My Foolish Heart

My Foolish Heart

My Foolish Heart

"My Foolish Heart" is far better than the critics acknowledged in 1949, and offers something else that wouldn't have been apparent when first released. Films made during and just after WW2 give us an insight into what people experienced at the time in a unique way. Although we have plenty of documentaries that show what happened, the movies are more personal, and work on a different emotional level - we identify with the stars and through them a window is opened on the past. When an old friend, Mary Jane (Lois Wheeler), visits Eloise Winters, played by Susan Haywood, she reflects on the events that led to her present unhappiness. Years earlier, Eloise was engaged to Lewis Wengler (Kent Smith). Although he was in love with her, she sought something he couldn't provide. At a dance, she meets Walt Dreiser played by Dana Andrews with whom she has immediate chemistry. They fall in love, but the war intervenes and changes their lives. Maybe the stars were a bit too old for their parts, but their performances easily made up for it. Susan Haywood's career was studded with great performances, but she tapped an inner truth in this film. Dana Andrews was not a particularly animated actor, but when the role suited his rather controlled persona, as this one does, he was perfect. "My Foolish Heart" has a number of strands. Mary Jane is Eloise's friend, and saves her from committing a hurtful act, but their relationship is complex. Eloise's relationship with her parents also seems a little strained, especially with her mother, but it is strengthened by the arrival of Walt, although it doesn't appear that way at first. Kent Smith's character ends up with the woman he loves, but it's definitely a case of be careful what you wish for. The film shows that death in war can occur quite randomly - simply by accident. However, the victims are killed by the war just as surely as if their plane had been shot down over Germany or their ship torpedoed in the South Pacific. Eloise is also a casualty of the war. Although critics at the time dismissed this as just another "weepie", and even the director, Mark Robson, disowned the film, it was a box office success. It goes to show that the public saw more in it than the critics, and artists aren't necessarily the best judges of their own work. "My Foolish Heart" has an unusual love story and is an insightful look at how the loss of a loved one can affect the rest of a person's life; after WW2, I think plenty of people would have identified with Eloise.

J.D.Salinger is perhaps not quite so revered here in the U.K.as he is in his own country.I came upon his works in my early twenties,perhaps a little too old to become in thrall to them.Nonetheless I can understand that college - age middle - class Americans might well find in him the vicarious expression of their developing literary sensibilities. His writings are determinedly rooted in American Culture and have more resonance to those familiar with it rather than its European counterpart. Innocence,poignancy,lost love,adolescent rites of passage,these are all universal themes,but somehow seemed fresher when expressed by a sharp eye from the optimistic,young and energetic New World. Many of Salinger's admirers are clearly unhappy with the way Hollywood turned "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" into "My Foolish Heart" but this disapproval shouldn't be allowed to distract you from the fact that it is a very good picture indeed,a superior product with excellent performances and arguably one of the most beautiful and romantic title - songs ever written.Mr D.Andrews,too often dismissed as merely a reliable second lead,is outstanding as the Army officer who shares a passionate ill - fated wartime affair with Miss S. Hayward.Miss Hayward,also - unjustly - not much remembered nowadays, will give you some idea why she was highly regarded in an era when leading ladies were far thicker on the ground than they are today. Despite being ostensibly happily married as the movie starts,Mr Andrews was the great love of her life and she has been in decline since his disappearance.The story of their affair is told in flashback.Just the sort of thing Hollywood used to excel at,it is an unashamed tear - jerker and none the worse for it. Don't let some strange sense of intellectual snobbery prevent you from enjoying "My Foolish Heart" for what it is - a jolly good picture.

This film will inevitably get a favorable review from me because it has two things going for it, two things that the Motion Picture Academy recognized. The first was one of the best movie songs ever written and the second was the Oscar nominated performance of its star Susan Hayward who was just entering her prime years as a movie star. We meet Susan as she's taken to drink and husband Kent Smith has had just about enough of her. Susan has taken to abusing her daughter Gigi Perreau and Smith wants a divorce. She's willing to give it, but not custody of Perreau. As she's talking with her friend Lois Wheeler who was going out with Smith before Hayward took him away in a whirlwind wartime romance the film flashes back to their story or more properly the story of Hayward's real true love from the war, Dana Andrews. She meets Andrews at a party where a whole lot of serviceman are crashing, welcome though they be. It was the period just before Pearl Harbor when we had built up our armed forces in anticipation that we would be in World War II, just a question of when. She's going to school and her romance with Andrews gets her kicked out which upsets mother, Jessica Royce-Landis, but father Robert Keith remembers his days from World War I and kind of takes to Andrews. I can't say much more lest I do spoilers, but given the basic facts of the characters I've just laid out, you can probably figure the rest of the plot out. Dana Andrews during his career in the Forties and Fifties made a specialty of playing Mr. Average Man. My Foolish Heart shows him in that vein as a performer. He and Hayward are a perfect representation of young America in that period. As for Hayward we see the reason, the genesis of her evolution as an alcoholic in an unhappy marriage. Susan took out a patent on tough, but also romantic and tragic heroines beginning with Smash-Up and continuing on to her career capstone and Oscar winning performance in I Want To Live. She got her second Best Actress nomination for My Foolish Heart, but lost in the Oscar sweepstakes to Olivia DeHavilland for The Heiress. By the way as good as her scenes with Andrews are, some of Hayward's best work ever on cinema are with Robert Keith. She was obviously Daddy's Little Girl as a child and she and Keith play beautifully off each other. As for the song as cute as Baby It's Cold Outside is which was the winner for Best Song in 1949, I cannot believe that Victor Young and Ned Washington did not win for the title song of this film. It's been recorded by a whole gang of singers, the recordings I have of it are from Andy Williams and Dick Haymes and a bootleg from one of Bing Crosby's radio broadcasts. I daresay it would get to the top of the charts today even albeit with a more modern arrangement. My Foolish Heart is one of the great romantic films ever done and definitely in the top percentage of the work of Susan Hayward.

