User reviews

Greer Garson must have been on holiday or working on another film at MGM when The Secret Heart was being cast. Claudette Colbert stepped into her shoes to play the female lead in another film that by all rights should be on the list of Walter Pidgeon/Greer Garson films.

The Secret Heart concerns stepmother Claudette Colbert concerned for the welfare of her two stepchildren, Robert Sterling and June Allyson, particularly Allyson. June is a talented pianist but she's increasingly withdrawing from the world citing a heart condition that cardiologists can't find a reason for. When Claudette sees psychologist Lionel Barrymore, she tells Barrymore about her marriage with their late father, Richard Derr and the tragic circumstances and gossip that surrounded his death.

The cure prescribes Dr. Barrymore is to be found at their New England coastal farm where Derr died and this might unlock Allyson's psychosis. Of course a whole lot of the family's dirty linen gets an airing before the film concludes.

Walter Pidgeon has not all that much to do, but be the tower of strength as the best friend of Derr and the man Colbert was really secretly in love with. The film is carried by the leading women of the cast, Colbert and Allyson. The two play well off each other, especially Allyson. This was quite a change from the usual goody-goody girl next door types she was always cast.

I should also single out Richard Derr who in the few scenes he has suggested a brooding melancholy that you will remember throughout the film. His performance has to be good in order to understand why Allyson is the way she is.

The Secret Heart is a nice psychological soap opera with Claudette Colbert standing in nicely for Greer Garson.

June Allyson can't accept stepmom Cluadette Colbert and (after her father dies), begins to lose touch with reality. A very eerie film...sometimes seems more like a horror film. The performances are excellent (especially Allyson and Colbert) and it looks fantastic. The psychology is a bit dated, but the film still works. Not for everybody, but worth seeing.

This was obviously a Claudette Colbert vehicle. "The Secret Heart" is not shown often these days, and it's a good melodrama, typical of the era. Robert Z. Leonard directs with panache this story about a woman's sacrifice and decency.

If you haven't seen the film, perhaps you should not read further.

We first meet Leola (Lee) aboard a luxury liner with Chris Matthews, who is obviously in love with her. Lee has been asked to marry Chris' best friend Larry, and Lee feels her duty to go ahead with her plans to marry this troubled man, a widower with two small children. What Lee gets from that union is much more than what she bargained for. Larry turns out to be an embezzler at the bank he works for. His guilt will make him commit suicide.

Lee decides the right thing to do is to repay Larry's debts and hide from the young children the fact about their father's suicide. Chase, the boy, is a grounded person and he goes on with his life. Young and fragile Penny, who adored her father and the music he played, never recovers and retreats into a cocoon; she becomes a troubled girl that only finds comfort in playing the piano just to imitate her father.

Claudette Colbert does wonders playing the courageous Lee. She caters to the children and becomes a successful real estate agent. Of course, as the stereotypical step-mother of all dramas, she is not appreciated by Penny, the girl that carries a grudge toward Lee. Walter Pigeon is the man who has loved Lee forever, but he is too decent to even come close to her. June Allyson is perfect as Penny, the neurotic girl who will find the truth about her father's fate at the end. In minor roles we see Robert Sterling, Patricia Medina, Richard Derr and Lionel Barrymore.

This film is well crafted and acted under Mr. Leonard's ti

I was very young when I first viewed this film in 1946 and never dreamed that this film would still be viewed and commented about in this 21st Century. All the stars in this film were great actors and gave fantastic performances and it is great to see films like this being shown and enjoyed by future generations in America and around the world. Claudette Colbert,(Leola 'Lee' Addams),"So Proudly We Hail," '43, played a very strong mother who lost her husband suddenly and found herself very much in debt and having a daughter, June Allyson,(Penny Addams),"The Glenn Miller Story",'53, who seemed to have mental problems dealing with past experiences of her father. Lionel Barrymore,(Dr. Rossiger),"Duel In The Sun",'46, was the doctor treating Penny Addams and also her mother Leola. Walter Pigeon,(Chris Matthews),"Funny Girl",'68, was a very good friend of the family and stood in the background and gave the family all his support to bring happiness to the family. This is a great Classic drama with a very haunting piano selection which is played through out the picture and adds to the deep secrets hidden in Penny Addams mind and soul. Enjoy. "

An oddity that comes closest, I think, to a noirish family drama. Troubled Penny (Allyson) is obsessed with her dead father, causing problems with her stepmom (Colbert) especially when they become rivals over affections of family friend Chris (Pidgeon). It's a June Allyson seldom seen and a long way from her usual bubbly roles. Still, she handles the disturbed daughter's antics in effective fashion. Those scenes at cliff's edge bordering an eternal sea are eerily enchanting and a tribute to the production crew. This was a period following the war when movies with strong Freudian themes were popular, including Bewitched (1945) and The Snake Pit (1948). .

