Toujours dans mon coeur

Despite the Warners fanfare and Warners leading lady Kay Francis, it has influences of other studios. There's the multi-ethnic-music-making a la MGM; the also Metro-like mixing of highbrow and lowbrow music; the attempt to launch Gloria Warren as the studio's answer to Universal's Deanna Durbin (she's not bad, but she's not Deanna); "funny" musicians led by Borah Minevitch, sort of like RKO's Kay Kyser, or Spike Jones; and a melodramatic premise that would embarrass anybody. The small-California-town ambiance, with everybody nice to everybody, and smiling mailmen and ice cream men and such, is so dated it seems to belong to another planet. The plot, with Kay Francis planning to marry rich but unlikable Sidney Blackmer, then finding out that her convict husband Walter Huston is still alive and paroled, is absolutely ridiculous. And yet, and yet. Huston, one of the three or four best actors American movies ever had, underplays everything so beautifully that you're hooked. Watch him watch his unsuspecting kids who don't know he's their dad, or singing the appealing title song in that high, heart-tugging voice of his to his daughter, I got teary. The director pitches the emotions too high and cuts too rapidly (at times it approaches MTV pacing), and the ethnic stereotypes are grating--lots of "ot'sa fine" Italians, and just guess which harmonica player in Minevitch's band swings it hot. Not a good movie, and yet, thanks to Huston, and, to a lesser extent, the ladylike Francis (who sure knew how to wear a hat), I couldn't stop watching.

Walter Huston and Kay Francis starred in this 1942 film.

Ms. Francis plays a middle class woman with 2 children, who supposedly is widowed. Wealthy Sidney Blackmer wishes to marry her.

It turns out that she is not widowed. She divorced her husband after he was sent to prison for killing a man. Both children have been told that their father is dead.

As Huston is about to be pardoned, Francis arrives at the prison to tell him that she is remarrying. Thinking only of her happiness and security for their children, Huston does not tell Francis of the pardon but instead encourages the marriage.

Huston, upon release, settles in a fishing area around San Francisco. Of course, he meets his children but says nothing.

Naturally, the children find out what they are and the film ends where he saves his son from a drunk and daughter, when she goes out in a storm in a boat.

There are some musical interludes in this as the daughter is training to be an opera singer. Huston does a little singing and there are several sequences where groups of fishermen turn to their harmonicas.

I hadn't seen this film for years, and then I only remembered parts of it. The parts I did remember were the dialogue scenes between Kay Francis and estranged hubby Walter Huston, and between Huston and the children who do not know him. This part of the film is very good and made me want to see it again.

When I saw it again the other night for the first time in years on TCM I was horrified. Worse, I was somewhat bored. Either I never saw or my memory blocked out the musical portions. Obviously, Warner Bros. was trying to turn Gloria Warren into their own Deanna Durbin, but she just lacked the "star quality" Durbin had and was a completely uninteresting actress, at least in this film.

The film could have been a great one if the music had been eliminated and the focus kept on the melodrama - a man (Walter Huston) getting out of prison and giving up a woman who loves him and his children so they can all have some security with a rather bland fellow who wants to marry the woman (Kay Francis). Instead, Huston paces from the "good" side of town where we are tormented by Warren's operatic screeching, to the bad side of town where a novelty harmonica band act torments us some more. Just goes to proves bad music has a home in both the low-brow and high-brow varieties.

What gets five stars from me is the warm family story and the title song, "Always In My Heart" which is really quite beautiful and a bit of a theme song for the entire situation portrayed in the film.

If you want to see what Kay Francis and Walter Huston can do for a film without all of this distraction thrown in, try to track down a copy of "Gentlemen of the Press". There they really sizzle.

Walter Huston, Kay Francis and Gloria Warren star in "Always in My Heart," a 1942 film featuring Sidney Blackmer, Frankie Thomas and Una O'Connor. Francis plays "Mudge," a woman whose ex-husband (Huston) is in prison. She is getting ready to marry again, this time to a wealthy man, Philip (Blackmer). Her daughter Vicky (Warren) doesn't care for him, but her son (Marty (Thomas) likes his money.

