User reviews

The first time I ever saw this wonderful film I was about twelve. It was late at night and everyone else had gone to bed and I was thinking maybe I should too, but then this came on and I was hooked. I've seen this film many times since then and yet each time I watch it again it never fails to get an emotional response out of me i.e I ball my eyes out!...and us Brits have a stiff upper lip you know! They just don't make them like they used too and that's a shame.It's a great storyline, great acting and the line 'poor uncle wiggly' isn't dead in our house! Dana Andrews is yummy in it too. I cannot recommend this film strongly enough..watch it and it will always stay with you.

There isn't a great deal of J. D. Salinger's short story "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut" left in Mark Robson's supposed film version "My Foolish Heart" but it's a superior example of the 'woman's picture' nevertheless, thanks almost entirely to a superb Susan Hayward as the unhappily married woman recalling her first love, (Dana Andrews, always a good bet). The director was Mark Robson and it's one of his better pictures while the Epstein's (Julius J. and Philip G.) did the screenplay, again a good sign. Hayward was Oscar-nominated, as was the famous title song which, in its many incarnations, has outlived the film. No classic, then, but an intelligent and likeable picture that deserves to be better known.

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.

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.

My Foolish Heart (1949)

Boy this one is under the radar. Talk about high drama, and with the start of WWII at the center of it. I can only imagine how many people weeped at this one in 1949 because the main story is the flashback of a woman who had a romance go wrong, and surely half the audience had their romances go wrong at the start of the war.

Dana Andrews is his cool, charming, warm, funny best, with that usual holding back all the time that makes him slow to like and easy to love. Susan Hayward shows the range she had, from cold, selfish conniver to warm and bubbly innocent. Quite a remarkable pair of performances, and a plot that circles around on itself nicely. The screen writing was by the famous Epstein brothers, who also wrote the core of "Casablanca" (another movie about the start of America's involvement in the war), and there are some zingers here. And some over the top weepy lines, too.

If this movie isn't archetypal or classic, it's only because a few small things don't fully click. One of them might be the all-too-ordinary scenes--there is nothing bigger than life here except the story itself, which of course is meant to be familiar and not bigger than life at all, yet it is because it's so dramatic. There are secondary actors who hold up in varying degrees. Robert Keith plays Hayward's father with total sympathy, but Jessie Royce Landis as her mother is a bit of her usual caricature, not quite fitting in here (except for some light comedy). Kent Smith is a perfect second man, the "good" man who is more honor than charm, but still likable, and Lois Wheeler is a great if somewhat predictable second woman, also all goodness.

But the story, as ordinary as the elements of it are on purpose, grows in its intensity scene by scene until a slightly sudden and convenient wrap.

This is a great one, really, especially if you like films of the period dealing with the war from the home front perspective. There are a few scenes sprinkled through the film that touch on archetypal America--a football game, and a radio announcement saying that a ship had been hit in Pearl Harbor, and good old Grand Central Station. Don't miss this one.

A product of the studio system that results in a ridiculous movie in the long run. It was a Terrible idea to cast middle aged actors play teenagers and young adults. In 1949 Lew Wengler was played by a 42-year old. Dana Andrews was 40 and Susan Hayward was 32.

The studio system was able to provide high production values due to their ability to finance movies but sometimes at the expense of credibility in casting roles because only established older actors in contract played leads.

Not surprising that JD Salinger never allowed another work to be made into a movie after this one due to storyline changes.

On one level, the movie's a weepie, certainly Hayward does a lot of sorrowful eyes. On another, however, it's a complex film about human emotion and perhaps the hand of fate, (the lovers' initial meeting, the runway accident). And that's along with a rather surprise ending that concludes some narrative suspense. It's a Goldwyn Production so the scenes, script, and casting are well mounted with no evidence of studio sets. Basically the story's told in flashback as Eloise (Hayward) tracks back why she won't allow husband Lew (Smith) to get wed-lock daughter Ramona in a divorce settlement. That's because Eloise keeps the real father's identity a secret. Hayward's showcased throughout in effective fashion that eventuated in an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Also, Andrews as Walt, Eloise's true love, also gets a lot of featured screentime.

Note how the word "pregnant" or even its many softer synonyms are not used during this Production Code period, even though Eloise's condition is central to the plot. Instead, we have to infer from very subtle hints that she's actually pregnant. Still, the period censorship may oddly add to the film's overall emotional complexity. I guess my only gripe is the overextended courtship between Walt and Eloise. To me it looks like Hayward and Andrews were being showcased for bigger star status by Goldwyn.. That wouldn't be unusual for an industry that promotes rising box-office attractions, sometimes at the expense of narrative pacing. (In passing-- Too bad the deft performer Andrews remains an underrated actor as shows here.)

Anyway, along with an interesting undercurrent, the flick's better than most weepies, while Hayward shows a more vulnerable side than usual. Then too, the ending is not the usual movie cliche. So there are worthy compensations, even for guys.

