Heartbeat (1946)

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Some times there is a reason that you have never heard of a film. This is one of those films. For me, it does not work. Ginger Rogers was a simpering, childish thirty-five-year-old attempting to look and sound like a teenager and is annoying and cloying. The hairdo and dresses are just plain silly.Perhaps with a real teenager playing the part, the story would have worked but, sadly, we will probably never know.Basil Rathbone as the Fagin-like pickpocket school professor was interesting as were Menjou, Aumont and Melville Cooper. The back story of Roland and Pierre seemed to be non-existent even though I did not doze at all through this film. Perhaps it would have been better if I had.Skip it.

To be successful, there has to be close coordination between the script writer, the cinematographer, and the director, and this movie has it. It was the golden age that gave us scripts that those with some education could understand and admire. The supporting facial expressions, the expert camera work, alas, where are they now?The reviewers from the American side of the Atlantic always seem to have a strange fixation on the ages of the performers. For me, Ginger Rogers fit the role most admirably, and so, please, her true age here is irrelevant. The only thing I noticed is that this film was set to take place in Europe, although many actresses, such as Ginger Rogers, have American faces. You can often tell a European face, but too bad, Audrey Hepburn was then below 18, not good for the Hayes office. It could be that those on the European side of the Atlantic might notice such things, and otherwise, no problem. No such problem, in fact, for Adolphe Menjou, who, perhaps surprisingly, was from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

This movie starts out great in the first half hour. Basil Rathbone, Ginger Rogers and Aldolph Menjou play some very funny scenes. Unfortunately, Jean Pierre Aumont shows up and the comedy disappears. We get a love story that doesn't really go anywhere. There's little chemistry between Rogers and Aumont. Plus, there's the problem of having a real Frenchman playing with an American actress who is supposed to be a French woman, but does not have a French accent.The movie also doesn't take place at any particular time. At first I thought we were in the 1890's in Paris, but then it sort of shifted to the 1920's and 30's. In the narrative, the movie takes place over a few weeks, so this is not a deliberate time jump, just a result of sloppy film-making.The movie should have stuck with Rathbone and Menjou, but they disappear for much of the second half of the film and we are left with the much duller character of Aumont. This forces Rogers to supply whatever comedy and passion the film is capable of showing. She looks like she's waiting for Fred Astaire to show up. Alas, he never does.

A young girl( a lively Ginger Rogers) escaped from a reformatory, becomes the best student in a Parisian school for pickpockets(ruled by Basil Rathbone). At the beginning she attempts out her skills on an old man(Adolphe Menjou). Later when she tries to rob an attractive diplomat(Jean Pierre Aumont) they fall in love instead.This fresh and funny farce is one the last works where director Sam Wood shows an increasing blandness in a lighthearted love story with comedy touches. Main and support cast is frankly outstanding. Top-notch, virtuoso acting by Ginger Rogers, she was the number one as dancer actress and a fascinating comedian: ¨Monkey business¨ and won an Oscar for her portrayal in ¨Kitty Foyle: natural story of a woman¨. Remaining cast formed by the French young Jean Pierre Aumont as dashing diplomat, the classic Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone, the memorable Adolphe Menjou, Henry Stephenson as veteran Ambassador and the Italian Eduardo Ciannelli. Sam Wood was a good filmmaker, an expert director of actresses, almost all the magnificent acting in his movies were given by ladies, with the exceptions of the Marx Brothers in ¨Night at the Opera¨, and ¨A day at the races¨ and Robert Donat in ¨Goodbye Mr Chips¨; as are extraordinaries, Ann Sheridan and Betty Field in ¨King Row¨, it is Ingrid Bergman, marvelous when we remember her in ¨For whom the bells tolls¨, and of course Ginger Rogers in ¨Heartbeat¨ and ¨Kitty Foyle¨; these outstanding Rogers'performances are matched by Joan Fontaine's ¨Ivy¨, Gladys George's ¨Madame X¨ and Jean Arthur's ¨The devil and Miss Jones¨. Plus the picture packs a very high standard cinematography by Joseph Valentine.From the late 1920s Sam Wood was with MGM, where he remained until his death at 1966 with some exception as ¨Heartbeat¨ with RKO. Sam Wood angered the acting community by his work for Joseph McCarthy and his House UnAmerican Activities Committee.