The Astonished Heart

Yes, dated, yes, stiff, yes, mannered, yes, upper class twaddle, yes, Noel looks 99 years old, yes, wet, yes, blinkered clipped and indoors... BUT what a script! I had never seen this 1950 film which delves well into adultery and gay relationships and (in one jaw-dropper throwaway scene, an incest/son-mother proxy moment where a mother is aghast at her sex drive for a boy 'younger than her son who looks just like......him'...)... While it is easy to sneer and carry on being superior to the 'drama'... THE ASTONISHED HEART is a very well behaved and quite intelligent dissecting of a weak marriage falling into lust by a man who knows what it means, how it is caused and what the result will be... and that therein is the thrill of it: He knows and he still cannot stop falling. Don't ridicule this film, enjoy its melodrama and manners. It is a really intelligent adult film from the post war years of Britain when everyone was sick of... waiting....!

The Astonished Heart (1950)

Well, Noel Coward is above all a writer, and this is a sharp, well written, and contemporary (for 1950) drama. It is acerbic and witty, and it has a dry style you'd be forgiven for calling British (everyone else does) but it is most of all effective. And the story deals with that most basic of human dramas, falling in love when you shouldn't.

Coward was most of all a playwright, and he defines the sophisticated, dry, somewhat emotionally removed culture that was present in mid-Century London (and most of well off Britain). The particular material was originally a short play from 1935, and it actually still feels a little pre-War, not in any overt sense, but in its flavor, it's lack of feeling of post-war sensibilities in film as much as theater. But this isn't a bad thing--the play is about things outside of any one era. In fact, the much better 1945 movie "Brief Encounter" is also based on a short play from the same period, and deals with adultery, as well. And there is a reference to a pilot being shot down in the war, an adjustment made for the times.

By the way, adultery has always been in issue in classic (1930s-50s) movies when it butted up against the Hays code. In Britain, the "O'Connor" rules were something similar but were eventually more flexible. British movies did face American censors for release in the U.S., and the whole atmosphere of the commercial movie industry was to avoid getting into trouble. So the key result was that characters who did bad things had to meet bad ends.

Coward is a terrific actor in this kind of role. Like many actors of his generation, he plays the same kind of person in all this movies, but plays them (or it) so well that's all that matters. Of course, he's the main character in his own play, which is under his control. The two women around him, both little known to American audiences (the Celia Johnson is a wonder as his wife), are spot on perfect in those kinds of cultured London upper crust roles. All is well except love. They discuss their affairs with a kind of dispassion that makes the psychiatry dialog in the movie steamy by comparison. It's all very admirable and pathetic (by our more expressive standards) at the same time. And good movie material.

Never mind that the music is overly dramatic at times (Coward wrote the music, too!), or that it can be so talky it betrays its theatrical roots (as a play). This is a solid drama, and a serious one, and one many of us can relate to. And if "Blithe Spirit" or "Brief Encounter" are better entries to Coward's writing, this shows him as an actor extremely well.

Years ago, when I was in high school, I read a book that evaluated the leading West End acting giants of the first half of the twentieth century (or more exactly, those who were the big names from 1925 - 1971). They were Sir Lawrence Olivier, Sir John Guilgud, Dame Edith Evans, Sir Ralph Richardson, Sir Michael Redgrave, Dame Peggy Ashcroft, and Sir Noel Coward. The appearance of these seven stars guaranteed large public interest and box office in those years. One could probably add Sir John Mills, Sir Alec Guinness, and Dame Sybil Thorndyke to this group. What is curious about them is that they were not equally successful in movie careers. Evans gave some nice performances (her role in "Tom Jones" was very funny, as was her classic Lady Bracknell in "The Importance Of Being Earnest") but outside of England she never caught on. Same with Sybil Thorndyke, and Peggy Ashcroft only achieved really good international fame in her late years for her Oscar performance in "A Passage To India". Of the men, Olivier and Guilgud won Oscars (technically Olivier got two, one for his career and one for best actor in "Hamlet"; Guilgud got one for best supporting actor in "Arthur"). Mills and Guinness would also get Oscars (the former for best supporting actor for "Ryan's Daughter"; the latter for "The Bridge On The River Kwai" and for his career). Richardson and Redgrave got nominated, but never won the award.

And then there was Sir Noel. Of the group he had the best theatrical reputation of all (even more than Olivier, who was a director of the new National Theater in the 1960s). After all Coward wrote plays and operettas, and composed music. He was a successful cabaret singer. He did win a special Oscar (for his wartime film, "In Which They Serve)." As the second most successful 20th Century English dramatist after Shaw he was established. There was just one fly in the ointment. Except for a handful of films in his career that he appeared in, he was a terrible film actor.

