Yesterday, I watched the last 30 minutes of a 1946 20th Century-Fox film called "Sentimental Journey."
Lest you forget the title during the course of the movie, the tune "Sentimental Journey" turns up at the most opportune moments, much to the dismay of a distraught John Payne who is heartsick at the loss of his great love Maureen O'Hara who, earlier, had clutched at her heart and then expired on screen.
And there is a little girl played by Connie Marshall who is way too adult for a little girl in the slavish devotion she attempts to provide to her "foster" father Payne.
And then there is William Bendix in every scene with Payne, including the two of them in dressing gowns when Payne puts Marshall to bed. One gets the impression that Bendix will be cuddling with Payne.
But no, not in 1946. Surely not.
The film is lugubrious, but that is not why I recommend it to all and one. No, I recommend it to all and one because this film -- SURELY -- must be the first ever to use excessive faux greenery in all of its set dressings.
When I first began watching, Bendix and Payne were having a discussion in a hallway. In the middle of them, on a wall, was surely one of the most luxuriant, and worst, faux "ivy" plants ever to disgrace Michael's or any other "faux" plant haven. I imagined that Payne, himself, felt he was being upstaged in this scene. The faux ivy jutted out from the wall and he brushed against it several times during his long conversation with Bendix.
In every room, there are vases of faux flowers on the tables. On the floor on each side of said tables are pots of faux greenery.
The set dresser MUST have been one of the earliest proponents of bringing nature from the out of doors to the in of doors -- I've never seen a 20th Century-Fox film so afflicted with attention-calling faux anything that distracted from the otherwise-banal proceedings of the screenplay and acting.
It was all too-too faux...all that greenery. It was a relief, in fact, when one of the final scenes was at the beach...and Marshall was sitting on a rock near the crashing waves. She had run away when Payne had gotten cross with her. Here at the sea, she was attempting to speak to O'Hara who frequently appeared to her in the film after having clutched her heart and expired on screen. Every time O'Hara appeared, she would tell Marshall all the things she must do to make Payne happy -- telling her what foods she must see he got, how he loved music with his meal. Both, while O'Hara was alive (before clutching her heart and expiring on screen) lived to make life as warm and cozy for Payne as possible. As Marshall was a young lass at the time, Payne couldn't accept such kindnesses from her and even considered sending her to an orphanage (another reason Marshall ran away to the sea). Never mind that O'Hara and Payne, who were childless, actually "found" Marshall by the sea...as if provided by Poseidon or Neptune, himself. O'Hara did appear one more time, as it turns out, to let Marshall know that Payne does love her and won't send her to an orphanage. O'Hara also tells her that she will see her again, only in a different way. Marshall and Payne will each see O'Hara...in each other's eyes. One presumes that O'Hara will make one final clutch at her heart and ascend toward the light before "it" expires on the screen.
At any rate, one of the final scenes was by the sea (rear projection, of course). And Marshall, on that rock, was safe from being swept out to (the rear-projection) sea until Payne turned up and called out to her. As she jumped off the rock and ran toward his voice she, somehow (and mysteriously) got lost in a maze of the same rock on which she had sat, only the sea got closer and closer. In the nick of time, Payne turned up to see the sea sweep into the set with the rock and rescue Marshall from the foot or so of faux sea water on the set floor surrounding the rock.
All's well that ended well, I suppose. Every table and wall in Payne's home remained bedecked with the faux greenery, and, presumably, he and Marshall (and Bendix) lived happily ever after (dusting off the faux greenery in the process) as yearning strains of "Sentimental Journey" played steadfastly in the background.
It was a movie everyone should see once...just to experience the fauxness of it all.
