1942 – Ronald Colman
Random Harvest
OK, if we discount the basic premise of the movie and just enjoy it, Ronald Colman was actually pretty good. He played a soldier who had sustained injuries during the war. He suffered complete amnesia. He didn’t know his name, where he was from, or what he is doing. He meets a girl, falls in love, and starts a new life, even going so far as to marrying the girl and fathering a child. Then later, he suffers a slight blow to the head, and is miraculously cured. Putting aside the fact that one head injury does not cure another, he returns to his old life and forgets about his wife and baby. Then she finds a way to come back into his life as his secretary.
Colman was a talented actor, and the first half of the movie really gave him a chance to show off his skills in front of the camera. The scenes in the mental hospital, and the ones where he was first taken in by Greer Garson, were wonderful. Colman’s sense of wordless confusion was powerful and intense. You can see his effort, trying to make sense out of his life, but to no avail. The second half of the film was pretty standard, but he was also a perfectly good romantic lead.
One of the challenges he faced while playing the part of Smithy / Charles Rainier is that he had to play two completely characters, who were really the same person. And he did it. Smithy had a much softer, gentler manner, while Charles, while not in any way mean or unfeeling, was harder and more calculating. Each personality was distinct, but eventually, his curiosity about his missing years led him to investigate his past. The two sides of his psyche begin to merge, and Colman was able to make that believable. It was an interesting shift of in the way the part had to be played. And it was appropriately gradual, not happening all at once.
I think Colman really deserved his nomination for Best Actor, though if I’m being completely honest, I’m shocked that his co-star Greer Garson was not nominated for Best Actress. But that’s neither here nor there. Colman played a part that I’ve never seen him play before, that of a man with no self-confidence, and a wounded, confusion always in his eyes. It made for a rather dramatic role that allowed him to stretch himself as an actor, and he was clearly up to the challenge.