Mudge goes to see her former husband, a talented musician, in prison to tell him that if there's any chance of a pardon, she'll wait for him; he lies and says there's no chance, although he already has one (he was innocently involved in a shady business deal; a fight broke out, and a man died). He wants her to remarry and the kids to be taken care of. The children have been told he's dead.

When he's released, he goes into their home town to get a look at the kids and ends up staying in "Fish Town," an Italian community, where he works and plays his music. It's through music that he bonds with Vicky, who wants to be a singer. Meanwhile, he watches his son, who is dating a street smart woman who's a little older than he is and becomes concerned.

This is a very sweet film with some enjoyable music and operatic singing by Warren. With the success of Deanna Durbin, the studios apparently all scrambled for their own version.

Warren had a well-trained, small coloratura voice that had a very high sound to it (everything she sang sounded as if it started about an octave higher than anyone else's music), the kind of voice very popular back in the days of the French soprano, Lily Pons. She was dark and pretty with a certain appeal, but the voice didn't have the versatility of Durbin's, nor was she as charismatic.

Huston, of course, does a beautiful job as her father. Francis looks fantastic and gives a lovely performance. Warner Brothers was just about to dump her. Una O'Connor is very funny as the housekeeper, and while some may have found her annoying, I thought Patti Hale, who played O'Connor's granddaughter, was adorable.

If you're a Kay Francis fan, a Walter Huston fan, or an opera fan, you should enjoy "Always in my Heart."

Always In My Heart was taken from the play Fly Away Home which ran for 204 performances in 1935. In the original Broadway cast, Thomas Mitchell was the star in the role that Walter Huston played on screen. And a 15 year old Montgomery Clift made his stage debut in the role of the son.

During the interim before it reached the screen the film that became known as Always In My Heart was adapted for the wartime present. It also became a musical of sorts with one original song written for it, You're Always In My Heart and some classical and standard pop songs filling out the score. Because it was a musical the emphasis went away from the son and father to the daughter and father with Gloria Warren who Jack Warner was obviously building up to be his answer to Universal's Deanna Durbin. Warren sang pretty, but never quite made it as a second Durbin.

Walter Huston is the father of Frankie Thomas and Gloria Warren who was in jail for about 15 years and was pardoned. During that time he divorced their mother Kay Francis at his insistence. He figured he was going to be in jail for life as that was the sentence meted out to him for a homicide of a business partner who doubledealed him. The kids were told he died and Francis is now ready to marry the stuffy, but rich Sidney Blackmer.

Stopping by the house and not meeting Francis, Huston ingratiates himself with Warren when he tunes her piano and in that displays the musical knowledge and gift he's passed on to Warren. They develop a relationship of sorts as Huston decides to hang around see his kids for a few days before exiting their lives.

Thomas is getting his hormones in an uproar over the sexy Amida on this California coast town, but she's only using him to make her boy friend Anthony Caruso jealous. He's in need of some fatherly advice even if he doesn't know it's his father. As for Warren she likes singing with the poor fisher folk living on the wharves with their harmonica band led by Borrah Minevitch. Blackmer does not approve of her associating with the lower classes.

Towards the downside of her career, Kay Francis gradually transitioned into mother roles, if the film had been done at MGM, Greer Garson might have been cast. She and Huston do well together in their joint scenes.

The title song for Always In My Heart received an Academy Award nomination as the Best Song, the only nomination the film received. But this was the year of White Christmas and no other song was going to win the Oscar that year.

Certain things in the film tell me that the original play was a great deal more serious. The changes were made in keeping with wartime years as Gloria Warren the Harmonica Rascals led by Borrah Minevitch were aiming at both a USO show and a big radio contract. Of course Warren is also aiming to study seriously as well.

The changes leave Always In My Heart quite a hybrid film, not quite drama and not quite comedy. Still it's a pleasant enough film with the cast doing very well by their roles.