Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Chris Steiner Just like John Wayne, Cary Grant was skilled at playing himself. Here the boy from Bristol tries and fails to play a Londoner - his accent is less plausible than the American actors around him. He sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb in a 'spiv-suit' attempting to portray a cockney 'wide-boy' while Hollywood's idea of thirties London stinks of caricatures and stereotypes - the Jewish moneylender Ike Weber and the Irish 'son of the sod' Henry Twite, played by that excruciating 'stock' Irishman Brry Fitzgerald . Mawkishly sentimental as only Hollywood could be, it struggles aimlessly to create any believable character, setting or plot. The only thing that kept me watching was the expectation of a shoot-out of some sort. God knows where it was filmed. And, to cap it all, Grant apparently was Oscar-nominated for it! Acted by the cast of 'Brighton Rock' there may have been some veracity but I doubt any English viewer could watch this without being astonished at just how stereotypical it is. Of its era and location - it's a construct for American eyes only.

dsewizzrd-1 Cary Grant looks as confused as the viewer feels in this dingy oddball wartime drama. Grant is a lad in London, apparently 15 years old (?) and looking at least 45, who gets involved with a group of gangsters and the gangster boss's former wife. His mother runs a second hand shop and his father seems to live elsewhere and only turns up occasionally. All the people speak in music hall cockney and have gas lighting in this contemporary film. They're apparently too poor to own a wireless but they hire taxis (there's a perfectly good tram only a few yards away !). There is a kindly Jewish pawnbroker who offers financial assistance even though they are themselves in fact in the same business. In a scene near the end the mother asks if its raining outside when she can clearly see so through the window. Product placement – Oxo stock cubes.

movie-viking Tough guy Ernie Mott...and his life-battered widowed Mom (played by the great Ethel Barrymore-great aunt to Drew Barrymore) live on the bottom edge of London society. Ernie is the kind of guy who the law might sorta watch...but he does benefit from the counsel of a few older men he calls "Dad"...Will this Diamond in the Rough Ernie Mott make wise---or foolish choices??? The other reviews above suggest potent reasons why this is the best film the usually suave Cary Grant made. This really good film brings out the better reviewers!!! Grant, in real life a Cockney, had to usually play his "Smooth Romantic Leading Man" in too many movies...NONE but the Lonely Heart-is an exception! This film also enticed the great stage actress Ethel Barrymore into 10+ more years as a wonderful character actor. Tho no longer young, she absolutely dominates any scene with her wonderful old beauty and her elegant yet streetwise wisdom. (PS I heard that she was tough...She stood up to a abusive husband!) You get the sense of LOSS as the beginning narrative hints that Ernie Mott might well join the war dead of World War 2. (Movie is set just before WW2 erupts tho it came out in 1944.) Mott's depth is hinted at...He fights with his mom, but sticks with her when he finds she has incurable cancer. When she is tempted to make a disastrous choice, he comforts her...As he ponders a car crash, his musical ear is so fine that he can name the stuck horn tone as "e flat". This drifter, tinkerer and piano tuner...draws you in..You care what happens to him! He is willing to stand up to a gangster (George Couloris) to marry the gangster's abused ex wife...Bravery is not a problem, tho Mott does seem to get in the way of the law.Imagine that some wise WW2 military officer would have been glad to have the tough, rough Mott in his unit!

