Le fond du problème

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.

Scobie was perhaps the most tortured of all of Graham Greene's tortured Catholics and he's played magnificently by that most underrated of great actors, Trevor Howard in George More O'Ferrall's mostly superb and largely forgotten screen version of "The Heart of the Matter". One reason Scobie is such a tortured Catholic is that he is torn between the faith he's largely lost since the death of his daughter and his love for a young refugee, (another wonderful performance from Maria Schell); he's happy to sleep with her but thinks he will go to hell if he takes Holy Communion while in mortal sin.

This is a wonderfully acted picture throughout; Howard and Schell may have the best of it but note too Elizabeth Allan, she of "A Tale of Two Cities" and "David Copperfield", as Scobie's adulterous wife, Denholm Elliot as the young man besotted by her and Gerard Oury as the diamond smuggler who blackmails Scobie. The plot may be a trifle grim and all that Catholic guilt proved too much for audiences at the time which may account for why the film is seldom revived now. An acquired taste then, but essential viewing for anyone interested in the art of acting.

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.

After watching The Heart Of The Matter for all the exotic atmosphere of a film set in Sierra Leone during World War II what the film boils down to essentially is a Catholic soap opera. Which would follow since it is based on a Graham Greene novel. Had lead character Trevor Howard not been Catholic, would this story had even occurred.

Howard gives a capable performance of a British colonial policeman who is stationed in Sierra Leone caught up in a mid life crisis. He's fallen out of love with wife Elizabeth Allan whom he sends away on money borrowed from a man who the authorities suspect of smuggling, an offensive looked at even more during wartime.

He also embarks on an affair with Maria Schell, an Austrian refugee who were others had been on a life raft for 40 days at sea after Allan has been sent away. That and the fact that he now has the appearance of impropriety has his superiors questioning him after accusations were brought by another civilian Denholm Elliott.

Nothing like Catholic guilt. His theological musings with Father Peter Finch bring him no solace. Howard's troubles are big, but he's his own harshest judge as per his religion.

Although The Heart Of The Matter was well received and it is a well acted story, it hasn't aged well in the past 60 years since it first came out. If anything it's one serious argument against Catholicism should one be considering converting.