LONELYHEARTS *

Nathanael West's novel "Miss Lonelyhearts" was another of those impossible books you just knew could never be filmed so what audience did producer/writer Dore Schary have in mind when he made this? It's not a total disaster but it is a total mess. Schary keeps West's overtly literate dialogue and no-one on screen feels like a living person, something that isn't helped by some very strange casting.
Montgomery Clift, in the first film after the car accident that somewhat 'disfigured' him, looks older than his years and in pain. Worse, he looks completely disinterested; it's a terrible performance. Dolores Hart, she who wisely gave up 'acting' to become a nun, is equally miscast and equally bad as the 'nice' girl who loves him while Myrna Loy, in an uncustomary bout of hamming, is all wrong as the heavy-drinking wife of Clift's boss. In that role, Robert Ryan almost redeems the picture. His is the most difficult part, (he gets the lion's share of that impossible dialogue), but he carries it off and almost makes the picture worth seeing. (Was Ryan the most underrated actor of them all?). So, too, does Maureen Stapleton, in her screen debut, as the lonely married woman who almost ruins Clift's life. It's a small part, too small for her to make much of it, but she still rightly got an Oscar nomination for it. The director, Vincent J. Donehue, was also new to cinema and he doesn't show any real feeling for the medium. A mess then, but there is just enough here to make you see what it might have been.