Heartbeat (1946)

Absolutely Fantastic

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

HEARTBEAT is one of the most overt adult fairy tales that you'll come across, its storybook wedding at the end dropping any hint of realism. Such movies live or die by their charm or lack of such, and while I've little doubt that the French original was oozing with that quality, HEARTBEAT only sporadically compels a quiet smile on its audience's faces. Too much of it leaves us waiting for something to happen, and not much ever does.Ginger Rogers was certainly too old to play her character effectively (she was nearly twice Arlette's given age) and you can see her trying too hard to convey a girlish freshness and naivete with her performance (ironically, these are qualities that she specialized in during her dances with Fred Astaire). I originally thought Jean-Pierre Aumont's performance to be very dull, but a second viewing suggested that it was much more the writing than anything lacking in what Aumont was doing. Adolphe Menjou has little to do, and while Basil Rathbone brings energy and a sense of fun to proceedings that desperately needed these qualities, he disappears through the final 2/3 of the picture. A movie about his school for pickpockets would have been a lot easier to sit through than the plodding romance that we got.I was surprised to learn that HEARTBEAT, despite being a fairly high- budgeted project, earned a decent profit for RKO Studios. It's not terrible, but that's a bit more than it deserved.

Lets get this out of the way right off the top, Ginger Rogers is too old for her part in this film! True she looks very lovely and far younger than the 35 years she was when this was made, perhaps 25 or 26, but she is supposed to be an 18 year old escapee from a reform school and there is no amount of soft focus that could make that believable.As far as the rest of the film its a mediocre effort wasting the other two assets it has on hand, Adolph Menjou and Basil Rathbone, in small parts. The story itself is rather ridiculous held up by the talent involved but it's wasted effort. A forgettable enterprise, all the stars have made better films that should be sought out instead.

GINGER ROGERS again is photographed in soft focus so that she can fool the camera lens into having us believe her as an 18 year-old girl who is taught to be a pick-pocket at a crime school run by no less than BASIL RATHBONE. Encouraged to become a petty thief, she is sent off to ply her trade and soon finds herself caught up in a romantic liaison with a wealthy Frenchman JEAN-PIEREE AMOUNT.In outline, the story sounds like it would have a lot of potential as a charming romantic comedy. And sometimes it almost works. Rathbone does a smoothly professional job as her crime school mentor and ADOLPHE MENJOU adds sophistication to the supporting cast. But Ginger remains unconvincing throughout, sadly miscast in a role that could only have been carried off by an actress who was young enough to assume such a role.Whatever tricks of photography were needed to photograph Rogers in a soft glow are simply wasted. She's never for a moment convincing as an ingénue and the film should have been scrapped once it was revealed that the casting mistake would ruin the story. Alas, another misfire for Rogers during a period which alternated between good and bad roles in some films that ranged from mediocre to excellent.Summing up: Hardly worth your time.

This film, although not among Ginger Rogers best work, is certainly worth checking out. As usual she is most engaging--she plays a teen (she was actually 35) somewhat convincingly. She has run away from a girls reformatory and is recruited by Professor Aristide (Basil Rathbone), who runs a pickpocket academy in Paris. She is assigned a pickpocketing "job" by a corrupt ambassador (Adolph Menjou). Of course along the way she meets a man (Jean-Pierre Aumont), falls in love and well, you get the drift. The supporting cast is also entertaining most notably Adolph Menjou, although one doesn't see Basil Rathbone nearly enough here. At times the story is slow moving and quite predictable, but when Ginger is on the screen her beauty,charm and magnetism more than compensate for this. If you are a fan of Ginger Rogers, Adolph Menjou or Basil Rathbone this largely forgotten film is worth a look.