--- title: "Random Harvest" year: 1942 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/random-harvest" fi1m_score: 76 critics_score: 73 critics_reviews: 6 published: "2026-09-20T00:50:22.256493+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T00:50:22.589127+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Random Harvest (1942) Directed by Mervyn LeRoy · 2h 05m · MPA NR · Romance, Drama **Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 73 from 6 reviews *In a sentence:* Ronald Colman forgets Greer Garson, and the film spends the next hour daring you not to shout at him > The amnesia plot is contrived past defending, and we stopped defending it early. Colman and Garson play a love story in which one of them cannot remember it, and they play it so quietly that the studio’s soft edges hardly matter. ## Synopsis Armistice night, November 1918. In the asylum at Melbridge, a shell-shocked officer with no name and no memory (Ronald Colman), known to the staff only as Smith, walks out unnoticed while the whole town is celebrating in the streets. He gets as far as a tobacconist’s shop, where Paula (Greer Garson), a singer with a touring music-hall company, takes one look at him and decides he needs looking after. She keeps him away from the police, nurses him through a fever and takes him to a cottage in the country, where they marry and he starts to write. Dr. Sims (Henry Travers), back at the asylum, has been kind to him but could promise nothing. When a newspaper offers him work, he takes the train to Liverpool to meet the editor. ## Review Mervyn LeRoy’s film, from James Hilton’s novel, asks us to accept a great deal. A soldier comes home from the First World War with no name and no memory, is taken in by a music-hall singer, marries her, and then loses those years to a knock on the head that gives him back everything he had before. The screenplay, by Arthur Wimperis, George Froeschel and Claudine West, presents this with a straight face, and so does Ronald Colman. The plot is ridiculous. We stopped minding within twenty minutes, and that is the film’s achievement. The first act is the happiest stretch. Colman plays the amnesiac as a frightened, well-mannered man who apologises for existing; he stammers, he stands too straight, and he watches doors. Greer Garson finds him in a tobacconist’s on Armistice night and decides, on no evidence, that he is worth saving. She does a music-hall turn in a kilt that is not much of a turn, and the film knows it; what matters is that he laughs. Cedric Gibbons gives them a cottage with a cherry tree in the garden, so plainly a set that it stops pretending and becomes a postcard, which is what the story needs. Then Liverpool, a taxi, and the film changes gear. Colman becomes Charles Rainier, heir to an industrial fortune, and plays him as another man: quick, dry, a little cold, good at business and unable to say why he feels he has misplaced something. The switch is done without make-up or tricks, in the shoulders and the speed of the speech, and it is the best thing Colman does. Susan Peters, as Kitty, the girl in the Rainier household who sets her heart on him, gives the middle of the film a fresh, unguarded voice. She is the only person in it who says what she wants out loud. The second half turns on an arrangement we will not describe. What we can say is that Garson carries it almost alone, and that she does it by doing almost nothing. There is a scene a little past the hour in which she stands in an office doorway, Colman looks up with polite interest and nothing more, and we found we could not swallow. The reason is his face: not blank, but courteous, the look you give a competent stranger. The film repeats that cruelty for the best part of an hour, and it hurts a little more each time, because she has decided not to say anything. Herbert Stothart’s score does what a 1942 studio score did: it tells you the feeling a bar before the actors do, and at the cottage it is laid on so thick we winced. In the quieter office scenes he has the sense to stop. Harold F. Kress carries the years with dissolves over newspapers and the blossom on the cherry tree, which is corny and quick and works. Robert Kalloch dresses Garson first in music-hall tartan and later in the plainest grey suits he can find, so we read the change in her before anyone speaks. The photography is soft and silvery, with fog brought in whenever a character is confused, which is often. The England is a Hollywood backlot England: Una O’Connor’s tobacconist squawks, the pub kept by Reginald Owen’s “Biffer” has never seen rain, and every villager sounds as if they learned Cockney from a gramophone. LeRoy made his name on hard, fast pictures, *Little Caesar* (1931) and [*I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang*](https://film.one/film/i-am-a-fugitive-from-a-chain-gang) (1932), and there is none of that pace here. The film runs 125 minutes and takes its time on purpose, and the slowness is the right call more often than not. Where it fails is in the doctors. Henry Travers’s Dr. Sims explains amnesia at the start and Philip Dorn’s Dr. Benet keeps being sent on to explain it again later. The film does not trust its own premise and keeps producing a man in a white coat to reassure us. It was made in the middle of a war, for audiences full of women whose men were away and might come back changed. That accounts for its hold then. It does not entirely explain why it still works on a sofa in peacetime with the lights on. Bring