Of Human Hearts (1938)

Wonderful character development!

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Blistering performances.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This is the first time ever I've seen a movie in which I disliked Jimmy Stewart. His character was his self-absorbed, intolerant and selfish. Hisfather (Walter Huston) is rigid, self-righteous and physically abusive. The mother (Beulah Bondi) is weak and ineffectual, unwilling to protect her defenseless young son. At times I was torn between sympathy for Jimmy, a victim of extreme physical abuse from his father, and finding his character so obnoxious I'd think we deserved what he was getting. Characters are poorly developed and the plot was improbable. There are so many great pictures with any of these actors. Watch them instead of this one.

"Of Human Hearts" is a schmaltzy historical melodrama that starts out okay, but gradually becomes ridiculous.It begins in the 1840's, when the Reverend Ethan Wilkins (Walter Huston), arrives at a small town on the Ohio River, with his wife Mary (Beulah Bondi) and young son Jason (Gene Reynolds). The townspeople are a parsimonious group, led by George Ames (Guy Kibbee), the skinflint owner of the general store. At a meeting to welcome the new minister to their church, they trick the minister into accepting less salary than was agreed upon. But Rev. Wilkins accepts this, even though he knows he is being cheated.Also, the town is not exactly big on education. After the schoolhouse burned down, the townspeople decided not to rebuild it, figuring "it wasn't good to bother the kids with too much book larnin'." The Rev. Wilkins is very strict and forbids his son Jason to read magazines, even after Jason's mother buys her son a subscription to the news magazine "Harper's Weekly." (It's never stated exactly why the Reverend hates magazines.) But Jason befriends the town's drunken doctor (Charles Coburn), and develops an interest in medicine.When Jason grows up (now played by James Stewart), he rebels against his father (with the usual father-son fistfight), and leaves home to attend medical school. Rev. Wilkins dies, and Mary Wilkins must occasionally sell items (i.e. silverware, furniture) inherited from her family. She sends the money to Jason, to keep him in medical school.When the Civil War comes, Jason distinguishes himself as a Union Army surgeon, treating wounded soldiers on the battlefield. But he neglects to write his mother for three years, and she fears him dead.Then comes the movie's most ridiculous scene. President Lincoln (John Carradine) receives a letter from Mary Wilkins asking him to find her son. He summons Jason Wilkins to the Oval Office -- calling him right out of a major battle where Wilkins is tending the wounded -- and demands to know why Wilkins hasn't written to his mother! "You ungrateful young man!" Lincoln rails. "How could you forget to write to your own mother?" "But...but Mr. President, I've been fighting the war for the past few years!" Wilkins stammers. "I've been saving wounded soldiers on the battlefield!" "Sit down at my desk there and write your mother immediately!" says the President. "And if you don't write her once a week from now on, I'll have you court-martialed!"(Unfortunately, I'm not making that last line up. Seems to me that Abe didn't have to call Jason in off the battlefield. He could've just sent a presidential order, "Write your mother, or else!")Anyway, the movie is a silly historical melodrama and is probably best forgotten. Beulah Bondi does give a good performance, but it's not enough to save this picture for posterity.

It's wonderful to see a cast of tremendous actors and what they can do with a nothing script. The Abraham Lincoln in this one is perfect -- and a real surprise if you don't know who is playing him. The thought that the President of the U.S. would take time out to speak with one single soldier during the Civil War and admonish him for not writing his mother is quaint and farfetched. Or is it? Even the horse is good in this movie! A real treat for movie buffs.

Antebellum, or pre-Civil War America, is seldom dealt with in movies. In the studio age it was largely ignored. Of Human Hearts is an exception. Set in frontier Ohio it concerns the rebellious son of a decent but inflexible minister who seeks to be a doctor and learn about the world. He get more than he bargained for after the guns fire on Fort Sumter, and the film traces his life from uneasy boyhood to uncomfortable manhood. James Stewart excels in an early lead role; and as his father Walter Huston is suitably starchy and forbidding. The backlot recreation of early small town America is wonderfully realized by director Clarence Brown and Company. There are some splendid supporting performances by, among other, Beulah Bondi, Charlie Grapewin, and especially Charles Coburn, as the village doctor who likes to drink and who becomes Stewart's mentor. As an historical footnote it's worth mentioning that the film was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the late thirties, and is an atypical product for them, as they were poaching, as it were, on movie territory that one associates with the more folsky Fox studios of the time, and did a rather good job at it, too.