchaikovsky, one of the most beautiful ever written. The story on paper sounded like it would be a charming and moving film.
Things that, to me after watching it, only came in spurts. Found myself rather disappointed by 'None But the Lonely Heart'. Not an awful by all means, but was expecting a lot more from it considering its potential and that Oscar wins and nominations were garnered. Not to mention that Grant considered it one of his favourites apparently, which to be honest did surprise me and this is coming from somebody who has always tried to be subjective when expressing her opinions.
'None But the Lonely Heart' does have its good things. The supporting cast are good and it is a case of the supporting cast being better than the lead. Ethel Barrymore brings dignity to her character, even if her physical resemblance to Grant is none, and Barry Fitzgerald has his usual twinkling charm. June Duprez is luminous and is movingly sincere. The same goes for Jane Wyatt. The dog is a scene stealer.
A few moving moments here and there, while the settings and lighting are atmospheric and some of the photography is beautiful. The music is very haunting and is the reason for any emotional impact the film has in spurts.
Do have to agree however that Grant doesn't work in the lead in one of his very few miscast performances, too old, too prim and proper and he even doesn't look very engaged. It is good when an actor/actress plays against type and there are many examples of successes in this regard, but Grant just doesn't fit here. There are things though that work against him and really badly bring 'None But the Lonely Heart' down further. Including a self-indulgent and turgid script that was in serious need of a tightening up, thin character writing, pedestrian pacing and uncertain direction indicative of inexperience.
Furthermore, the story doesn't really come to life and is like trudging through thick mud. It is quite dreary and the constant grimness makes it difficult to sit through. The vague fizzler that passes for an ending is another reason as to why the story fails, and too much of the photography is too murky which added further to the overload of grimness.
On the whole, a mildly intriguing curiosity but in terms of films and performances this leans more towards being one of Grant's misfires than winners. 5/10 -
Great movie about one man's dilemma where he must choose between freespirited independence vs. the security of settling down with the ones you love, as seen through the eyes of Ernie Mott (Cary Grant). Ernie wants only freedom and peace which he can only obtain by being a wanderer, not being tied down by jobs or commitments. This changes when he finds his mother (Ethyl Barrymore) is very ill and he decides to stay with her and help run her shop. He had also fallen in love and his staying with Mom conveniently means he won't have to leave his new girl Ada(). But there is a catch with Ada, which she seems to realize from the start but Ernie slowly finds out the hard way as events unfold. The tragic implications have effects on everyone who is close to him and he ultimately is forced to re-evaluate his priorities.
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masonfisk8 July 2021A 1944 Cary Grant film written & directed by esteemed playwright Clifford Odets. Taking place in Blighty, we have Grant playing a ne'er do well bloke gallivanting the streets hoping to make it as part of a criminal crew so he can help out his mother who's dying of cancer. Along the way he befriends the wife of a gangster & gets the occasional advice from an aging curmudgeon played by Barry Fitzgerald. Not the usual smooth player that Grant was known for leaning more towards his avaricious nature who is always on the prowl for the easy buck only to felled for his love of his 'mum'. A welcome left turn for an actor usually not found acting outside of his comfort zone.
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Ne'er-do-well drifter Ernie Mott (Cary Grant) returns home to London, where he learns his mother (Ethel Barrymore) has cancer. He decides to stay and help her run her shop but falls in love with a gangster's ex-wife and turns to crime. The film directorial debut of playwright Clifford Odets is a dreary, unexciting tale with nice performances from Ethel Barrymore and a miscast Cary Grant. The character in the book this is based upon is much younger than Grant is in this. The part's rewritten with him in mind but still feels like it would have been a better fit for a younger man. Grant does a decent job, though. The supporting cast includes lovelies June Duprez and Jane Wyatt, as well as the great Barry Fitzgerald. Unfortunately, he's not utilized to his full potential here. It's an unmoving social drama that goes on too long and has some rather forced WW2 elements that feel tacked-on. There's also a stagy feel to things, in large part due to the talky script where one can easily imagine Grant or Barrymore speaking to an audience instead of the other characters in the film.
