Mancini's song was nominated for an Oscar and deserved it. As a rom-com, the film is dated. Which does not mean that all rom-coms are dated from their time of production. Check out HERE COMES MR JORDAN, or TWO FOR THE ROAD, or dozens of other great romance films almost lost to modern viewers. But DEAR HEART will be forever stuck in the early 60s. The Brits call these sorts of films a "comedy of manners" because they tend to encapsulate the morals of the day, like a camera snapshot. Page, who gives a great performance in one of her earliest roles, is so frustrated as a spinster that she assumes a man actually claiming to be married .... is not. At one point this leads to an angry outburst that seems to come from nowhere, but in fact represents the angst of a generation of women lost in the social order. And while Ford is trying to make time with the lady at the the hotel's magazine desk, pretending to be able to psychically read the text on the rack of greetings cards (he is in the business and knows all the cards by heart), the lady seems to mock his every word. Which provokes him, a man, into an outburst about women always "playing games" -- when in fact he was the one playing the game, and she calls him out on that. The film did not do especially well in theatrical release but the song was a hit. Mainly for film historians. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))
Review of Dear Heart
