Movie review - "The Heart of the Matter" (1953) ***

Trevor Howard was born to play a Graham Greene hero - weary looking, wound up, tormented, slightly shabby, a whisky priest. Even though his Inspector Scobie starts off as principled and respected (he won't take bribes), he has the aura of failure: he's unhappily married, his only child has died, he's Catholic but doesnt seem to get a lot of fun out of it, he is passed over for promotion, he lives in a crummy colony (Sierra Leone) and even though its 1942 he doesn't seem to do any important work.

Things don't get better - he talks to a priest (Peter Finch, very good in a small but showy role) who is depressing; he falls for a young woman (Maria Schell), a liaison which causes him to be blackmailed into looking the other way to a diamond smuggler; his wife comes home from a trip, and he can't bring himself to leave his wife for the young woman so he decides to kill himself. He doesn't actually do it outright - presumably the censor was responsible for the change where he basically induces his death.

It's handled with intelligence and sensitivity but I agree with George Orwell in that I found the story a little silly. Maybe it's because I'm not Catholic, but I couldn't invest in Scobie's dilemma vis a vis mortal sins, and confession, and God and all that - if he was tormented about God, then why have the affair in the first place? And why get so torn up over it? I guess I understood Scobie's reasoning (he wanted to stop hurting people), I guess, I just couldn't follow the emotion. At the end I was going "don't be daft". But like I say, Catholics may find more to it.

It is good how there are no real villains: his wife Elizabeth Allan does want to get out of Sierra Leone but does try to make a go of it; Maria Schell is a sweetheart mistress; George Colouris' corrupt ship captain is sympathetic, even Gerard Yurey's dodgy smuggler is understandable. It does take a swipe at Denholm Elliot's smarmy attempted lover (Elliot looks so young! Michael Hordern doesn't.).