theowinthrop Throughout his career, Cary Grant tried to shake off the comic leading man - sophisticate roles that he fell into. He eventually did get parts in thrillers like NORTH BY NORTHWEST and CHARADES, or serious films like PENNY SERENADE and AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER showing a bit of edge, but up to his last film WALK DON'T RUN, he performed films that were mostly likable sophisticated comedies like INDISCREET. I suppose it was the flip side of being one of the best looking men in movies. Hitchcock had tried to get him a villainous role in the original concept of SUSPICION, and the studio and Grant's agent vetoed it - so the plot of that film was rewritten to make him look innocent of Joan Fontaine's deepest suspicions. The nearest he got was in the film MR. LUCKY, where he is a shady gambler and swindler, and even can be really violent in a fight scene, but still turns up being more honorable than he originally intended to be. In 1944 Grant was finally able (uniquely for his whole career) to play a movie role which, while hardly villainous, was far more realistic and tragic than anything else he ever played. Ernie Mott is his equivalent to Tyrone Power's "the Great Stanton" in NIGHTMARE ALLEY, the box office failure Darryl Zanuck allowed Power to make that showed he too was a fine actor. After NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART and NIGHTMARE ALLEY Grant and Power were taken seriously as performers by the theater going public.Ernie Mott is a London cockney (which Grant originally was - but rarely got a chance to show on film), who lives with his mother Ma Mott (Ethel Barrymore - in her "Oscar" winning performance) in a second hands goods/minor pawn broker store. Ernie has been rather light hearted and thoughtless, never settling down to a profession. But there are few good professions for such as him. He's in an East London slum (a reference to Whitechapel in the film reminds me that this story of the 1930s is only half a century from Jack the Ripper's rampages). He has two girls in his life - the glamorous Ada (June Duprez) and Aggie, a cellist (Jane Wyatt). Both like him very much, but he admits to Aggie that he favors Ada a bit more.Richard Llewelyn, who wrote HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, wrote the novel for this film (screenplay version by dramatist Clifford Odets), and captures the spirit of that slum quite well. Ernie hates it, and wants something better, but can't concentrate. One day a family friend (Jewish pawnbroker Ike Weber - Konstantine Shane (THE STRANGER, VERTIGO)) tips off Ernie that his mother is dying of cancer. Ernie cleans up his act (he was about to see about prospects in Liverpool), and he starts taking over work from his surprised mother. But although the reforms bring him and the dying woman together, both worry about each other - and fall prey to temptations they really don't want to return to.In Ma's case, she had been a leading fence for stolen goods for many years. If she will handle some more she can earn 500 pounds (in 1939 England a very tidy sum) to leave to Ernie. Ernie, as he dates the luxury loving Ada, finds he needs more money too. There is a snag here - Ernie's opportunity involves him with the local criminal gang boss Jim Mordinoy (George Coulouris). Mordinoy has always considered Ernie a potential gang member, but Ernie has showed little interest. Now Ernie's interested, but Mordinoy has close personal interests in Ada too - and is determined to maintain them whatever anyone (including Ada or Ernie) wants.The film holds up very nicely, with Grant giving the best performance of his career (which did not even get noticed for an Oscar nomination). As mentioned Barrymore did get nominated as the loving but fearful Ma, and won her Oscar (making her and brother Lionel - A FREE SOUL - the only brother and sister "Oscar" winners in movie history to the present). Duprez is painful as a woman torn between real love for Grant and fear of Coulouris' vengeance. Wyatt is painful too, as she has to accept Grant's positioning her as "best friend" rather than girlfriend. Barry Fitzgerald comes into the film in it's middle as Henry Twite, a wise old fellow who does odd jobs and becomes a missing father figure to Grant (Ernie's father was killed at Verdun). Shayne, an actor of considerable strength, had a wonderful part here. Jewish pawn brokers were usually still subjects of humor in movies in 1944, but with rumors of the death camps coming up this was changing. His role of Ike is that of a decent human being in that area, who has to face Coulouris and his thugs at one point - and maintains our full sympathy.I have to make a separate comment about George Coulouris here. I always like watching him, but too frequently his nervousness and short temper or his mental condition made his roles "over - the - top". I don't think Jim Mordinoy is anywhere near that - in fact, with Teck in WATCH ON THE RHINE this is his best performance. Mordinoy is not a ranter - he is quiet and direct and totally without scruple. He is far more dangerous (and smart) than the average thug, and one imagines that even at the end of the film he won't get touched by what happens to his minions. Grant's performance and Barrymore's are the best here, but Coulouris is equally good.The title by the way comes from a song with music by Tschaikowski and words from a poem by Goethe. It was also played by Paul Lukas to Katherine Hepburn in LITTLE WOMEN.