Always in My Heart (1942)

Best movie ever!

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

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

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

If you want to see the magnificent Walter Huston at his best, try "Dodsworth". The problem with "Always In My Heart" is that it's a movie that can't quite decide which genre it fits. Had the producer and director gone with a straight drama, the result would have been better.What's good here? Well, Walter Huston is the real attraction here. What a gem of an actor he was! Here he is an ex-con at a time when that didn't have quite the stigma it has nowadays. I also enjoyed the slice of Americana displayed here.And, Kay Francis, a very fine, but often forgotten actress today, portrays Huston's wife who is about to get remarried, thinking Huston will never get out of prison. Sidney Blackmer, a very pleasant character actor, is the new husband-to-be. And, the almost perpetual maid -- Una O'Connor -- a hoot in any film is here. You also get to see John Hamilton who later was Perry White in the "Superman" television series. As an extra treat, there's an early performance of Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals, which more viewers will recognize from their appearances on television in the 1950s after they morphed into being Johnny Puleo & The Harmonicats (with Puleo being remembered as a dwarf). The title song is a great ballad covered by many vocalists over the years. What's bad here? The operatic singing of the daughter (played by Gloria Warren). It's not bad, but so out of style today that you just wanna say, "SHUT UP!" And finally she did just that in her fairly short film career! The climax of the film seems a bit overdramtic, although it does work in the story. Maybe just overdone a tad. If there's a real problem with this film it's that it is, sometimes, a bit corny and sentimental. But, what's wrong with that. That's how life is sometimes.For Huston's performance alone I'd give this film a "7".

There is enough "story" in the movie to fill a 60 minute feature but no more. The rest is padding, most of it extended and largely pointless musical numbers. Gloria Warren may indeed have had an unusually high vocal range, but her voice is painfully thin and painfully annoying, even allowing for the sound recording limitations of the period. She sounds like a church soprano whose voice will not mesh with the others in the choir. Her charisma matches her voice.The ending of the movie is inevitable, and it is inevitable from the early prison scene between Kay Francis and Walter Huston. There is not even a mildly divergent sub-plot to move things along except for the perfunctory story concerning Frankie Thomas and his girlfriend. I kept expecting some unexpected plot points to develop around Sydney Blackmer, but none did.However....Kay Francis and Walter Huston are very appealing and very charming. Their roles were hardly a stretch for either one of them, but they are worth watching. They make the whole thing, as tired and pointless as it is, watchable and even - almost - enjoyable. But not quite. I will watch anything with Kay Francis in it; no one else, ever, conveyed warmth and generosity as she did. This movie, sad to say given its limitations, is one of her better Warner Brothers films. She's terrific; her movies were not.

I hadn't seen this film for years, and then I only remembered parts of it. The parts I did remember were the dialogue scenes between Kay Francis and estranged hubby Walter Huston, and between Huston and the children who do not know him. This part of the film is very good and made me want to see it again.When I saw it again the other night for the first time in years on TCM I was horrified. Worse, I was somewhat bored. Either I never saw or my memory blocked out the musical portions. Obviously, Warner Bros. was trying to turn Gloria Warren into their own Deanna Durbin, but she just lacked the "star quality" Durbin had and was a completely uninteresting actress, at least in this film.The film could have been a great one if the music had been eliminated and the focus kept on the melodrama - a man (Walter Huston) getting out of prison and giving up a woman who loves him and his children so they can all have some security with a rather bland fellow who wants to marry the woman (Kay Francis). Instead, Huston paces from the "good" side of town where we are tormented by Warren's operatic screeching, to the bad side of town where a novelty harmonica band act torments us some more. Just goes to proves bad music has a home in both the low-brow and high-brow varieties.What gets five stars from me is the warm family story and the title song, "Always In My Heart" which is really quite beautiful and a bit of a theme song for the entire situation portrayed in the film. If you want to see what Kay Francis and Walter Huston can do for a film without all of this distraction thrown in, try to track down a copy of "Gentlemen of the Press". There they really sizzle.

I watched this on cable TV, and was delighted with the characters and their bonds of love. The love and understanding of "Munch" for "Mac" made it an uplifting story of how love transcends the years and rough times. I thoroughly enjoyed the contrast of Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals with the otherwise serious elements of the movie. It reminded me of the contrast between John Denver and Placido Domingo singing "Perhaps Love", two beautifully competent musicians of different genres and cultures coming together to make beautiful music! It made the movie interesting, and I enjoyed the humor and music of Borrah and those harmonicas! If I could find it, I'd purchase the DVD for myself and one for my mother, who also loved it!