The acting is first-rate, and I especially like Sterling as the upbeat Chase who furnishes a counterpoint of normality to the moody family atmosphere. Pidgeon too is suavely effective, though his Chris seems a little dense about Penny's obvious designs on him. The version I saw (TMC) didn't include the narration by Hume Cronyn listed in the credits. Perhaps it's just as well since the movie works well enough without a voice-over. The ending is about what you'd expect from this Code enforced period and is way too pat for what's gone before. Nonetheless, it's an effective little exercise that manages a shade of difference from other programmers of the period.

This is the kind of WASP angst movie that in the skilled directorial hands of a Sirk, Stevens or Stahl would have been visually striking and dramatically compelling but in the very average mitts of Robert Z. Leonard is mostly tepid schlock with admittedly decent performances from the three leads. The biggest problem I had with it was the general blandness of the proceedings. I realize WASPS are on the repressed, undemonstrative side (I know this because I was married to one) but it's almost as if Leonard and his scenarists went out of their way to find the most bottled up and fizzled out members of this buttoned down sect in all of Rhode Island and large swaths of eastern Connecticut. Little of the dialogue in the screenplay by Whitfield Cook and Ann Morrison Chapin, whose names sound like headmasters of a dull prep school, is of much interest. When it isn't being mushy, as in the love scenes between Pidgeon and Colbert, it's annoyingly melodramatic, as in Colbert's final pep talk to Allyson that too easily "cures" her of her daddy fixation. Also in the spirit of WASP repression the screenplay leaves out essential stuff, like how Larry's first wife died, and informing Allyson's shrink (a refreshingly restrained Lionel Barrymore) that his patient has, you know, just tried to off herself. And Leonard's typically somnolent direction assures that any potential excitement, be it from Colbert's boogie woogie dance to Allyson's suicide attempt, will remain firmly latent. C plus.

PS...I counted five times Colbert was shot from her right profile. That's the kind of stuff you do when you're watching a boring movie.

This is not a review; it's a personal experience only.

I saw this film on TV in the late 1950's (at around age ten) and, for years, have been wanting to see it again and regretting the fact that it's not available on home video. I was thrilled to learn it was going to be shown on Turner Movie Classics the other night.

I had correctly remembered the story, including some dialog (Dr. Rossiger: "Your daughter is in love with a ghost, which means she's on the brink of disaster!"), and the central role of the music. The composer, Bronislau Kaper, skillfully used the Liszt Piano Concerto #1 throughout the film, including during the climax scenes. I had actually studied and performed this piece with a symphony orchestra at the age of 19; how stunning to hear the orchestra's opening chords under the MGM lion, followed by the piano's imposing solo entrance as the film's title appears. The Chopin Nocturne in Db, my personal favorite, is the romantic piece played in the film by both Penny and her father; Kaper also used its theme creatively in his underscoring. (I'm unable to identify the other, more mournful piece that runs through the film.)

I remember being smitten with June Allyson when seeing this film as a child. The other night, it was interesting to realize that, 45 years ago, I hadn't noticed the stunning Claudette Colbert!

Thanks for sharing my reminiscences. Here's hoping that MGM might see fit to release "The Secret Heart" on DVD.

After World War II, Hollywood embarked upon making many films with psychological themes. The war had changed a lot of things, and people who came back from it were not the same.

In "The Secret Heart" from 1946, we learn the tragic story of a gifted pianist, Larry Addams, who wasn't able to pursue music as a career. After his wife dies, he marries Lee (Claudette Colbert), which also means she takes on his two young children, Penny (June Allyson) and Chase (Robert Sterling).