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jshaffer-123 June 2004I found this movie to be very painful to watch. It is not your typical Hollywood, let's glamorise everything, everyone has money, let's make it look pretty. These people are grindingly poor, the mother is dying of cancer, and our boy is trying to be his own man, without money or position. Tuning pianos seems like a difficult way to earn a living, but makes use of the only talent he really has, which is perfect pitch. For those who don't know, it is the ability to name any tone or note that you hear. This movie has a great supporting cast, Barry Fitzgerald and Jane Wyatt, just to mention two. Grant's mother is one of my favorite actresses, Ethel Barrymore. She really has too much class for the part she plays. And the sets make you glad you don't have to live there. Still memorable, though, in spite of being so depressing.
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This film is renowned for starting off Ethel Barrymore on her belated screen career (after a couple of tryouts made much earlier, including one – the as-yet unwatched RASPUTIN AND THE EMPRESS {1933} – with siblings Lionel and John!); she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her fine work here – in all, the legendary star would be nominated four times in the 10-year span until her death. Two other notable elements to the movie under review is its being one of only two titles helmed by respected playwright Odets (the other being THE STORY ON PAGE ONE {1959} which, again, I own but still need to go through) and the fact that it landed nominal lead Cary Grant his second and last Academy Award nod (having previously been shortlisted for George Stevens' romantic drama PENNY SERENADE {1941}) until being bestowed with an Honorary "Lifetime Achievement" golden statuette in 1970 (and, in fact, he mentioned these two directors specifically in that speech).
The film was based on a novel by Richard Llewellyn, whose "How Green Was My Valley" had just been brought to the screen by John Ford and managed to sweep, or should I say swipe, five Oscars including Best Picture and Direction at the 1942 ceremony: while an undeniably excellent effort, it notoriously triumphed over such superior candidates as the seminal debut of both Orson Welles and John Huston – namely CITIZEN KANE and THE MALTESE FALCON respectively! It is safe to assume that NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART clearly aimed at repeating the success of HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY: while it did garner a total of four nominations (the other two being in the Best Editing and Dramatic/Comedy Score departments), the narrative in this case did not quite have the necessary to obtain a comparable level of quality. Among Llewellyn's other credits were NOOSE (1948), a little-known but pretty good British noir he personally adapted from his play and which co-starred Maltese character actor Joseph Calleia.
Anyway, Grant here is a wanderer forever flanked by a pitbull who returns to his London home intending to stay for only a short while, but two events (learning of shopkeeper mother Barrymore's terminal illness – their relationship is otherwise strained – and falling for June Duprez – married to scoundrel George Coulouris) lead to a change of mind and eventually ground him. For the young woman's sake, he becomes embroiled in her husband's criminal schemes (one of their victims being Konstantin Shayne, a close acquaintance of Barrymore's, in a robbery sequence which, along with a car crash later on, constitute action highlights amid the general verbosity) and, to complicate matters further, the old woman is herself arrested for dealing in stolen goods! In the end, while resigning himself to his mother's loss, he follows her advise to find a "good" rather than a "cheap" woman – and he settles on musician Jane Wyatt (the title, in fact, refers to a Tchaikovsky composition she plays on her violin: she had loved him all along, but was willing to sacrifice her personal happiness after Grant professed his feelings for Duprez to her!).
Making for unusual wartime fare – which proves interesting without being particularly compelling – the film certainly deserves a mark for trying. Still, the London detail is unconvincing and the cast decidedly variable: the afore-mentioned Grant (rather effective in a rare depiction of his true Cockney origins, apart from the final descent into bathos), Barrymore, Coulouris and Shayne come off best, as well as Barry Fitzgerald (also in HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY and who made Oscar history that same year by being nominated twice for his role in GOING MY WAY – being thus in direct competition with the star in the Best Actor stakes while emerging the winner, and therefore Barrymore's male counterpart, in the Supporting category!); on the other hand, Wyatt and Duprez are somewhat weak under the circumstances, whereas Dan Duryea is thoroughly wasted as a bartender. -
dsewizzrd-13 September 2012Cary Grant looks as confused as the viewer feels in this dingy oddball wartime drama.
