Cuori umani

This is a story about family relationships, set in the time before and during the American Civil War. Ethan Wilkins is a poor and honest man who ministers to the human soul, while his son Jason yearns to be a doctor, helping people in the earthly realm. It is a compelling story about striving for excellence, the reality and tension fathers and sons can experience when a son comes of age, and the love of a mother that can never die.

While both inspiring and at times reminding us of our own failures, it provides a message of hope as well. There is a richness here that is timeless. This film develops its characters at the beginning, not rushing to get to the point. You get to know them. The Civil War elements are very much in the background and clearly secondary to the main theme. This is not a war movie. It is a story about real people.

The surprise at the end of this drama is both forceful and full of genuine emotion. A absolute must see for John Huston and Jimmy Stewart fans, and deserves to be a classic in its own right. Easily one of Stewart's best.

This was directed by Clarence Brown and stars Walter Huston and Jimmy Stewart. The movie starts out with Huston arriving in a small Ohio town before The Civil War with his wife and son. The people agreed to pay Huston $400 dollars a year but Guy Kibbee talks them down to $250 but Huston doesn't seem to mind and his son does. Kibbee tries to take advantage of Huston but he knows how to take care of himself and he is pretty tough with his son. His son becomes friends with Charles Coburn who is the town doctor but is a drunk and his father doesn't like it. The son then grows up to become James Stewart and he is interested in becoming a doctor but his family is poor and can't afford to send him. Stewart eventually becomes a doctor during the Civil War and John Carradine has a cameo as Abraham Lincoln, even though you can't recognize him.

I tuned into this movie at the point where James Stewart's character was summoned from the battlefield to meet with President Abraham Lincoln. I didn't know what had transpired previously in the movie and was waiting to see why the president would take time to speak to him.

I won't divulge all the details of the conversation but I kept thinking during the scene that this is one of the best portrayals of Lincoln I've ever seen. Physically the actor was very convincing and his demeanor was of the type I would except him to have. I finally recognized the voice of John Carradine.

I actually think that Abraham Lincoln could have had a conversation like the one in the movie with a regular soldier. He met with many rank and file people during the war. It was a great scene, well written and produced in my opinion.

This movie is a reminder of the treasures we have to enjoy from the early eras of movie-making. Walter Huston portrays a minister who has sensitivity and understanding for his parishioners but is bound by the restrictive morals of his background. The story takes place in the period before and during the Civil War. The minister has moments when he really is an admirable man; he even has the courage to grab and stop a runaway horse. That horse becomes a thread that winds through the rest of the movie. However, his treatment of his young son is a good example of why ministers' children are often described as troubled. Beaulah Bondi plays the saintly wife/mother whose love binds the family. Her unconditional love and sacrifice first console the boy and then elicit a narrow selfishness from the boy when he leaves home and goes to medical school in Baltimore.

There are some wonderful moments in this movie. It is notable that James Stewart could play such a callow young man who takes advantage of his mother's generosity.

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.