Dad's Movies: "Random Harvest"

 I've amassed such a large number of movies on my Plex server that I resorted to hitting Shuffle on the main directory to pick what to watch next. This, from the ones I haven't seen yet, came up, uh, Randomly.

Random Harvest (1942) was probably something my Dad saw when it was released, possibly in between shifts at the factory he worked at during the war building P-51 planes. OK, I don't know this for certain but why not?

This is a pretty classic old Hollywood/MGM glossy romantic melodrama or as they often called them at the time, "Women's Pictures" or "Weepies". This one certainly earns the weepy label with its generous helpings of romance and tragedy. The now-tired amnesia plot device is actually used well in this movie and the movie is paced well enough to give you a real sense of the passage of time. 

Garson and Colman are both great and play the roles with restraint which is welcome for the time. Colman seems a bit old, if I am being picky. There's also the relationship with the much younger woman but this is not out of the ordinary for the time (or now?).

I can see some people not going for this but really for what it is, I feel like it does work. And yes, it IS a tearjerker.