Maddyclassicfilms Possibly the ultimate weepie,Random Harvest is directed by Mervyn LeRoy,produced by Sidney Farnklin,with a screenplay by Arthur Wimperis,Claudine West and George Froeschel, is based on the novel by James Hilton and stars Ronald Coleman,Greer Garson,Susan Peters,Henry Travers and Philip Dorn.Charles Rainier(Ronald Coleman)is a World War One veteran who cannot remember anything from his past,not even who he is.He has great difficulty in speaking due to shell shock.He is a patient at an asylum when news of the wars end comes through.He goes for a walk in the grounds and escapes into the town.There he meets beautiful music hall singer Paula(Greer Garson)she nicknames him Smithy and tries to help him remember his past.He cannot but she does enable him to regain his speech and the two fall in love and marry.Paula gives birth to a daughter and all seems well until Smithy receives a job offer and goes to Liverpool for an interview.He is struck down in the street by a taxi,the fall causes his blocked memories to come back to him,but there's a catch,he now remembers nothing of Paula or their life together.Paula searches for him and eventually discovers he is now Charles Rainier and takes a job as secretary at his firm to be near him,can she make him remember her?Well grab the biggest Kleenex box you can find and some chocolates and get caught up in this to find out.Coleman(in an Oscar nominated performance)is mesmerising as both the shy and awkward Smithy and the powerful but lonely Rainier,with Garson simply enchanting as the luminous love of his life.Susan Peters also received an Oscar nomination for her role as Kitty Rainier's young fiancé. Susan could have become a star after this but she sadly became paralysed when she was injured in a hunting accident and died a few years later.One of the best romances of the studio era,Random Harvest is one that you won't forget in a hurry.

edwagreen Superb, endearing film with Ronald Colman giving a masterful performance as Smitty, an amnesiac who finds happiness with actress-singer Greer Garson. While on a job hunt, he meets with an accident and is thrown back to his former life-Charles Rainier, a wealthy industrialist and eventual member of the British parliament. Seeing his picture in the paper, Garson becomes his faithful secretary and the two eventually marry again. (She had him declared previously legally dead after 7 years.)With success and wealth abundant, something is terribly wrong for Colman. He can't grasp at it. Susan Peters was wonderful, especially in her memorable scene where she realized that she was not the one for Colman. She well merited her best supporting actress nomination.The old adage that money isn't everything and can't buy you happiness is well proved here.

classicsoncall The Kleenex inspired finale will doubtless appeal to romantics seeking a happy ending, but I always have trouble putting films like this under the microscope. There's so much suspension of disbelief necessary to pull this one off that it becomes a distraction. It begins with Paula's (Greer Garson) virtual pick-up of a World War I veteran (Ronald Colman) who can't even remember his name. This is not my idea of rational behavior, and for Paula to persevere in this romance and virtually smuggle her 'Smithy' out of Melbridge County doesn't seem the best way to embark on a new life together. But not leaving well enough alone, the story then goes on to have Colman's character restore his pre-War memories and reclaim his former past, but in the process forget about his marriage to Paula. When she turns up as the secretary to the new Industrial Prince of England, it was almost too much to bear for this reality based viewer. I won't even go into how the newly married couple managed to set up a household in the English countryside with no visible means of support. This was, you'll remember, before he set out for London for that job interview with The Mercury, and Paula had long since left her position with the dance hall troupe.For the sake of a better review, I'd have to sweep virtually all of this impossible stuff under the rug, along with fifteen year old Kitty's (Susan Peters) starry eyed obsession with a man easily three times her own age, only to throw him over without a second thought when she 'suddenly' came to her senses. Certainly the characters deserved better than to be held hostage to a desire to find normalcy once again. Though the film held firm those traits of enduring love and loyalty, it just wasn't convincing enough for me. For their part, Colman and Garson hold up their end with portrayals that work magic if you're not particularly concerned with realism. I wish I could be more positive, but this one just didn't work for me.

Jay Harris I first saw this 68 years ago,at the Radio City Music Hall, Way back then they had a stage show as well, & for Christmas It featured in mime ,the Birth of Jesus,plus other acts, including a symphony Orchestra.They also showed a newsreel & a cartoon.Nearly every performance was shown to near capacity audiences. The theatre had slightly under 6100 seats.We probably went to a Sunday matinée,Total cost for the three of us was probably,just under $3.00Now back to the Movie.RANDOM HARVEST was one of the best films of 1942, I still think these many years later it still would be one of the best. It stars two of the biggest names in film history.Greer Garson (who was only making film for about 3 years & will win an Oscar for her previous film MRS MINIVER) Her co-star Ronald Colman (a movie veteran who will win his Oscar in a few years for(A DOUBLE LIFE).Now leave us ignore the fact that both actors were too old for the characters. The charisma & charm of both make us believe, they were younger.Mervyn LeRoy directed & it is based on James Hilton's novel,( he also wrote LOST HORIZON). Back then Hollywood loved to change novels to suit the studio owners.I do not remember how close to the novel the film is. The story in both novel & book is pure romantic soap opera & delightful romantic fantasy,This is the way they made films back then. The scenes supposedly in Liverpool were studio made & no there is no resemblance to the real Liverpool or to real homes etc.The running time is a very fast 134 minutes, the DVD also has about an hour of interesting extras.I had not started to keep records of the movies I saw then, that hobby started in January 1943.If I had my rating would be the same as today.Ratings" **** (out of 4) 98 points (out of 100) IMDb (10 out of 10)