Taglines: He had found love – lost it – and now had found it again!
Random Harvest movie storyline. Charles Rainier is a World War I veteran, an amnesiac who remembers nothing of his past. He flees the asylum and meets the beautiful Paula who takes an immediate liking to him. Charles is shy, owing mostly to the fact that he has only just recovered his speech, but he hopes to make his life ass a writer. He and Paula are soon married and later have a child. Thing are looking up when he’s invited to an interview with a major newspaper.
On his way there however, he is struck by a car crossing the street. He awakens having recovered the memory he lost, but now has no memory of the life he’s led with Paula including that he has a child. He’s actually quite wealthy and returns to the family home in Sussex. He involves himself in the family business and is quite successful. Unknown to him, Paula is nearby and through a twist of fate have a future together.
Random Harvest is a 1942 film based on the 1941 James Hilton novel of the same title, directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Claudine West, George Froeschel, and Arthur Wimperis adapted the novel for the screen, and received an Academy Award nomination. The novel keeps the true identity of Paula/Margaret a secret until the very end, something that would have been impossible in a film, where characters’ faces must be seen. This meant that the movie had to take a very different approach to the story. The film stars Ronald Colman as a shellshocked, amnesiac World War I soldier, and Greer Garson as his love interest.
It was an instant commercial success. Its seven Oscar nominations included nods for Colman, supporting actress Susan Peters, director Mervyn LeRoy, and Best Picture. Garson, whose performance was well-received, was ineligible for the Academy Award for Best Actress, as she had already been nominated that year for her role in Mrs. Miniver.
This film is alluded to in the third season of British sitcom As Time Goes By. Lionel and Jean attend a meeting in Los Angeles about a script he has written, and co-executive creative consultants Josh and Lisa come up with a “mangled version” of Random Harvest, about “Lionel being shot in the head every five minutes.”
Several Indian films were influenced by this film: the Bengali film Harano Sur (1957), starring Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen; the Tamil film Amara Deepam (1956) and its Hindi remake Amar Deep (1958), starring Dev Anand. In 1973, an episode of The Carol Burnett Show featured a spoof of the film called “Rancid Harvest”, with Carol Burnett in Greer Garson’s role and Harvey Korman in Ronald Colman’s.
Academy Award Nominations
Best Picture
Best Director – Mervyn LeRoy
Best Actor in a Leading Role – Ronald Colman
Best Actress in a Supporting Role – Susan Peters
Best Writing, Screenplay – Claudine West, George Froeschel and Arthur Wimperis
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture – Herbert Stothart
Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White – Cedric Gibbons and Randall Duell (Art Direction), Edwin B. Willis and Jack D. Moore (Interior Decoration)
Random Harvest (1942)
Directed by: Mervyn LeRoy
Starring: Ronald Colman, Greer Garson, Philip Dorn, Susan Peters, Henry Travers, Reginald Owen, Bramwell Fletcher, Rhys Williams, Una O’Connor, Aubrey Mather, Margaret Wycherly, Jill Esmond
Screenplay by: Arthur Wimperis, George Froeschel, Claudine West
Production Design by: William H. Cannon
Cinematography by: Joseph Ruttenberg
Film Editing by: Harold F. Kress
Costume Design by: Robert Kalloch
Set Decoration by: Edwin B. Willis
Art Direction by: Cedric Gibbons
Music by: Herbert Stothart
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Loew’s Inc.
Release Date: December 17, 1942
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