The Heart of the Matter

Trevor Howard makes the dilemmas facing his character unforgettable. I saw this movie decades ago, and there are scenes - some sensational, some very quiet - that still haunt me. I hope I have the chance to see the movie again - I'd like to share it with my daughter and discuss the theological issues raised with her - and of course, celebrate Howard's marvelous acting.

Trevor Howard is a policeman who tries to get to "The Heart of the Matter" in this 1953 film based on the Graham Greene novel. It also stars Elizabeth Allan and Maria Schell. Howard plays Harry Scobie, a police officer in Sierra Leone. He and his wife have lost their young daughter, and now his wife is miserable in Sierra Leone. In order to get money for a trip for her, Scobie borrows money from an unsavory character - later on, this will lead to problems for him with his superiors. He meets a stranded widow, Helen (Schell), and the two fall in love. When his wife returns, he is faced with a religious dilemma. She is told he has been fooling around. She wants him to go to church with her and take Communion - meaning, of course, that he would have confessed his adulterous sin to the local priest. In fact, the priest comes to the house. The priest cannot accept his confession, because Scobie doesn't believe he can stop seeing Helen. In order to hide this from his wife, he commits the mortal sin of going to communion not in the state of grace.

Stripped down to the religious elements of this film, "The Heart of the Matter" doesn't sound like much. But it has a very high resonance if you're Catholic, suicide is the unforgivable sin, you can't go to communion unless you've been to confession, etc.

Trevor Howard gives a very profound performance as a man who has lost everything except his religion and who describes hell as eternal wanting. As a man who lost sight long ago of what he wants, he lives in a private hell that the surrounding locations only emphasize.

A slow, pessimistic film, a great performance, well worth seeing if you're on antidepressants.

Grahame Greene preferred to be called a 'novelist who happened to be a Catholic' rather than a 'Catholic novelist'.

That he was a master storyteller with a gift for characterisation is indisputable and 'The Heart of the Matter' of 1948 not only proved to be a best seller but has long since been regarded by the literati as one of his finest.

Brought to the screen five years later by a 'capable' director with a first rate cast, its themes of angst-ridden guilt, crisis of Faith, mortal sin, human frailty and failure would hardly be likely to appeal to the average cinema goer and so it proved. The paying public stayed away in droves.

The character of Harry Scobie, a deputy assistant commissioner in Sierra Leone is one of Greene's most complex characters. Described by his neurotic wife as a typical 'second man', as a 'coward' by his equally neurotic younger lover and by his superior as 'Scobie the Just', he goes to great lengths to achieve the well-nigh impossible task of not causing pain or suffering to anyone, even to God! Faced with this moral dilemma he decides to take the only way out.......

The makers of this have resisted the temptation to hire a Hollywood 'name' as Scobie and have cast Trevor Howard. He is absolutely mesmerising in the role and turns in what is arguably his greatest performance. His character's fall from grace is agonising to behold.

All of the performances are uniformly excellent and Maria Schell is at her most touching. The 'chemistry' between her and Howard is palpable.

The direction by George More O'Ferrall is solid but alas rather flat and uninspired.

The script is literate if not literal and the original ending has been changed in an attempt to make it more filmic.

William Golding described Greene as 'the ultimate chronicler of Twentieth Century Man's consciousness and anxiety.' There is a bit too much of both in the novel and any film version would struggle to be commercially viable.

It can still be enjoyed however by those few who recognise and appreciate fine acting.

A fairly good remake of the Graham Greene novel. Though the ending is different from the novel, the tragic theme is prevalent throughout the film. Trevor Howard brings out Scobie's inner torment credibly - as the principled police officer scared of the misery around him. The colonial aspects of the time period are handled well, you can almost feel the heat and humidity and the occasional fevers that rack the body. This combined with good acting, flesh out the Greene novel faithfully. A terrific movie about the machinations of the human conscience, and what it can lead to.

Adapted from one of Graham Greene's "Big 4" "Catholic novels", The Heart of the Matter is notable for its excellent production standards. In an example of literacy audiences differing from those of the cinema, the film is generally accepted as being a commercial failure, I would suggest due to its rather bleak and depressing storyline.

The acting is first class with Trevor Howard excelling as Scobie, the principled expatriate Catholic police officer serving in Sierra Leone. Enmeshed in a loveless marriage with an adulterous wife, he still attempts to do the right thing by all parties, including his wife's smarmy lover Wilson (a fine young Denholm Elliot), as well as do his job professionally, though aware he is to be passed over for promotion for a younger officer. Both his faith and desires however are tested mightily after meeting the young refugee Helen.

The black and white cinematography shot by the great Jack Hildyard on location in Sierra Leone is superb, as is the indigenous, largely percussive soundtrack.

The storyline does parallel much of Greene's life, as he served in Sierra Leone during World War 2, not for the police, but the nascent MI6. The self-confessed "Catholic agnostic", in creating the character of Harry Scobie, forms a template mirroring his own inner torments and depressions, whilst trying to adjust his life to established institutions such as lasting marriage to one person and living one's life according to Catholic doctrines.

Though quite a literal and respectable adaption from Greene's book, this is also arguably the root reason for the film's failure to win much of an audience, apart from those with a fair awareness and interest in Catholicism. Unlike some of Greene's other work embracing aspects of espionage mystery and suspense, this film pretty much eschews any thought of embellishing the story with a police procedural. It serves almost solely as a psychological examination of Scobie's inner demons and challenges. Both the narrative and its conclusion can best be described as unrelentingly harsh and cheerless.

Unsurprisingly, as such, it was never a film likely to gather a large audience, despite its its many production virtues.