"My Foolish Heart", the only screen-adaptation of a J. D. Salinger work (in this case, his short story "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut"), is a fluttery-eyed romantic melodrama, one that takes us into flashback mode not 15mns into the proceedings. Despite this, Susan Hayward is wonderful as a hard-drinking, unhappily-married housewife and mother who is driving her husband right out the door. She's reunited with her old college chum (who once dated Susan's current husband) and reminisces about her "nice girl" days in pre-World War II New York when she fell in love with a charming ne'er-do-well. The screenplay by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein is above-average-smart for these type of things, and Hayward works very smoothly with Dana Andrews, giving one of his best performances. Although Salinger wasn't happy with it, the picture isn't hokey, and director Mark Robson keeps it moving at a nice pace. Two Oscar nominations, including Hayward as Best Actress and for the catchy, torchy title song composed by Victor Young and Ned Washington. *** from ****

Now there is one slight problem we have to be prepared to overlook with this movie. Both stars are just way too attractive to have ever, plausibly, been in the scenario we are about to see. Forget that for a hour or so and what we have is well worth a watch. Susan Hayward is really good in this wartime melodrama as the now rather drunken "Eloise", stuck in an unhappy marriage. After one such binge with old school friend "Mary Jane" (Doris Wheeler) she falls asleep and her dream takes her back to happier times with "Walt" (Dana Andrews). This somnial retrospective explains to us quite how she has got herself into her current predicament; how she met (and lost) her beau, her best friend, got married, had a daughter etc. Dana Andrews is that handsome WWII naval officer who, along with some of his pals, crashes a party where he meets the younger "Eloise". They date for a while but her mother (Jessica Royce-Landers) is not keen and when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbour, everyone's life is turned upside down... Now, the way the story is being told to us reveals from the start that this is not a film with an happy ending, so we ought not to expect a complex plot - this is a love story that epitomises so many a young couple brought together and driven asunder by war. Hayward plays her character powerfully. Sometimes playful and mischievous, sometimes angry and frustrated - but always with conviction and that is what draws, and keeps, our attention. Andrews is fine, he does his job well enough but his character doesn't have anything like as much to work with as the star, and in this film Hayward is most certainly that. It has a few potent scenes with Brian Keith - her dad "Henry", and there is, of course, that beautiful Victor Young/Ned Washington title song that though maybe repeated just once or twice too often (usually in instrumental refrain) is icing on the cake for this superior story of how one gets onto the slippery slope.

Susan Hayward foolish? Dana Andrews a can't-get-a-date loser? No, I didn't think so either. But they are both so good in their roles that they no only make the film work, they make it a triumph. Hayward was nominated for an Oscar, as was Victor Young's glorious title-song. Both Hayward and Young should have won.

"My Foolish Heart" is essentially a "woman's film," a label that is frequently pejorative. (But then so is "Gone with the Wind.") What makes "Heart" so transcendent, besides Hayward and Andrews, is that the entire film is so well-crafted. The dialog is first rate--by turns poignant, rueful, comic, and sarcastic--from the Epstein twins of "Casablanca" fame. Mark Robson's direction is spot-on, and he has a great cast to work with. As Hayward's father, Robert Keith contributes a beautifully shaded performance. Kent Smith and Lois Wheeler are sympathetic as two who are injured bystanders. In her film debut, Jessie Royce Landis creates the first of her flighty women who are much more than they initially seem.

Victor Young's song is reprised several times during the film and was one of the first title-songs to achieve popularity. It is especially well used in the scene near the end when Hayward is waiting for Kent Smith to bring her a drink. She hits all her marks beautifully, and the song is stunningly used as background.

I doubt that any attempt at a remake would be nearly as successful as the original. They don't make 'em like his any more--no nudity, no questionable language, no violence: just top-notch acting, writing, direction, all set to a marvelous Victor Young score.

And it should be noted that Hayward, despite her Oscar and four other nominations is regrettably underrated and largely forgotten today. Andrews never was given his due when he was alive, and he had an impressive body of work-- for example, "Laura" and "The Best Years of Our Lives" (especially his scene in the moth-balled bomber)--that put him at the forefront of talented leading men of the Forties and Fifties.

Susan Hayward and Dana Andrews will take you to the heights of joy and deepest despair as two lovers who are forced to live a lifetime in a few weeks as America enters World War II. As the film begins, the war is over and Eloise Winters (Hayward) is married to college sweetheart Lou Wengler (Kent Smith). A visit from college roommate Mary Jane (Lois Wheeler) prompts Hayward to relive the wartime memory of her true love, Walt Dreiser (Andrews). You will be enchanted by Andrews and Hayward's first meeting when sparks fly and an extremely handsome, charming Andrews sweeps Hayward off her feet to the tune of Victor Young's heart stirring theme. I dare say no man looked better on the 1940s screen than the sophisticated, yet easy-going Dana Andrews in this film. Nominated for an Academy Award, Hayward is exceptional in her ability to wear her emotions as a woman deeply in love. Don't miss whimsical moments with outstanding characters actors Robert Keith and Jessie Royce Landis as Hayward's parents. Based on a story by J.D. Salinger, "My Foolish Heart" is a fine film to curl up with on a rainy Sunday afternoon to relive the first blush of your one true love.

Unhappy housewife Eloise Winters (Susan Hayward) is visited by old friend Mary Jane. There is a suggestion about Eloise's daughter Ramona and another man named Walt Dreiser (Dana Andrews). Her husband Lew Wengler is not happy either and threatens to take away Ramona. Eloise recalls happier days when she met her true love during the war.

The unhappy marriage is actually interesting. The true romance is less so. It also doesn't help that the story is told in flashback. Those are usually less compelling unless the structure injects something special. I kept thinking the divorce and fight over Ramona would be more compelling and more dramatic to watch. The love story struggles to gain traction. Its doom is expected and its drama comes off somewhat soapy. The melodrama is almost old fashion. The heat in the relationship is not as effective as expected. There is a possibility that the expectation is too high for this projected perfect love. That is why I think the idea of this love is more compelling than the actual telling of this love. Quite frankly, simple little flashbacks would be enough as Eloise and Lew have their divorce battles. This is trying for something artistically. I think it fails.

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.

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??