Glenn Ford can’t help being won over by Geraldine Page’s charm.
We are rather peeved.
We’ve just finished viewing the 1964 comedy Dear Heart and are shocked – shocked! – to discover Geraldine Page was not nominated for an Academy Award for her performance.
Dear Heart centers around two strangers who happen to stay at the same hotel in New York. Evie Jackson (Page) is a bordering-on-middle-age postmistress from Avalon, OH, attending a national Postmasters’ Conference. Harry Mork (Glenn Ford) from Altoonah, PA, is a middle-aged greeting card salesperson. He’s just been promoted to his company’s marketing department and is in New York to attend business meetings.
As viewers, we don’t immediately warm to Page’s character. She’s too friendly and clingy and, frankly, a bit silly. But her smile is warm and her heart is generous and she has the endearing ability to laugh at herself. Before you know it, you find her utterly charming. So when her long-lost friend meets her for coffee and quickly escapes because she’s “busy”, your heart breaks a little for Page.
She and Ford meet by chance in the crowded hotel restaurant and his first reactions to Page mirror our own. He wants to like her, but her personality is too overwhelming and he finds an excuse to leave. Again, we feel for Page; we see the disappointment, then the resignation on her face. This is how life goes for her.
Ford’s character has more of a complex story. He is engaged to Phyllis (Angela Lansbury), but he’s uncertain about their relationship. We know this by the way he twists the signet ring on his left hand. When he wants people to think he’s married, he turns the signet inward. When he wishes to appear single, he rotates the signet to the outside.
Meanwhile, Ford has met June (Barbara Nichols), a vivacious dyed-blonde woman who sells postcards and magazines at a kiosk in the hotel lobby. He tries to start an affair with her, the results of which are hilariously unsuccessful.
Page observes Ford’s attraction to Nichols, which adds to her loneliness. After all, she is a woman who arranges to have herself paged in a busy lobby because it verifies her existence.
The first half of Dear Heart is a laugh-out-loud comedy; but the last half of movie starts to feel like a sluggish drama – until Lansbury makes her scene-stealing appearance. Her character is everything Page’s is not: a sleek, sophisticated woman in a gorgeous designer suit. She tells Ford she’s counting on him to straighten out her 18 year-old son because, she declares, she “is done with doing.”
But it is with Page that Ford’s character has the most chemistry, and an unlikely romance develops. We see him softening towards her, then truly appreciating her qualities. Ford is extremely likable in this film. He’s a man who can be too smart for his own good, and accepts the inevitable misfortune with a wry sense of humour.
We felt surprisingly weepy at the end of this movie because the outcome of this romance matters – really matters. We do not want Page to go back to Avalon alone, with the added burden of heartbreak.
Dear Heart is a sweet movie with an excellent screenplay by Tad Mosel. He has created a completely plausible situation with quirky characters and very funny lines. You’ll be glad you made the effort to see it.
Incidentally, in case you were wondering, the 1964 Best Actress award went to Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins.
Dear Heart: starring Glenn Ford, Geraldine Page, Angela Lansbury. Written by Tad Mosel. Directed by Delbert Mann. Warner Bros. Pictures, B&W, 1964, 115 mins.
Silver Screenings 
Perfect review. It describes the movie so well. I liked the movie, but I have to admit Page got on my nerves in the beginning too, but I wound up rooting for her! This one’s a keeper on the ole’ DVR 🙂
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It takes a real talent to pull that off, doesn’t it? In anyone else’s hands, the character might be annoying all the way through the movie. But Page really makes her charming.
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Agree…I’m still thinking about her and that movie today……days after I saw it. I love that 🙂
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This sounds like an excellent movie. I have to admit that I have seen very little in the Glen Ford filmography and even less of Geraldine Pages’. I will certainly keep my eyes open for this one. Thanks for another great review!
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It’s hard to come across Geraldine Page movies. I’m not sure why that is…? But she is amazing here. A truly great performance.
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Awesome. I adore old movies.
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This one is really worth it, if you have the chance.
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I adore “Dear Heart”. The mix of humour and romance, and the fact that love comes to people over the age of 18, make it a real winner in my eyes.
Also, the movie is filled with fabulous character actors. Did you notice that both Gladys Kravitz (Bewitched) actresses Alice Pearce and Sandra Gould are featured? Great trivia question the next time you want to amaze your friends and astound your enemies.
PS: Phyllis’ line about “that being the best picture I ever had taken” has stayed with me for years. It’s so completely guileless.
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Oh yeah, that line of Phyllis’ about the best picture truly is a guileless line. Good point!
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I haven’t seen “Dear Heart” but admire Geraldine Page very much. Will keep an eye out…
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Such a great script! I hope TCM has it on their schedule again soon…and, if they do, I’ll watch it again!
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Having just finished a biography by Mark Shriver, about his perfect father, Sargent Shriver, I took the time to listen to an interview with Peter Ford (on the same bookreportradio dotcom show), about the biography he wrote about his father Glenn Ford – the less than perfect father, I’m now becoming a little more intrigued by this golden age of Hollywood. “Dear heart” sounds like a move that I cannot afford to not watch – thank you for the insight, and the introduction to Geraldine Page.
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Hi RickieM – I’ve heard about this biography and I confess I’m afraid to read it. I’m not a huge Glenn Ford fan, but I really like him in this movie and I think he’s FABULOUS in the original version of “3:10 to Yuma”. I’m glad you’re becoming more interested in Hollywood’s golden age. There are some remarkable movies from this era.
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RickieM, I hope during this time since you commented that you got familiar with the GREAT Geraldine Page…. she is the best actress ever…
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Geraldine Page is an amazing actress, isn’t she? And rather underrated these days, don’t you think?
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Mann’s direction is good, the script is great, Page and Ford are great. Dear Heart is great. It’s not perfect; but what is?
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True. Very few movies come close to being perfect. And I love Ford and Page here. This film deserves to be better known.
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