Grant is a lad in London, apparently 15 years old (?) and looking at least 45, who gets involved with a group of gangsters and the gangster boss's former wife.
His mother runs a second hand shop and his father seems to live elsewhere and only turns up occasionally.
All the people speak in music hall cockney and have gas lighting in this contemporary film. They're apparently too poor to own a wireless but they hire taxis (there's a perfectly good tram only a few yards away !). There is a kindly Jewish pawnbroker who offers financial assistance even though they are themselves in fact in the same business. In a scene near the end the mother asks if its raining outside when she can clearly see so through the window. Product placement – Oxo stock cubes. -
Lejink17 February 2013A tough, almost unremittingly bleak between-the-wars story of life amongst the poor in London, this film is about as far away from the perception of a typical Cary Grant movie as you can get. His character here, Ernie Mott, is a feckless, carefree, selfish itinerant who thinks nothing of returning home to his home patch for a necessary bed, cadge some money and break a couple of hearts, before returning to the open road. However, a couple of events change his outlook, namely the news that his mother, superbly played by Esther Moorhead, is terminally ill and his falling for the divorced wife of the local kingpin, who still harbours a jealously unhealthy interest in her. Grant's gradual humanising, tested as it is along the way by the easy lure of petty crime, forms the narrative arc of the movie, before we reach the downbeat conclusion fittingly in keeping with what has preceded it.
Shot in grainy black and white in well-rendered sets depicting the near-squalor of the Londoners' surroundings, Grant for once fails to look the handsome gent he was in almost every one of his "heyday" movies. Even when his mother buys him a suit, he still looks shabby and grubby. At the heart of the film are his relationships with the women in his life, firstly his mother with whom initially he can't get along until his secret knowledge of her ailment changes his feelings towards her, then the girl he picks up at the local funfair where she works, who falls for him despite her reservations about his lack of commitment as well as the lesser character of his old, reliable neighbourhood girl, who loves him hopelessly but feeds off the scraps he throws her even as he strings her along.
Written and directed by Clifford Odets, this is, as you'd expect a wordy, multi-faceted film with plenty of peripheral characters playing off Grant's lead showcasing the different aspects of his personality. By the end of the film, you're still not sure if you like his character, but there's no doubt he holds your attention throughout.
Grant is very good, cast against type, no doubt drawing on his childhood experiences to play his part. The support acting is very strong too. For me the story was just a bit too convoluted plus I'm not sure that Grant's character would just so easily go along with the brutish hold-up crime he's inveigled into of people he knows, but in the whole, I enjoyed this change of direction for the charming leading man, showing his darker side, which in truth, if the biographical details about him are correct, is probably closer to his real personality than he might care to admit. -
DKosty12319 April 2016The story behind this one when it was made was the return of Ethel Barrymore to the movie screen after a long time doing live stage productions. Interesting in that she is one of the few in this with very little British accent, yet because of her acting skills and return nobody cared. In fact RKO was already on major cramped budgets when this film was made. Like Barrymore, it had been a long time since King Kong and Gunga Din.
Neither story made out too well, as this one did little business in the theaters. It seems in 1944, with the war raging in both oceans, this one just was not really in demand. The story is okay though a serious Cary Grant did not seem to be ready for prime time. Grant tries to carry part of the film, and Barrymore as his mother tries to carry the other.
The cockney accent of the support cast is difficult to understand which made the film less audience friendly. Some of the writing on this is from the same writers that worked on How Green Was My Valley but this one is not even a shadow of that one, though the accents in that movie are thick too. Guess that proves that sometimes a weakness in one movie is not the same thing in another one.
