Lonelyhearts ** (1958, Montgomery Clift, Robert Ryan, Myrna Loy, Dolores Hart, Maureen Stapleton, Jackie Coogan) – Classic Movie Review 12,294

Lonelyhearts (1958, Montgomery Clift).

Director Vincent J Donehue’s 1958 black and white drama Lonelyhearts from Dore Schary Productions stars Montgomery Clift, Robert Ryan, Myrna Loy, Dolores Hart, Maureen Stapleton, and Jackie Coogan.

Clift plays the angst-ridden reporter Adam White, who takes on the lonely-hearts column of a newspaper and wades in deep emotional waters that threaten his life, finding himself clashing with his browbeating editor Shrike (Robert Ryan).

This humanistic, upbeat reworking of Nathanael West’s 1933 novella Miss Lonelyhearts is misguided and patchy, but the best of it comes from the performances of ideally cast Clift, Ryan as his cynical editor, Loy as his alcoholic, adulterous wife Florence, and Oscar-nominated Stapleton (in her début) as Fay Doyle, one of Clift’s sexually frustrated correspondents whom he allows to seduce him.

Lonelyhearts is afflicted by sluggish handling, but there is a good movie trying to get out here, and there’s still enough to intrigue and sometimes impress.

It was previously filmed with star Lee Tracy twice, as Advice to the Lovelorn in 1933 and I’ll Tell the World in 1945.

Also with Onslow Stevens, Frank Maxwell, Mike Kellin, Frank Overton.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,294

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