This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Actress, Ginger Rogers is best known for her performances in RKO's musical films in which she was partnered with Fred Astaire such in the case with 1935's film 'Top Hat' & 1936's film 'Swing Time'. However, after two commercial failures with Astaire in 1938's 'Carefree' & 1939's 'The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle". Rogers began to branch out into dramatic films and comedies. This movie is one of those films. Directed by Sam Woods, the film tells the story of a young naïve struggling escapee, Arlette (Ginger Rogers) willing to do anything; in an attempt to avoid, going back to reform school, even dealing with schemers, liars, and cheats by pickpocketing and playing the system in Aristocratic Paris. Without spoiling the movie, too much, the first part of the movie was indeed the best part, as I found the idea of a pickpocket academy to be, very unique, even if it's a bit unbelievable. It remind me, so much of author Charles Dicken's 'Oliver Twist' with everybody trying to get Arlette to do something very wicked. However, after a few scenes of pickpocketing, the film really turn into mindless boring fluff, with her, abandoning it, for another gold digger scheme in which, she tries to shame marry an aristocrat in order to get a working permit. Because of that, the film plot got really generic and forgettable. Plus, all the life was suck, out of the room, as the humor and great acting was gone, as interesting supporting characters like Professor Aristide (Basil Rathbone), Yves (Mikhail Rasumny) & 'the Ambassador' (Adolphe Menjou) were replaced by below-standards hammy acting, from Jean-Pierre Aumont as Pierre de Roche & Melville Cooper, as Pierre's friend, Roland. It was no longer fun to watch. It would likely have worked better if personalities like Aristide and 'the Ambassador' stick around longer. Both were amazing characters. Who knew that, an actor that is best known for playing detectives, Basil Rathbone would be so great, as a funny masterful criminal! He was wonderful! For Mikhail Rasumny, I hate the fact that his character was barely used. He was wonderful as the trouble man, looking for work. For Adolphe Menjou, he was the only actor that seem like he was from France. Everybody else, seem like they were miscast. Don't get me wrong, Ginger Rogers isn't bad in the role that she was given, but her American southern accent was pretty jarring to hear, in a film that supposedly taking place in Europe. It would have work, better, if the movie explain that she was indeed an illegal immigrant AKA American in France, living in the streets. Then it would make sense, why her character acts the way, she does. Another thing that was jarring about her performance was the fact that the 35 year old, Rogers was playing an 18 year old reform school delinquent. It was just too big a stretch for this viewer's imagination. Despite, not looking the part, she does had a mix of teenage shyness and spunkiness. However, I wish the movie used more of her dancing skills. The ballroom scenes could had been better, if that was the case. Still, the movie had some really good scenes that shows the pressures of self-preservation. I love the movie theater scene, it was brilliant. Seeing the surrounding speaks, without the character moving their mouth was a wonderful move by the director, even if the movie, they are seeing, is it's a bit too convenient to what is happening in the main plot. Still, in the end, I have to say, the original French film in which this movie was based on, "Battement de Coeur" AKA "Beat of the Heart", was better. After all, everything about this American version seem like a shot for shot remake of 'Beat of the Heart'. Even the dummies are nearly the same. So, they had to be, doing something right. In my opinion, even the acting was better. French actress Danielle Darrieux & actor, Claude Dauphin were far more stunning, savour, and incredibly charismatic than anybody in 'Heartbeat'. Also, the plot was more focus on the pickpocketing than this film. At least, the good old-fashioned happy ending in 'Beat of the Heart' seem more earn than it was in the American remake. So, overall: I have to say "Heartbeat' is a few beats off from me, really liking it. It's too bad, because this movie could had stolen my heart, but it didn't. It was just disappointing.