Larry turns to alcohol and also steals from his company. One night, he refuses to attend a party with Lee, content to drink and play the piano at home. Lee has a great time, dancing with their mutual friend Chris (Walter Pidgeon), whom Lee met while she was engaged to Larry. Chris fell for her, but Lee went ahead and married Larry, though everyone stayed friends. When she gets home from the party and a visit to a nightclub, Larry is dead, a suicide.

Lee keeps the headlines about his embezzlement from the children and tells them that their father died in a car accident. She then sets out to work and repay all of his debts. Because of Penny's resentment of her, Lee tells Chris that he needs to keep away from them, and she devotes herself to the children.

Penny as a teenager is quite disturbed, still upset about her father's death and feeling that she is a lot like him. Lee seeks psychiatric help for her. The psychiatrist tells Lee that Penny should know the truth about her father.

Lee's first move is to re-open their old farm, which is right near Chris', which will make Penny happy. Her brother Chase, home from the service, introduces her to a young soldier friend (Marshall Thompson), and he becomes very interested in Penny. Chris starts coming around. It looks as though everything is going in the right direction. Except no one realizes that Penny has another interest.

This is a good movie, a little on the noir side, and it's a chance to see June Allyson do something besides enthusiasm. I had seen her dramatic side before and knew she had a wider range, but I imagine it is a surprise for some. Colbert is absolutely beautiful and does well as a lovely, sympathetic woman who only wants what is best for Larry's children. Robert Sterling is amiable and attractive, as is Marshall Thompson. Both of them found success in television a few years later.

There's an aura of suspense around the film, as well as a warmth, thanks to Colbert and Pidgeon. It's an interesting story of how one man's deeds affect the next generation and the woman and friend he leaves behind.

JUNE ALLYSON is really irritating in this one. She's got the petulance down pat, pouting throughout what is supposed to be her great dramatic role (musicals being her forte). MGM obviously hoped that this would prove to be a turning point in the way of future dramatics for the usually sunny June.

Seems she's supposed to be despondent over losing her dead father at an early age, unable to accept his death and unwilling to depart from his memory (like him, she plays piano constantly), unable to accept her step-mother, CLAUDETTE COLBERT, who is concerned about Allyson's psychosis--especially when Allyson starts imagining that Claudette's love interest (WALTER PIDGEON) is in love with her.

To give it class, MGM made sure they used some classical music for Allyson to play, gave it elegant sets and an overall polished look that might have worked well on a better film. But this is so obviously supposed to be a psychological tear-jerker to give Colbert and Allyson strong dramatic roles. Unfortunately, the contrivances are so pat and the overall effect so absurdly superficial that all you can do is hope JUNE ALLYSON will get over her dramatic ambitions and do the things she does best.

Nice cast, including ROBERT STERLING (as Allyson's more sensible brother), PATRICIA MEDINA, MARSHALL THOMPSON and LIONEL BARRYMORE (as a crusty old doctor), helps somewhat, but nothing can disguise the fact that they're all wasting their time in a phoney melodrama adrift in the usual Hollywood psycho-babble meant to be taken seriously.

I won't rehash the plot as many viewers before me have already done that for us. I will say that I enjoyed the film, as I have always liked the work of June Allyson and Claudette Colbert.

It was a nice change to see June in a different kind of a role for her. I also liked her in The Shrike. In that one, she also turned in a very different type of role expected of her. The problem for some viewers is that they don't want to see June in anything else except Little Miss Sunshine. Now June may not have been Meryl Streep, but she was a good actress.

I think the whole cast was fine, and Robert Sterling as Claudette's adult son was very good. He and Claudette as stepson and stepmother exhibited a loving and believable relationship. It was also fun to see Elizabeth Patterson (Mrs. Trumble from I Love Lucy) as the housekeeper/cook.

As for Miss Colbert, I had the privilege of seeing her in two Broadway shows (The Kingfisher and A Talent for Murder). She gave me an autograph and we enjoyed a brief chat at the stage door. She was gracious, sweet, and still beautiful. As for the film, she was very strong and believable as the determined mother to take on all she needed to in order to provide for her children and to clean up her husband's mistakes.

The Secret Heart maybe a bit melodramatic at times, but as a product of the 1940's, it is an interesting film and well made.

