1944 – Cary Grant
None but the Lonely Heart
So I have to start off by saying that I am a Cary Grant fan. He was handsome, charming, and always very likeable, even when he is playing a character that is less than likeable. I always love watching him on the big screen. But I’m sorry to say that I didn’t fully buy his performance in this movie. Oh, his acting was fine, but he played his part the same as he plays his part in every movie. He basically played himself, and while that usually works for him, I don’t think it did here.
The biggest and most obvious problem was that he played the part of a Cockney man, and he tried his best with the difficult accent, but he just didn’t have it. It was distractingly bad. Sometimes he wasn’t even trying. He just spoke in his American accent and that was that. But even that was inconsistent. He kept waffling back and forth between that and a slightly British accent. Aside from that, I don’t really think he looked the part. He was too handsome. I think the role would have benefited from a man with a more rugged, worn down look. Even in the beginning of the movie, when Ernie Mott was a homeless tramp, he looked little more than a shave away from being dashing and debonair.
But what I liked about his performance was the emotional drama that he nailed. He was able to do the love scenes and the angry scenes, the gut-punch scenes, and the light-hearted scenes, all with equal skill. His final scene was where he learns that the woman he has fallen in love with has decided to return to the mobster who tore them apart. The utter devastation on Grant’s face was heartbreaking to watch because of his focused intensity.
The other thing I liked with his natural chemistry with Ethel Barrymore, the woman who played his mother. Their difficult relationship was probably one of the more interesting aspects of the film. Ernie apparently had a history of being a shiftless wanderer who thought little of responsibility, a clear disappointment to his long-suffering mother. But the dynamics of their relationship changed when he made the effort to turn his life around and work, helping her in her store. And it was nice to see that change in the way he and Ethel played their parts.