Must See Movie...

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I really liked the look of this movie, the way the period was portrayed. Charles Coburn's performance was very nicely done, understated.I had heard about this film for many years, but had not had an opportunity to see it until recently. If you are not someone who watches a lot of early melodramatic movies I can see why this would not be for you, but I wouldn't let it be known that I'd sat through it five times just so I could speak with authority on how awful a movie it is.Like one of the other writers, I was also puzzled by the loud chirping birds in the background of some of the scenes.I kept waiting for this to be explained but it was not.And the scene withLincoln, I was sure was going to turn out to be a dream sequence, with Jimmy Stewart's character's guilt having caught up with him. But alas, the filmmakers really did want us to believe the President would pull a doctor off the front lines to scold him for neglecting his mother.Overall I liked it. I'll have to watch five more times just to enjoy the old man who leads the choir by striking the tuning fork on his shoe, apparently unable to hear it because he hums in another key, and begins singing in still another.

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.

It's wonderful to see a cast of tremendous actors and what they can do with a nothing script. The Abraham Lincoln in this one is perfect -- and a real surprise if you don't know who is playing him. The thought that the President of the U.S. would take time out to speak with one single soldier during the Civil War and admonish him for not writing his mother is quaint and farfetched. Or is it? Even the horse is good in this movie! A real treat for movie buffs.

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.