published on September 21, 2024 in blog

The Heart of the Matter

Production: British Lion/London. Dir George More O'Ferrall; Producer Ian Dalrymple; Screenplay Ian Dalrymple; Camera Jack Hildyard; Editor Sidney Stone; Music Edric Connor (adv.) Art Dir Joseph Bato
Crew: (B&W) Extract of a review from 1953. Running time: 105 MIN.
With: Trevor Howard Elizabeth Allan Maria Schell Denholm Elliott Peter Finch Gerard Oury

The film is set in Sierra Leone during the last war, where Trevor Howard, the assistant police commissioner, is not getting along too well with his wife (Elizabeth Allan). He is forced to borrow money from an unscrupulous blackmailer and made to send his wife away on a vacation. During her absence, he falls in love with a young widow (Maria Schell), one of the survivors of a ship wrecked by a German U-boat.

The story is told in painstaking and deliberate terms. Subject matter is Graham Greene’s favorite topic of Catholicism [from his novel, adapted by Lesley Storm]. Stripped of its deeper significance, the story is little more than the conventional triangle meller, but husband and wife are ardent Catholics, and divorce and remarriage cannot be contemplated.

There is considerable merit in the script and much of the dialog has adult appeal. But the conflict between love and religion never emerges with real conviction. The backgrounds filmed on location have an authentic look.

Popular on Variety

Howard plays his role with great intensity. The part of his wife is done in two contrasting keys by Allan, almost wildly hysterical, and subdued and restrained. The third member of the triangle is etched by Maria Schell with real tenderness.

Jump to Comments