MOVIEmeter
SEE RANK
Up 1,122 this week

Random Harvest (1942)

7.7
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 7.7/10 from 3,940 users  
Reviews: 88 user | 19 critic

An amnesiac World War I vet falls in love with a music hall star, only to suffer an accident which restores his original memories but erases his post-War life.

Director:

Writers:

(screenplay), (screenplay), 2 more credits »
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 964 titles created 10 Mar 2012
 
a list of 1418 titles created 10 months ago
 
a list of 1623 titles created 4 months ago
 
a list of 2916 titles created 16 May 2011
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: Random Harvest (1942)

Random Harvest (1942) on IMDb 7.7/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of Random Harvest.
Nominated for 7 Oscars. Another 1 win. See more awards »
Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Now, Voyager (1942)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

Boston spinster blossoms under therapy and finds impossible romance.

Director: Irving Rapper
Stars: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

An aged teacher and former headmaster of a boarding school recalls his career and his personal life over the decades.

Director: Sam Wood
Stars: Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Terry Kilburn
The Heiress (1949)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

A young naive woman falls for a handsome young man who her emotionally abusive father suspects is a fortune hunter.

Director: William Wyler
Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson
The Quiet Man (1952)
Comedy | Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.9/10 X  

A retired American boxer returns to the village where he was born in Ireland, where he finds love.

Director: John Ford
Stars: John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Barry Fitzgerald
Romance | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.1/10 X  

Meeting a stranger in a railway station, a woman is tempted to cheat on her husband.

Director: David Lean
Stars: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

A servant in the house of Wuthering Heights tells a traveler the unfortunate tale of lovers Cathy and Heathcliff.

Director: William Wyler
Stars: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven
Dark Victory (1939)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.4/10 X  

A young socialite is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour, and must decide whether she'll meet her final days with dignity.

Director: Edmund Goulding
Stars: Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart
Marty (1955)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

Two lonely people have almost resigned themselves to never being truly loved.

Director: Delbert Mann
Stars: Esther Minciotti, Augusta Ciolli, Betsy Blair
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.4/10 X  

Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five unmarried daughters, and Mrs. Bennet is especially eager to find suitable husbands for them. When the rich single gentlemen Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy come to ... See full summary »

Director: Robert Z. Leonard
Stars: Edward Ashley, Marten Lamont, Greer Garson
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

Joan Webster is an ambitious and stubborn middle-class English woman determined to move forward since her childhood. She meets her father in a fancy restaurant to tell him that she will ... See full summary »

Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Stars: Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey, Pamela Brown
Dodsworth (1936)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.9/10 X  

A retired auto manufacturer consents to a European vacation to please his vain wife, who is in denial about her age and uses the trip as a chance to flirt with other men.

Director: William Wyler
Stars: Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Paul Lukas
Camille (1936)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.4/10 X  

A Parisian courtesan must choose between the young man who loves her and the callous baron who wants her, even as her own health begins to fail.

Director: George Cukor
Stars: Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
...
Philip Dorn ...
Susan Peters ...
...
...
'Biffer'
Bramwell Fletcher ...
Harrison
...
Sam
...
Tobacconist
Aubrey Mather ...
Sheldon
Margaret Wycherly ...
Arthur Margetson ...
Chetwynd
Melville Cooper ...
George
...
Julian
Jill Esmond ...
Lydia
Edit

Storyline

A veteran of World War I marries and settles happily into a tidy, humble life until an accident brings back memories of a former life of wealth and privilege while blocking all recollection of his existence since the war. Thus one man disappears, and another man long missing turns up and claims his vast inheritance. What does his devoted wife, whom he no longer recognizes, do? Written by Paul Emmons <pemmons@wcupa.edu>

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Plot Keywords:

memory | music hall | love | amnesia | marriage | See more »

Taglines:

It's Great. Great Stars . . . A Great Story . . . A Great Author! See more »

Genres:

Drama | Romance

Certificate:

Approved | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Country:

Language:

Release Date:

31 August 1943 (Argentina)  »

Also Known As:

En la noche del pasado  »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

| (Turner library print) (copyright length)

Sound Mix:

(Western Electric Sound System)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

In her final years at MGM, Joan Crawford was handed weak scripts in the hopes that she'd break her contract. Two films she hungered to appear in were Random Harvest and Madame Curie. Both films went to bright new star Greer Garson instead, and Crawford left the studio soon after. See more »

Goofs

When Margaret and Charles are examining the suitcase in the hotel office, in one shot the case is closed and in the next shot it is opened and Margaret is fingering the shirt sleeve. See more »

Quotes

Smithy: [Rainier proposed to Ms. Hanson] You and I are in the same boat, Miss Hanson; we're both ghost-ridden. We are prisoners of our past. What if we were to pool our loneliness, and give each other what little we have to give support, friendship? I'm proposing marriage, Miss Hanson, or should I call it a merger? A Member of Parliament should have a wife, Margaret; so I'm told on all sides. He needs a clever hostess; you have exceptional gifts. Would it interest you to have a wider field for them? You...
See more »

Connections

Referenced in Cagney & Lacey: Happily Ever After (1985) See more »

Soundtracks

"Oh Perfect Love"
(1889) (uncredited)
Words by Dorothy B. Gurney
Music by Joseph Barnby
Played and sung by an unidentifed organist
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

See more (Spoiler Alert!) »

User Reviews

 
One Of The Three Most Emotionally Satisfying Movies Ever Made.
22 March 2004 | by (New York, N.Y.) – See all my reviews

Along with NOW, VOYAGER and CASABLANCA, RANDOM HARVEST is one of the three most emotionally satisfying movies to ever come out of Hollywood's classic period, and a great example of the best that MGM had to offer in the '40s. Beautifully accomplished in every department from writing to art direction to cinematography to scoring, you have only to watch the first scene (so like REBECCA's) to be drawn in by it and then consistently surprised and entertained. And reading the 28 other comments here, I am struck by the unanimity of opinion -- because what makes the contrived plot believable scene by scene, and what causes the picture as a whole to live so warmly in the memory, is the unbeatable work from Ronald Colman and Greer Garson.

More than MRS. MINIVER, this is the archetypal Garson performance: her tact, gentle humor and intelligent restraint are in perfect service to her character and the story. If she seems too starry and aristocratic to be a lowly music hall performer, she is right in every other respect, particularly as an efficient secretary, society hostess and perfect helpmate. And this is Ronald Colman's best work ever. He should have won his Oscar for this lovely, subtle performance rather than for the strained work he did in A DOUBLE LIFE. Full of wistfulness as the amnesiac early in the film, there is real heartbreak in the way he says the line "I would have liked to have belonged to them" about the couple he hopes will turn out to be his parents. But he is just as convincing later as the confident, energetic 'Industrial Prince of England.'

Colman and Garson are the perfect grownup romantic couple: they make intelligence and maturity seem impossibly glamorous, and they embody the idea that friendship, loyalty and mutual respect must be at the center of every enduring love.


39 of 40 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
What IS it with Hollywood costumes of this era? DonnaLevin
The best romantic movie I have ever seen and I hate romantic movies. le-fantome
One day, somebody will re-make this movie robin-310
paula and smithy franny2
The song 'Daisy' countrygirltori
WHY NO DVD peter-west2
Discuss Random Harvest (1942) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?