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HEARTBEAT is one of the most overt adult fairy tales that you'll come across, its storybook wedding at the end dropping any hint of realism. Such movies live or die by their charm or lack of such, and while I've little doubt that the French original was oozing with that quality, HEARTBEAT only sporadically compels a quiet smile on its audience's faces. Too much of it leaves us waiting for something to happen, and not much ever does.Ginger Rogers was certainly too old to play her character effectively (she was nearly twice Arlette's given age) and you can see her trying too hard to convey a girlish freshness and naivete with her performance (ironically, these are qualities that she specialized in during her dances with Fred Astaire). I originally thought Jean-Pierre Aumont's performance to be very dull, but a second viewing suggested that it was much more the writing than anything lacking in what Aumont was doing. Adolphe Menjou has little to do, and while Basil Rathbone brings energy and a sense of fun to proceedings that desperately needed these qualities, he disappears through the final 2/3 of the picture. A movie about his school for pickpockets would have been a lot easier to sit through than the plodding romance that we got.I was surprised to learn that HEARTBEAT, despite being a fairly high- budgeted project, earned a decent profit for RKO Studios. It's not terrible, but that's a bit more than it deserved.
jjnxn-1
Lets get this out of the way right off the top, Ginger Rogers is too old for her part in this film! True she looks very lovely and far younger than the 35 years she was when this was made, perhaps 25 or 26, but she is supposed to be an 18 year old escapee from a reform school and there is no amount of soft focus that could make that believable.As far as the rest of the film its a mediocre effort wasting the other two assets it has on hand, Adolph Menjou and Basil Rathbone, in small parts. The story itself is rather ridiculous held up by the talent involved but it's wasted effort. A forgettable enterprise, all the stars have made better films that should be sought out instead.
Laurel-Canyon
A light comedy like this is so different from typical Hollywood fare. It's a delightful French omelette - fluffy and sophisticated all at once. It leaves a sweet savour and refreshment, where other 'zany' comedies rely on just heaping up one cliché after another, thick and fast, with an often indigestible, overcooked, somewhat tiresome result."Heartbeat" keeps you guessing what will come next, like the most skilled flirt.Six years earlier in 1940, the film "Beat of the Heart" ("Battement de Coeur") was produced in France, starring the stunning Danielle Darrieux and the incredibly charismatic Claude Dauphin. As an American remake, "Heartbeat," according to the credits, was the creation of the three original French writers, plus two additional Hollywood writers for adaptation and additional dialogue.Overall, it makes its trans-cultural moves very well, in a romantic dance across the Atlantic.Ginger Rogers is completely convincing as an 18-year old, and on this point I disagree with other reviewers. It should be considered, for the sake of argument, that an 18-year old woman in Europe in 1940, or in 1946, had the maturing experience of World War II imprinted on her mind and heart. Truly, such a creature was a child-woman, not a plastic doll, an airhead, a sex object, or a narcissistic 'Material Girl'. She would have had the character of an adult, combined with true innocence, the innocence of a person who has seen cruelty and ugliness and crime, but has not yet personally become corrupted. As a matter of fact, I don't think any 18-year old American starlet would have had a clue as to how to play this part effectively. The following actresses certainly would have been "the right age". Amazingly, these five were the only American ingénues with star quality in 1946. Would you have cast any one of them, instead of Ginger Rogers? I doubt it. They simply weren't ready yet for such a role.Patricia Neal, age 20; Grace Kelly, age 17; Janet Leigh, age 19; Jeanne Crain, age 21; Ann Blyth, age 18.On the other hand, these two European lovelies would have been perfect, and they were already skilled on both stage and screen. But they would not come to Hollywood for several more years.Audrey Hepburn, age 17; Jean Simmons, age 17.Adding to its unique character, "Heartbeat" handles some very mature themes with a delicate, Cosmopolitan flare. The leading man is the lover of a married woman, and he is in the diplomatic corps of her older husband, "the Ambassador." This portrayal by Adolphe Menjou is perfect - suave, funny, devious, and attractive. Now Arlette knows from the very beginning that the handsome Jean-Pierre Aumont, the man she is falling in love with, the man who enjoys baiting her innocence, is himself a scoundrel. For his part, he tries to get rid of her puppy-dog affection by marrying her off to a sponger who will take her off his hands for a price. The actor captures this duplicity expertly. He is not at all a one-dimensional Romeo!By the way, the humorous sponger is played to the hilt by British comic actor Melville Cooper, who was actually a true hero, a veteran of the First World War who had been captured by the Germans. Another tour-de-force performance is delivered by Russian emigré Mikhail Rasumny. He was already 56 when he charmed the viewers of "Heartbeat" playing the thief/butler who counsels Arlette when she needs it most.As for the opening episodes with Basil Rathbone, playing a sort of Fagin to a motley group of over-aged delinquents, these scenes serve to introduce Arlette as a most extraordinary young lady, indeed. She actually manages to fool Professor Aristide himself, the expert schemer and arch criminal of them all! A spectacularly funny cameo for Sherlock Holmes!Far from suffering through this film, let alone finding it boring, I was immensely entertained to the very end. The 'Hollywood ending' was really not predictable. In a film like this, anything could have happened.The whole fantasy was delightfully bubbly, like pink champagne.
MartinHafer
This is a very watchable movie, but it is also amazingly dumb in places and should have been a lot better. A lot of the problem should rest on the shoulders of Ginger Rogers, who for at least the second time in her career is ridiculously portraying a woman half her age! This 35 year-old actress plays an 18 year-old and is about as convincing at that as she would have been playing Hattie McDaniel's role in GONE WITH THE WIND! This same ridiculous idea was the plot for another Rogers film, THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR, where at 32, she played a school girl!!! While a very small number of actresses MIGHT have been able to carry this off, Ms. Rogers appeared at least her chronological age and in both films it just comes off as ridiculous. While not quite as bad as Mae West in MYRA BRECKINRIDGE (who was 77 and STILL making passes at young men), it was still along the same lines as far as actresses who won't admit that they are no longer the young starlets they had once been decades earlier.The second problem is that the film in many ways has two totally different tones. I loved the first portion of the film where we see Basil Rathbone operating a school for would-be thieves! This segment is very funny and incredibly original--I really wanted to see much more of this. The second portion was a very familiar love story with complications. Sure, it was fun to watch but not nearly as much as the other part--and it was very, very hard to believe that the budding romance could be real. Frankly, the film tries a bit too hard and comes off as forced.The bottom line is that this is merely a time-passer and nothing more. If you do watch it, though, try not to laugh when Ginger tells the camera how old she is supposed to be--it isn't supposed to be a comedy!
