DEAR HEART
US, 1964, 114 minutes, Black and white.
Glenn Ford, Geraldine Paige, Angela Lansbury, Michael Anderson Jr, Charles Drake.
Directed by Delbert Mann.
Dear Heart is a continually popular high-class soap opera, emerging from the mid-60s, a period which was not noted for this kind of film of great sentiment. Geraldine Paige is very good in the central role of a postmistress who attends a convention. She is a lonely unmarried woman, is attracted to a salesman who has more of a reputation for womanising and is engaged. They interact, she is attracted to him, he is irritated by her. Then the fiancée arrives and turns out to be a rather dominating presence.
Glenn Ford, very popular from the mid-50s to the mid-60s, in some years being voted the most popular actor, had been in films since the late 1930s. Always a quiet, even genial presence, he could do both villains and heroes. He was to continue a long career with many telemovies in the 70s and 80s. Angela Lansbury is the haughty fiancée.
The film was directed by Delbert Mann who had an ability to bring strong sentiment into his films without making them sentimental. He won an Oscar for directing Marty with Ernest Borgnine, a simple story of a butcher in love. He also directed such moving films as Separate Tables for which David Niven won an Oscar. During the 70s and 80s he directed a great number of telemovies, always with his characteristic humanity and insight into human nature.
1. The appeal of the film? For what audience? Response of men, women? Entertainment, a moving story, human nature and its values?
2. Black and white photography? New York backgrounds, hotels and apartments? A limited view of a lonely world?
3. The background music, the theme and the song? An atmosphere of soap opera? Appropriate presentation of sentiment with style?
4. The opening and the ending on the station? What happened to each of the main characters in between? An arrival and a departure?
5. Our first impressions of Evie? Her age, her spinster style, her post-master’s work, from the country, her loneliness and disappointment, her coming to terms with a lonely life? Her leaving messages, her desire to hear her name called aloud, the character of Bimbo Jones? Her talking to people but their not hearing her?
6. Her arrival at the hotel, her response to it, to the room, the friendship, June Loveland and the hairdressers, the quarters, her chatting with, people at the desk? Her rearranging her room, her style? How credible a woman was she? What was revealed about her as a character and her needs in the first sequences in the film?
7. The postmasters’ convention: the types who ware there, the organizer and his business, his relationship with the woman assisting him? the social side of things, the detailed presentation of the people, the atmosphere? The memories for Evie of other conventions? Frank and his proposition to her and her refusal?
8. The contrast of the character of Harry and his world? The salesman world and its background, his desire to settle down, the final visit to the girl friend and her taking another call an the phone? His decision to marry, his account of the meeting with Phyllis, the encounter with Patricia and his girl friend, his wanting to be husband and father? His anticipation of the marriage yet his loneliness? The encounter with Evie at the restaurant? The appointment with June and the lies that he told at the hotel? The irony of June’s character and her being well known at the hotel? What did this reveal about his personality and character?
9. Comment on Evie’s evening: her loneliness and the dinner, her conversation and curiosity about Harry, the steak sandwich, her disappointment in seeing him go with June, her being accosted and being rescued by Harry? The change of atmosphere with the drinks, the party and the songs? The tentative communication between them? Its later development and her organising everything and his criticism of this? Her backing down and willingness to be treated like a lady?
10. The hurt of Harry’s not turning up for their outing? Her acceptance by the bridge group and what this was an admission of? Her missing the message and her delight when she understood it?
11. The importance of the visit to the apartment, her appreciation of it, her comments, her blurting out of the truth in a hysterical kind of way? The background of their restaurant, the saxophone music? The significance of their dinner together and the happy evening for Ruth? The effect on Harry?
12. The contrast with Phyllis when she arrived? What we expected because of Harry’s description, the contrast with the reality, her not wanting to cook and be hostess, her wanting to be waited on, telephones and meals and hotels? Her treatment of Patrick as a child and her criticism of him, his criticism of her? The girl friend? Was it inevitable that they should clash? How was their clash and Harry’s departure handled? Credibly?
13. The atmosphere of Evie’s leaving? the name being called out? Her long goodbyes to everyone, her arrival at the station, the effect of her being paged, sitting on the cases waiting?
14. The impact of Harry’s arrival and the reunion? What future did they have together?
15. How much truth was told about human nature, ageing men and women, loneliness? Sentiment and sentimentality, true feelings?