Grant is the careless son who mom is trying to make responsible this entire movie. He has many girl friends trying to move him in the same direction. It is only his mom who has any success though. -
I first saw this movie in 1973 and felt it was a great film. Cary Grant plays Ernie Mott a drifter from the east end of London who values his pride and independence above all else. He was raised in the poverty ridden area of the city but refuses to be tied to it. He believes that mankind can be better if given the chance and not held back. As he says: "Stand back! Let the man see the rabbit."
Clifford Odets screen play is very loosely based on the Richard Llewellan novel. The film captures dark moodiness that represents the poverty stricken area of London and the Cockney inhabitants thereof. -
. . . but he's spending World War Two playing arcade games, hugging lady cello players and stalking single moms. After resorting to a pseudonym for making a string of flops including THE AWFUL TOOTH (1937), CHOPPER (1937), BRINGING UP RABIES (1938), GONG A BIN (1939), HIS GIRL TUESDAY (1940), PUNXSUTAWNEY STORY (1940), NICKEL SERENADE (1941) plus ANTIMONY AND OLD DOILIES (1942), Archie returns to his beleaguered British Homeland for his next farce, NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART (1944). Arch convincingly plays a draft dodger, the sort of malingering miscreant sure soon be called up by popular demand in The Fuhrer's Berlin bunker. In fact, some military historians credit Mr. Leach for inspiring the Battle of the Bulge. If Pitt and Quentin had not traveled back in time to wage their INGLORIOUS FURY, Archie may have lost WWII single-handed.
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edwagreen24 January 2009Am one of the very few who found this to be a dull, moody piece. The somber tone reflected here is just overbearing.
Ethel Barrymore gave finer performances than this Oscar-winning performance. How did a woman dying of cancer get involved with pick-pockets to begin with? Is it because of Mrs. Mott's illness that son, Ernie, played by Cary Grant, is forced to stay home and resort to crime?
Grant's acting is good here. There is no question about that. He could never have won the Oscar with Alexander Knox in the same category in "Wilson." Knox's loss to Bing Crosby in the best actor category was a disgrace of monumental proportions.
What exactly is Clifford Odets trying to show here? The downtrodden. Perhaps, if Ernie Mott had broken into a song, we would have had a better film. The dark dreary scenes were often very difficult to view.
What was the purpose of Jane Wyatt's appearance in the film? She loved Ernie deeply but it appeared that she could never capture his heart.
Barrymore enters the film in a brutish way. She slaps her son's (Ernie's) face and claimed she was too busy to love his father. What a ludicrous line that was.
As far as this film being one of Communist propaganda, what a joke that is. Even the Communists would be thoroughly bored and annoyed with this. They would view the Mott's as extreme capitalists and the jail-hospital, where Mrs. Mott resided, as a bourgeois place by comparison. -
terry-17119 July 2005I saw this movie by chance. Did not think I would be interested in seeing Cary Grant as a lower class good for nothing but was gradually riveted by the story and character development. The mother was amazing. Cary was amazing, in one of his most acting type acting jobs I've every seen. What I mean is, he's always playing the suave type and this was very different, much more serious and nuanced and he was very good at it. Also the dialog was really engaging, entertaining, full of little cockney(I guess it was cockney)sayings and rhymes. The watch maker/repair man was one of my favorite characters. All the actors in this were splendid and well directed. The ending bitter sweet and different. I was constantly thinking that I had guessed the outcome but was continually surprised with each little turn of the story. The two different women that have his romantic interest are both fascinating and diametrically opposed which creates a subtle suspense that underlies the other more dramatic events of the film. The dialog was really good. Some of the lines are so impacting, I think they'll stay with me for a long time. At one point,a friend informs Cary about his mother's illness and Cary asks him about it. The man replies: "Your mother is not a superficial woman." thus implying the illness is very serious.