a handkerchief and do not bring anyone who likes to point out plot holes; there are several, they are all real, and by the last reel we could not have told you why they mattered. *Fi1m score 76, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics warm to Random Harvest, and the praise gathers around its two leads. Ronald Colman and Greer Garson are singled out again and again, with Variety finding Garson charming enough to overshadow her co-star, and Mervyn LeRoy’s direction is generally credited with keeping the sentiment under some control. Several reviews describe the film as moving rather than merely sentimental, and the scene in which Colman’s character fails to return to Garson is picked out as the moment that does the work. The reservations concern plausibility and age. Nearly every review concedes that the amnesia-and-chance plot strains belief; Time Out goes furthest, calling it remarkably contrived, though it stops short of dismissing the film. Empire finds the MGM polish cloying and parts of it clunky, and Sight and Sound notes jarring details in its picture of England. The spread is narrow, running from warm to tolerant, with no outright rejection. ### Reviews we read (6) - **Radio Times**, Tony Sloman (4/5): Praises it as one of the best-loved movies of all time, genuinely moving under LeRoy's masterly direction with superb stars and story. Singles out the emotional hook when Colman does not return to Garson. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-fe6puh/random-harvest/) - **Sight and Sound** (80/100, inferred): Calls it a most affecting film thanks to the acting of Garson and Colman. Notes some jarring details in the reproduction of English scenes but praises Susan Peters' performance. [Read](http://old.bfi.org.uk/features/ultimatefilm/chart/details.php?ranking=38) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (80/100, inferred): The adaptation of James Hilton's novel under LeRoy's direction achieves more than average importance as a wartime romance. Colman and Garson deliver strong performances, with Garson particularly charming and overshadowing her co-star. [Read](https://variety.com/1941/film/reviews/random-harvest-2-1200413836/) - **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (75/100, inferred): The film is a sentimental tale of love lost and regained through amnesia and chance, directed with slow tempo to emphasize poignant moods. Crowther finds it overpowering in its emotional strain yet notes some implausibility in the plot. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1942/12/18/archives/random-harvest-with-greer-garson-and-ronald-colman-from-james.html) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (65/100, inferred): The critic praises the smooth direction and strong lead performances from Ronald Colman and Greer Garson in this sentimental wartime tearjerker, noting how it boosted their careers and resonated with audiences. However, the production now feels cloyingly MGM and a bit dated or clunky in places. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/random-harvest-review/) - **Time Out**, PT (60/100, inferred): Describes the plot as remarkably contrived and quotes a scathing James Agee line, but concludes that the froth does not taste that bad. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/random-harvest) ## Details - **Director:** Mervyn LeRoy - **Director:** Mervyn LeRoy - **Screenplay:** Claudine West, George Froeschel, Arthur Wimperis - **Novel:** James Hilton - **Editor:** Harold F. Kress - **Music:** Herbert Stothart - **Production design:** Cedric Gibbons - **Costume design:** Robert Kalloch - **Producer:** Sidney Franklin - **Cast:** Ronald Colman as Charles Rainier; Greer Garson as Paula; Philip Dorn as Dr. Jonathan Benet; Susan Peters as Kitty; Henry Travers as Dr. Sims; Reginald Owen as "Biffer"; Bramwell Fletcher as Harrison; Rhys Williams as Sam - **Runtime:** 2h 05m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 17 December 1942 - **Genres:** Romance, Drama - **Budget:** $1 million - **Box office:** $8 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P12UUGhe_mQ ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: JP, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1943: Best Actor (nominated); Best Art Direction, Black and White (nominated); Best Director (nominated); Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Supporting Actress (nominated); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Brief Encounter* (1945), Fi1m 90: The English weepie with the sentiment held down and the trains on time — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/brief-encounter.md) - *Letter from an Unknown Woman* (1948), Fi1m 86: Another woman loved by a man who cannot place her; Ophüls twists the knife — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/letter-from-an-unknown-woman.md) - *Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind* (2004), Fi1m 88: Forgetting as the plot again, this time chosen, and no less painful — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind.md) - *In the Mood for Love* (2000), Fi1m 91: Two people who will not say the thing, filmed in corridors and rain — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/in-the-mood-for-love.md) - *Goodbye, Mr. Chips* (1939), Fi1m 82: Hilton again, Garson again, and a whole life passing in dissolves — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/goodbye-mr-chips.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/random-harvest