A light comedy like this is so different from typical Hollywood fare. It's a delightful French omelette - fluffy and sophisticated all at once. It leaves a sweet savour and refreshment, where other 'zany' comedies rely on just heaping up one cliché after another, thick and fast, with an often indigestible, overcooked, somewhat tiresome result."Heartbeat" keeps you guessing what will come next, like the most skilled flirt.Six years earlier in 1940, the film "Beat of the Heart" ("Battement de Coeur") was produced in France, starring the stunning Danielle Darrieux and the incredibly charismatic Claude Dauphin. As an American remake, "Heartbeat," according to the credits, was the creation of the three original French writers, plus two additional Hollywood writers for adaptation and additional dialogue.Overall, it makes its trans-cultural moves very well, in a romantic dance across the Atlantic.Ginger Rogers is completely convincing as an 18-year old, and on this point I disagree with other reviewers. It should be considered, for the sake of argument, that an 18-year old woman in Europe in 1940, or in 1946, had the maturing experience of World War II imprinted on her mind and heart. Truly, such a creature was a child-woman, not a plastic doll, an airhead, a sex object, or a narcissistic 'Material Girl'. She would have had the character of an adult, combined with true innocence, the innocence of a person who has seen cruelty and ugliness and crime, but has not yet personally become corrupted. As a matter of fact, I don't think any 18-year old American starlet would have had a clue as to how to play this part effectively. The following actresses certainly would have been "the right age". Amazingly, these five were the only American ingénues with star quality in 1946. Would you have cast any one of them, instead of Ginger Rogers? I doubt it. They simply weren't ready yet for such a role.Patricia Neal, age 20; Grace Kelly, age 17; Janet Leigh, age 19; Jeanne Crain, age 21; Ann Blyth, age 18.On the other hand, these two European lovelies would have been perfect, and they were already skilled on both stage and screen. But they would not come to Hollywood for several more years.Audrey Hepburn, age 17; Jean Simmons, age 17.Adding to its unique character, "Heartbeat" handles some very mature themes with a delicate, Cosmopolitan flare. The leading man is the lover of a married woman, and he is in the diplomatic corps of her older husband, "the Ambassador." This portrayal by Adolphe Menjou is perfect - suave, funny, devious, and attractive. Now Arlette knows from the very beginning that the handsome Jean-Pierre Aumont, the man she is falling in love with, the man who enjoys baiting her innocence, is himself a scoundrel. For his part, he tries to get rid of her puppy-dog affection by marrying her off to a sponger who will take her off his hands for a price. The actor captures this duplicity expertly. He is not at all a one-dimensional Romeo!By the way, the humorous sponger is played to the hilt by British comic actor Melville Cooper, who was actually a true hero, a veteran of the First World War who had been captured by the Germans. Another tour-de-force performance is delivered by Russian emigré Mikhail Rasumny. He was already 56 when he charmed the viewers of "Heartbeat" playing the thief/butler who counsels Arlette when she needs it most.As for the opening episodes with Basil Rathbone, playing a sort of Fagin to a motley group of over-aged delinquents, these scenes serve to introduce Arlette as a most extraordinary young lady, indeed. She actually manages to fool Professor Aristide himself, the expert schemer and arch criminal of them all! A spectacularly funny cameo for Sherlock Holmes!Far from suffering through this film, let alone finding it boring, I was immensely entertained to the very end. The 'Hollywood ending' was really not predictable. In a film like this, anything could have happened.The whole fantasy was delightfully bubbly, like pink champagne.

A young girl( a lively Ginger Rogers) escaped from a reformatory, becomes the best student in a Parisian school for pickpockets(ruled by Basil Rathbone). At the beginning she attempts out her skills on an old man(Adolphe Menjou). Later when she tries to rob an attractive diplomat(Jean Pierre Aumont) they fall in love instead.This fresh and funny farce is one the last works where director Sam Wood shows an increasing blandness in a lighthearted love story with comedy touches. Main and support cast is frankly outstanding. Top-notch, virtuoso acting by Ginger Rogers, she was the number one as dancer actress and a fascinating comedian: ¨Monkey business¨ and won an Oscar for her portrayal in ¨Kitty Foyle: natural story of a woman¨. Remaining cast formed by the French young Jean Pierre Aumont as dashing diplomat, the classic Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone, the memorable Adolphe Menjou, Henry Stephenson as veteran Ambassador and the Italian Eduardo Ciannelli. Sam Wood was a good filmmaker, an expert director of actresses, almost all the magnificent acting in his movies were given by ladies, with the exceptions of the Marx Brothers in ¨Night at the Opera¨, and ¨A day at the races¨ and Robert Donat in ¨Goodbye Mr Chips¨; as are extraordinaries, Ann Sheridan and Betty Field in ¨King Row¨, it is Ingrid Bergman, marvelous when we remember her in ¨For whom the bells tolls¨, and of course Ginger Rogers in ¨Heartbeat¨ and ¨Kitty Foyle¨; these outstanding Rogers'performances are matched by Joan Fontaine's ¨Ivy¨, Gladys George's ¨Madame X¨ and Jean Arthur's ¨The devil and Miss Jones¨. Plus the picture packs a very high standard cinematography by Joseph Valentine.From the late 1920s Sam Wood was with MGM, where he remained until his death at 1966 with some exception as ¨Heartbeat¨ with RKO. Sam Wood angered the acting community by his work for Joseph McCarthy and his House UnAmerican Activities Committee.

This is a very watchable movie, but it is also amazingly dumb in places and should have been a lot better. A lot of the problem should rest on the shoulders of Ginger Rogers, who for at least the second time in her career is ridiculously portraying a woman half her age! This 35 year-old actress plays an 18 year-old and is about as convincing at that as she would have been playing Hattie McDaniel's role in GONE WITH THE WIND! This same ridiculous idea was the plot for another Rogers film, THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR, where at 32, she played a school girl!!! While a very small number of actresses MIGHT have been able to carry this off, Ms. Rogers appeared at least her chronological age and in both films it just comes off as ridiculous. While not quite as bad as Mae West in MYRA BRECKINRIDGE (who was 77 and STILL making passes at young men), it was still along the same lines as far as actresses who won't admit that they are no longer the young starlets they had once been decades earlier.The second problem is that the film in many ways has two totally different tones. I loved the first portion of the film where we see Basil Rathbone operating a school for would-be thieves! This segment is very funny and incredibly original--I really wanted to see much more of this. The second portion was a very familiar love story with complications. Sure, it was fun to watch but not nearly as much as the other part--and it was very, very hard to believe that the budding romance could be real. Frankly, the film tries a bit too hard and comes off as forced.The bottom line is that this is merely a time-passer and nothing more. If you do watch it, though, try not to laugh when Ginger tells the camera how old she is supposed to be--it isn't supposed to be a comedy!