The Hasty Heart **** (1949, Ronald Reagan, Patricia Neal, Richard Todd) – Classic Movie Review 320

Richard Todd rightly relishes his finest piece of acting in the movies, as an aloof Scottish wounded soldier unaware he’s dying, in the 1949 wartime drama film The Hasty Heart. It’s also Ronald Reagan’s finest piece of acting.

Richard Todd rightly relishes his finest piece of acting in the movies in director Vincent Sherman’s 1949 wartime drama film The Hasty Heart. Todd triumphs in a difficult role as an aloof and aggressive Scottish wounded soldier, unaware he’s dying in a World War Two Burmese military hospital in 1945 just as the war is over. Todd was Oscar and Golden Globe nominated as Best Actor, he’s that good.

There were two Golden Globe awards – for Todd as Most Promising Male Newcomer and for Best Film Promoting International Understanding. Those were the days! I’m guessing there’s no such category now.

As Corporal Lachlan ‘Lachie’ MacLachlan, Todd lights up this extremely skilful adaptation of a London and Broadway stage hit. Director Sherman turns John Patrick’s tear-jerking play into an engrossing, highly emotional, if still wordy and stagey, film. Ranald MacDougall makes a strong job with his literate, highly effective screenplay.

The movie is boosted by injections of warm acting from Patricia Neal as the nurse Sister Margaret Parker and the much-derided performer Ronald Reagan, who surprises everybody by his stupendous display of acting as Todd’s fellow patient, the Yank with a heart. It is also Reagan’s finest piece of acting in the movies.

Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd OBE (11 June 1919 – 3 December 2009).

But it is Oscar-nominated Todd who puts heart and soul into the angst-ridden show. Todd had replaced Richard Basehart in the original Broadway production of the play and his convincing Scottish tones (though he was Dublin born) helped him secure the movie role. He worked in Scotland, helping to found the Dundee Repertory Theatre in 1939.

Despite starring in films like The Dam Busters  (1955) and Hitchcock’s Stage Fright (1950), he never again achieved the same prominence and acclaim he did here. He died, aged 90, on 3 December 2009.

His other notable roles include Sir Walter Raleigh in The Virgin Queen (1955) and Major John Howard in The Longest Day (1962), as well as starring in three Disney costume adventure tales, The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men, The Sword and the Rose, and Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue.

He was a real-life war hero as a Captain in the British Army during World War Two, fighting in the D-Day landings as a member of the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion.

The Hasty Heart was remade for TV in 1983.

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 320

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com/