Sentimental Journey ** (1946, John Payne, Maureen O’Hara, William Bendix, Cedric Hardwicke, Connie Marshall) – Classic Movie Review 6312

Director Walter Lang’s 1946 drama is true to its title, and then some. It is an outrageously unabashed, very sentimental and shamefully mawkish tearjerker about a dying Broadway actress who adopts a child to keep her producer husband company so he won’t be lonely after her demise.

John Payne and Maureen O’Hara give it their best shots as the childless New York theatre couple Bill and Julie, who adopt orphan girl Hitty (Connie Marshall). William Bendix and Cedric Hardwicke also help out as Uncle Don and Dr Jim Miller.

Also in the cast are Glenn Langan, Mischa Auer, Kurt Kreuger, Trudy Marshall, Ruth Nelson, Dorothy Adams, Mary Gordon, Lillian Bronson, Olive Blakeney and James Flavin.

[Spoiler alert] The wife dies half way through the film of a heart attack and the rest of the footage is devoted to the busy Payne having to find a way to relate to the child. Nelia Gardner White is the person who was unashamed to write this embarrassing, manipulative story, the basis of Samuel Hoffenstein and Elizabeth Reinhardt’s screenplay for the movie. Though tolerable at the start, the film takes an enormous dip when the excellent O’Hara disappears, and it never recovers, though she has a little more to do as a ghost, since Hitty fantasises Julie is visiting her to give advice.

It is shot in black and white by Norbert Brodine, produced by Walter Morosco and scored by Cyril J Mockridge, with art direction by Albert Hogsett and Lyle R Wheeler.

The screenplay is based on Nelia Gardner White’s short story The Little Horse, originally published in a 1944 issue of Good Housekeeping. It was thought good enough to remake as The Gift of Love in 1958 with Lauren Bacall and again as the TV movie Sentimental Journey in 1984 with Jaclyn Smith.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6312

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