My Foolish Heart (1950)

Now there is one slight problem we have to be prepared to overlook with this movie. Both stars are just way too attractive to have ever, plausibly, been in the scenario we are about to see. Forget that for a hour or so and what we have is well worth a watch. Susan Hayward is really good in this wartime melodrama as the now rather drunken "Eloise", stuck in an unhappy marriage. After one such binge with old school friend "Mary Jane" (Doris Wheeler) she falls asleep and her dream takes her back to happier times with "Walt" (Dana Andrews). This somnial retrospective explains to us quite how she has got herself into her current predicament; how she met (and lost) her beau, her best friend, got married, had a daughter etc. Dana Andrews is that handsome WWII naval officer who, along with some of his pals, crashes a party where he meets the younger "Eloise". They date for a while but her mother (Jessica Royce-Landers) is not keen and when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbour, everyone's life is turned upside down... Now, the way the story is being told to us reveals from the start that this is not a film with an happy ending, so we ought not to expect a complex plot - this is a love story that epitomises so many a young couple brought together and driven asunder by war. Hayward plays her character powerfully. Sometimes playful and mischievous, sometimes angry and frustrated - but always with conviction and that is what draws, and keeps, our attention. Andrews is fine, he does his job well enough but his character doesn't have anything like as much to work with as the star, and in this film Hayward is most certainly that. It has a few potent scenes with Brian Keith - her dad "Henry", and there is, of course, that beautiful Victor Young/Ned Washington title song that though maybe repeated just once or twice too often (usually in instrumental refrain) is icing on the cake for this superior story of how one gets onto the slippery slope.