Highly recommend this film. BUT it's not your typical funny or adventurous Cary Grant film. It's a serious and touching portrait of a man trying to do the right thing(and the unselfish thing) for the first time in his life. So be ready for a real drama(a bit more modern in feel next to other contemporary dramas). A well made drama. -
The film supposedly involves Cary Grant playing himself on sets that evoke his impoverished English childhood, in an anguished drama involving a mother that evokes his anguished mother.
I don't know how much of the film had personal meaning to Cary (and how much of the meaning was generated by a publicity department, or imagined by fans) but the result is unsatisfying. Cary despite his genuine Cockney childhood is not convincing as a Cockney, and he comes across as the main wrong note in the film. Like the rest of the sentient universe I am a huge fan generally, and if one felt like arguing, one could argue that Cary's ineptness because it is so rare is revealing. It suggests a conflict -- seen especially early in the movie -- between being Cary Grant, being that English street character he spent his entire life disguising, and whatever this part required. So maybe something personal was at stake, but that's not necessarily the formula for a good movie, and here it isn't.
The sets are great though, in a dark "foggy old London curiosity shoppe" kind of way. Ethel Barrymore is... well, Ethel Barrymore and enough said. Eternally noble Jane Wyatt is eternally noble (but we love her that way); in fact everyone is fine, including the fog, played by itself.
Except Cary and the story. -
krdement14 November 2007Most commentators have focused on the great affinity that Cary Grant had for Ernie Mott, and the great under-appreciated performances he delivered in this and other similar roles. I completely agree. I regret that so many great actors such as Grant and Errol Flynn were typecast. I wish they had been able to leave us a broader cinematic legacy, and I wish that TCM exposed us to the breadth of their rich legacies more regularly.
None But the Lonely Heart is full of characters brought to life by familiar actors delivering absolutely spot-on performances. That is one of the film's great strengths.
The recreation of London's back streets on RKO's back lots and sound stages is also remarkably convincing. This is one of the components of what was termed "Movie Magic" before first, location shooting, then high-tech special effects, and finally, digitalization co-opted the term. This "art" of convincingly capturing the essence of a location within the confines of a studio is one of the quaint aspects of old films that, when done well, fascinates me. It is the essence of Imagination - both of the filmmaker and the audience. This film is "Movie Magic" at its best.
It is also a film of far greater depth than has been reflected in any of the comments. The symbolic bookends of this film are the 2 great world wars. It begins on the eve of Armistice Day (commemorating WWI) where Ernie Mott (everyman) meets Mr. Twite at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. Mott acknowledges that the unknown dead man might have been his father and Twite says he might have been his son. The two thus establish a bond that endures for the film and beyond. Mott's symbolic use of the term, "dad" to address the men in the film is also introduced, while Twite begins to refer to Mott as "son." Later we see Mott refer to everywoman (that is, every elder woman) as "mom," except in the latter part of the film he refers to his own mother as his "daughter," when he learns of her illness and he assumes the role of her caretaker. His old, habitual girlfriend (Jane Wyman) will accept him under her roof under any terms. But the new girl he meets, with a "kiddie" (who is never provided a name) wants security. She eventually forsakes him for her autocratic ex-husband, Mott's mobster boss, who ordered the beating of Ma Mott's Jewish friend, Ike Weber, and the ransacking of his business. Near the end of the film, both Mott and his Ma have been arrested for forsaking their honest ways and going after a quick, dishonest gain. Mott, bailed out of jail by Mr. Weber, has visited his dying Ma in jail probably for the last time. At film's end, on the eve of WWII, Mott and Twite gaze skyward and puzzle over the frightful noises they have been hearing overhead. Mott ends up on the stoop of his old girlfriend's flat. Will she let him in? Is he there for good? Has he learned his lesson?
This is a film about Idealism, Fascism, Materialism, the inevitability of War (?), the generational role reversal, the Brotherhood of Man, the Hegelian Dialectic . . . Hemingway wrote about a lost generation. Watch this film and see if you don't think there was also a lost British generation between the wars. Mott had been a disillusioned "ex-pat" up north who returned home to London.