I jumped into this movie with both feet because of the stars. I like all of them for different reasons. Walter Pigeon, Claudette Colbert, June Allyson, Lyle Barrymore. Heck, they even have Mrs. Trumble (Lucky and Ricky Ricardo's upstairs neighbor)as the housekeeper on the farm.

What I wasn't ready for was June Allyson as a teenager when she was just on the sunny side of thirty. That certainly did NOT work for me. If she had been Colbert's step SISTER, instead of stepdaughter that would have worked for me just dandy. But, having said that, I want to point out it was the best performance June has turned in so far and I thought I had seen them all. She was wonderful. She did her best while being cast totally against type and age range. And, she pulled it off with aplomb.

The sets, the costumes, the choice of the other characters all worked and so I am sure you will have a nice rainy afternoon if you choose to watch this on AMC or TCM. But, I would NOT suggest buying or renting this movie. It is simply not worth the expense when there are so many much better movies out there.

This is a glossy psycho-soap with a fine cast and enough offbeat occasions to keep one interested. The mental illness of the young daughter, suffering from the early death of her father, is not handled too heavily and the film suffers somewhat from this shallow interpretation.

The creepiness really starts when she falls for her Mother's lover and things start to get stirred to the breaking point. This happens late in the film and maybe just a little too late for this to be a top notch thriller.

It is intriguing enough but lacks the depth of character study and is a bit light for this type of psychological picture, so it comes off more as a slick family drama than the study of a sick mind and its effect on the family.

The psychological drama is dated and simplistic in the analysis of the depression suffered by Allysion. But the dance scene with Walter Pigeon and Claudette Colbert is classic, both humorous and very real. Both are such hams and obviously enjoyed making fun of themselves.

The piano was excellent, classical piano goes well with deranged minds. In a way it was reminiscent of Rebecca.

The use of flash backs was done nicely, integrating the story. Colbert is ageless as always, playing both the young stepmother and the older widow.

The movie gave a very real depiction of how an enabling wife struggles with an alcoholic husband.

June Allyson (Penny) gets a father fixation and spends the film boring us silly as she strives to be close to him.

As the film keeps tediously reminding us with the same sequence that is meant to provide some comedy, but is never actually funny, there are 3 things that cannot be hidden in life; love, smoke and something else contrived to be wacky and funny. Of more relevance are the following three; 1 - an obvious plot, 2 - a weak script, 3 - a lack of anything interesting. All of these are demonstrated in this heap of junk.

You can wander in and out of this one and not miss a thing. The cast have all wasted their time. And that of the audience.

This is one of her greatest movies but there is only one problem "You Can not Purchase it Anywhere" It is not for sale for in home all the time enjoyment. I have watched this movie with tears in my eyes for seeing a young child have so much love and admirations for another is heartfelt and amazing. Sad for this is one movie many would like to own and be able to watch at anytime. Nothing like the good old days where love was real and family really existed. This is something that is seems to be almost totally gone. Just try to watch this movie believe me it is worth going out of your way to watch and to buy if ever available to the public

Allyson was the miscast role here in "Secret Heart" In all those ww II flicks, she was the "wide-eyed, innocent, perfect, little wife left at home while soldier is off at war", but i wish they had chosen someone else for this role. There are so many other strong, versatile actors in this one, it's a shame they don't show it more often. "Penny" (June Allyson) THINKS she knows the truth about her dead father, and is living in her own world when reality hits her head on. With Walter Pidgeon, Claudette Colbert, Lionel Barrymore, and Robert Sterling, it's a showcase of so many strong actors. All charismatic, versatile personalities. There isn't room here to describe the strengths and history of most of them, so maybe it'll be easier to describe the film's weakness - Allyson. She is still playing the wide-eyed, innocent, but way-off-base-daughter, ignorant to the realities of life, and the dark side of it. Claudette Colbert (Lee Addams) could play ANY part, and also showed up in so many ww II flicks. My favorite Colbert film is, of course, Imitation of Life, the first (Better) version. Pidgeon, who appeared in SO many big films, had just been nominated for his role in "Madame Curie". Here, he is Chris Matthews, friend to Lee, in a smaller role. Still a great film, but could have been even better, with that casting change. Just my little opinion.