If you doubt this think of the movie credits of Olivier, Redgrave (yes Michael Redgrave), Richardson, Guilgud, Guinness, and Mills, and compare them with the paucity of titles for Coward. His two movie roles of note are "Bunny Lake is Missing" (where he plays a pervert), and "Our Man In Havana" where he plays a middle management spy master - and is somewhat cornered by the lies that Alec Guinness has submitted in his reports. You might, if you are willing to give him some brownie points, acknowledge "The Scoundrel", where he is a nasty, egotistical publisher - he is allowed to play a bit with the role, but he has not written the bon mots that are dropped by his publisher (Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur did).

There is nobody to share the blame for this movie with. Based on a play by Coward, you would think that it is worthwhile. Ah, but his best plays were comedies like "Hay Fever" and "Blithe Spirit". His most successful dramatic play was "Brief Encounter", which was brilliant when David Lean directed it with Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson. But Lean is not directing this, and Coward is playing the lead part.

The problem with Coward is he tends to the sentimental. Even though he writes very funny, brittle dialog he does not resolve issues in a normal way at all. The conclusion of "Blithe Spirit" is Charles Condimine leaves the house with the spirits of his two warring ex-wives to fight it out while he sees the rest of the world. In the movie this was changed, but the stage production ends with Charles triumphant over two warring ghosts! Hardly realistic that. "Hay Fever" ends with the guests of the four members of a theater family sneaking out of the house to avoid spending another moment with these selfish nuts if they can avoid it. But the nuts learn nothing from this - they will continue forever as before. Somehow another dramatist might have had one of the nuts realize who was actually to blame.

In "The Astonished Heart", Coward plays a psychiatrist who is wrapped up in his work. He does not really notice his wife's old friend when he is introduced to her, but rather continues his researches and writings (he also reveals that the title comes from a passage in the Old Testament referring to "astonishment of heart"). Eventually Coward does develop an interest in the old friend, so they start an affair. The film follows the problems between the three points of the triangle, and the eventual tragedy it leads to.

The actors try, but the audience really cannot get into them or their conflicts, although the gradual cooling of the affair does strike one as a most honest and realistic touch. That is only because the psychiatrist is such a pitifully dull fellow one can't see what the friend really saw in him. The film leaves one pretty cold. Sir Noel would return to his stage and cabaret work, which was far more rewarding than this. I'm glad for his sake he did. Unfortunately he still made occasional film appearances, most of which were eminently forgettable.

In motion pictures, we have many different artistic disciplines coming together to make one finished product. In some films, there are elements that have great artistic merit, while other elements fall short.

Recently, I watched THE ASTONISHED HEART. Noel Coward wrote the original play, the screenplay and even performed the lead role in the film. I guess years later, he made fun of his performance, calling himself a bad actor. But he also wrote the score for this project, and I must say that even though the story is not one of his best, and his acting is not as good as other men of his generation, he has crafted a most superb musical composition. The movie should be watched just to enjoy the soundtrack alone!

So, do we call THE ASTONISHED HEART a masterpiece, or a flop? Is it art or something less than art? Even the creator (Mr. Coward) seems to offer conflicting testimony. But I think it does have artistic merit, and I am sure others do, too.

The chance to see Noel Coward perform any one of his works is never to be passed up. But The Astonished Heart is inflated out of all proportion from what began as a small one act playlet, part of an octet that comprised Tonight At 8:30.

Another of the playlets from this group was also similarly inflated by MGM as a vehicle for Norma Shearer and Melvyn Douglas. There just was not enough there to warrant the inflation. Coward does marginally better when he inflates it himself.

The English are so terribly civilized about infidelity. That must be the reason that there was never the equivalent of the state of Nevada, a Reno where spouses can soak the adulterer in court. I'm thinking that this particular Coward work did not play well in America as opposed to others.

Coward after years of what was a humdrum marriage to Celia Johnson falls hard for Margaret Leighton who is both beautiful and treacherous. She's an old friend of Johnson's who drops in and one night when Johnson can't make a social engagement, Coward takes Leighton and he descends down hill from there.

Coward in the story is a psychiatrist, a profession that's supposed to have all the answers for human behavior. But his training hasn't given him any answers. Johnson might just take him back, but he can't bring himself to make a move. It all ends badly.

As we know Coward was gay and this film offers us a rare chance to see Graham Payn who was his partner in life and whose career was mostly on the English stage. Payn plays an office assistant to Coward. But I wonder if some previous relationship went bad for him and Coward being the good story teller that he is was writing about something that happened in his own life.

He also understood the human psyche well and certainly pride can be a double edged weapon in our character. It's pride that keeps Coward from doing the right thing all around.

Coward did a far better job than MGM did in inflating one of his short plays to a full blown drama. But while it's good, it's not up there with Private Lives or Blithe Spirit.