hawkcj30 This movie really touches on a subject most of us choose to overlook, "self inflicted loneliness". The movie revolves around a young Scottish soldier who due to his upbringing (or lack there of) has chosen to live his life in emotional solitude. He assumes his self importance above all others. The writers do a fine job of bringing the players together. Ronald Reagen is excellent in this film but Richard Todd steals the show. It is his finest work as far as I'm concerned.I watched this film a second time with my "Self Centered" son and he was engrossed and drew many parallels to his own actions.Watch this movie - you will be pleasantly surprised.

pbeat This movie belongs to Richard Todd. This is a must see for any film student. Forget Reagan. He can't act but I had to find this film in a Ronald Reagan film package just to see the Academy nominated performance of Richard Todd. Why we never heard from him again while Reagan has film collections is the absurdity of Hollywood. Richard Todd gave the best performance of the year and should have won the Academy Award. Don't miss this film if you want to study good acting. Patricia Neal is also first rate but the rest of the cast was below average. Reagan is distracting at how bad he is but only makes Todd that much better. The story is so sweet it will tear your heart out and you could spend most of the film crying. It was nice to get away from the war propaganda for half a second in 1949 and see a story that could have happened in any age. This film is among the best of the 40's and Richard Todd deserves a standing ovation.....

David (Handlinghandel) "The Hasty Heart" is one of the most effective tearjerkers I know of. In a way, I guess, it could be called manipulative: Having a character we know from the start to be terminally ill is pretty much a sure thing. But this movie earns all its tears.Richard Todd gives a superb performance as the Scottish soldier who is afraid of intimacy. Why he didn't win an Academy Award is a mystery. His performance is as brave as he and the other characters in the movie are portrayed as being.Patricia Neal, too, is excellent. She is a great favorite of mine but that's irrelevant: had she never made another movie, her Sister Parker would be a knockout in American movie history. (Thankfully, she did make many more.) The supporting cast is superb. However, I don't care for Ronald Reagan in his important role. This has nothing to do with politics and he often could be very good. But he doesn't seem to me to fit in with the ensemble -- and this is very much an ensemble piece.Pat O'Brien would have been much better, but he was too old. William Holden would have been right too, but he was too young.Several things in the movie are outdated. The slight condescension toward the black character, Blossom, was of its time. It makes one cringe a little now. It's also sort of funny to see so many people in a hospital unit smoking cigarettes. Thankfully, that's behind us too, at least as a way for sick people to feel better.Vincent Sherman's directing is possibly his best. And he was a fine director. The story is simple, direct, and heartbreaking. And Todd is a marvel -- truly a marvel.

telegonus As a fan of neither soap operas nor Ronald Reagan I find myself utterly captivated by the movie of The Hasty Heart, a popular play of the postwar years, which was filmed in England by Warner Brothers. Richard Todd plays Lachy, a proud, somewhat obnoxious Scotsman who is assigned to a Burmese hospital, where he is presumably recovering from surgery but in fact dying, a fact kept from him by the medical staff. The other patients are told to go easy on the fellow, to make friends with him, which they do, with considerable opposition from Lachy himself, who did not up to this time have friends. There is some excellent dialogue along the way, as the various patients and staff members attempt to soften up this hard case, which in the end they do. The acting, of Richard Todd, as Lachy, and Patricia Neal, as the nurse he develops what I guess one would call a crush on, is quite good, but what makes the film somewhat of a revelation is the truly excellent performance of none other than Ronald Reagan, as Yank, the one American among the patients, and nobody's fool. Reagan does not play his part for charm. Yank is in his way as tough as Lachy, only he accepts life and Lachy doesn't. He too has a hard streak, but also compassion; and he is never soft. The interaction between the astringent Yank and everyone else is, thanks to Mr. Reagan, far and above the liveliest part of the film, which depending on one's mood can be either inspiring, in a gentle sort of way, or vaguely depressing, given its subject matter. This is a fine example of a well-made play of the sort its author, John Patrick, was an expert at. One doesn't see too many of them around these days, as they have gone out of fashion, as the art of the drama has, for good or ill, moved on. After seeing this movie one might have second thoughts about the notion that the theatre has, in the last half-century, moved on to better things.