Based on J.D. Salinger's short story, "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut", the story has been revamped into an unabashedly sentimental soap opera with a wartime background (WWII) and turned into a tear-jerker for SUSAN HAYWARD and DANA ANDREWS. It uses the favorite device of '40s-era romantic dramas, the flashback, to tell how Susan meets and falls in love with soldier Andrews, a bittersweet affair that ended when he died at the front. The story is framed by the present, with Susan married to KENT SMITH (an actor who always played second leads despite his enormous talent and good looks), a rocky marriage that forces Susan to remember what true love felt like during her brief affair with Andrews. It's a sudsy affair with Susan as a strong-willed woman, tough on the exterior but supposedly warm-hearted beneath (the kind of role she almost always played) and she did get an Oscar nomination for her starring role opposite Andrews--but it was a year when Olivia de Havilland was tough competition for THE HEIRESS. Hayward fans consider this one of her best, while J.D. Salinger fans resent what Hollywood did to his short story by turning it into a weepie for women who liked their wartime stories to be deeply romantic. Victor Young's popular tune, a haunting ballad called "My Foolish Heart", adds to the romantic sentiments of an already tender story.

One reason there was never a _Catcher in the Rye_ movie is that after Salinger saw what they did to his story "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut" when they adapted it for this soap opera, he never again sold rights to a story to Hollywood.

"I might hit you"!!! "So what - I'm insured"!!! - Love that line and of course just love Susan Hayward in this simply fantastic movie!! Such a typical Hayward line with the emphasis on the "I'm"!!! The movie didn't open to much enthusiasm, with Bosley Crowther complaining about too much "dewy rapture". He also felt Susan Hayward was wrong for the part - how wrong he was!!! Most of the critics hopped on the "bastardization of "Uncle Wiggley" bandwagon. J. D. Salinger vowed never to sell anymore of his writings to Hollywood - how could one mere movie bear up under all this criticism. Apparently he objected to the name change but who would go to a movie entitled "Uncle Wiggley in Connecticut" - unless they were avid Salinger fans!!! Even though Susan had just turned 30 she was completely believable in the "college girl waiting for a first date" atmosphere and the biggest stretch was Dana Andrews as a dateless outsider but he pulled it off. Eloise (Susan Hayward) drinks too much and she treats her nice husband (Kent Smith) like dirt, but he is planning his revenge - he wants to divorce her and take custody of their daughter, Ramona (Gigi Perreau). A glimpse of a brown and white dress in the closet brings back the memories of a school dance and her first meeting with Walt Dreiser (Dana Andrews). Her brown and white dress "the latest thing in Boise" is nowheresville in New York. Walt comes to her rescue and in a funny scene gives Miriam Ball (Karin Booth), the most popular girl in college, a complete dressing down. Walt invites Eloise to his flat and tries all the moves that usually work. When Walt proclaims he likes El a whole lot, she replies she wishes he "liked me just a little. Enough to take me home and call me for another date". Susan Hayward could bring both toughness and vulnerability to her roles - in almost the same scene. She made this more than just a mushy wartime romance. Special mention should also go to Robert Keith. His scenes with Hayward show understanding and rapport - he is not a one dimensional cut out father figure. There is great feeling in the scene where he describes his loveless marriage and how the children acted as a vice to keep him trapped. Keith excelled as sincere but ultimately weak men (the sheriff in "The Wild One"). Even a character like Mary Jane, the ever present "noble" girl who stands by and sees the man she loves (Smith) forced into a sham marriage, comes across as believable and true. At the film's end, Eloise, the old brown and white dress gripped in her hands, realises that she has ruined five lives and bravely decides to confess everything and face the future with her little girl. This was director, Mark Robson's third hit in a row - after "Champion" and "Home of the Brave". Highly, Highly Recommended.

I have this movie on Laser Disk. It has been and continues to be one of my all time favorites. I've been waiting YEARS for this to come out on DVD but alas no go as of yet. I have almost all of Susan Heyward's films and this is still my favorite. She plays against type in her soft portrayal of a young woman in love. Chemistry between Heyward and Andrews is great. You can actually believe that they love each other. Robert Keith plays Heyward's father and turns in his best performance. Even though done in a studio the movie has a genuine "New York" feel. And of course the song...which I guarantee once you hear it you'll be humming or singing it all day long. My Laser copy of this movie is very good I just don't know how much longer my laser disk player will hold out. Why no DVD??

When I saw Susan Hayward in "My Foolish Heart," I immediately thought back to her other successes "With A Song in My Heart," and "I'll Cry Tomorrow." There are so many similarities in her acting, especially at the beginning of Foolish Heart. She even brushed her hair the same way as in "Tomorrow." As always, Susan Hayward got the role of the troubled woman. She evokes such sympathy in this particular role as Eloise, a woman who recounts a tragic love affair at the start of World War 11. Dana Andrews, a very fine actor, is perfect for the part of her ill-fated lover. Special acting kudos should also go to Robert Keith for his portrayal of her understanding father. Keith was quite a good actor. He really was in top-notch films. Besides this gem, he was Barney Loomas in "Love Me or Leave Me" and the doomed father to Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone in "Written on the Wind." Notice that the term pregnancy is not used in the film. I guess that in 1949 we didn't talk of women being pregnant while not being married. Unfortunately, this movie would probably be regarded as corny today but 1949 was such a different world in movie history.