Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Simply A Masterpiece

People are voting emotionally.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Copyright 15 May 1934 by Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall, 10 May 1934 (ran one week). U.K. release: 8 September 1934. Australian release: 10 October 1934. New Zealand release: 29 December 1934. New Zealand length: 7,824 feet. 87 minutes. U.S. length: 6,937 feet. 77 minutes.SYNOPSIS: After graduating from college, four friends seek fame and fortune in New York.NOTES: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences granted a miniature statuette to Shirley Temple "in grateful recognition of her outstanding contribution to screen entertainment during the year 1934." DVDs of this movie are currently offered by Public Domain suppliers.COMMENT: Although this movie was certainly released in 1934 (it ran a week in May at the Radio City Music Hall), it is extremely doubtful if the Board of Governors had this picture in mind when awarding Shirley her miniature statuette. Even though her name is prominently displayed in the film's advertising, it's nonsense to talk about her being in this movie. As a passenger in an airliner en route to New York, she's on screen for about 3 minutes! (Admittedly, I'm talking about the 77-minute USA version)."Change of Heart" is primarily a Farrell-Gaynor vehicle — their last. The combination is stale here. Miss Gaynor looks old too (though she was reportedly only 28 at the time), being flatly photographed and rather dowdily dressed. The photographer and costumer do similar disservices to Ginger Rogers and Drue Leyton, though Barbara Barondess looks attractive in her brief appearance. As for Charles Farrell, he is, would you believe, somewhat wooden and charmless? Farrell was handsome enough and well-spoken enough to survive the transition to sound, but he floundered, partly due to lack of talent (although this didn't deter many other people), but mostly due to sheer laziness. He simply didn't like to work for hard taskmasters like Frank Borzage or F. W. Murnau. Easy- going Johnny Blystone was definitely his favorite sort of director.So it's no surprise to find the support players are not much better. James Dunn is always talking about his singing career, but outside of a bit of clowning around, doesn't sing a note (whereas minor player Dick Foran sings solidly for two whole minutes — and alas that two minutes is the sole extent of his on screen contribution. What a pity his part isn't larger)! Nonetheless, Mary Carr makes the most of her one-take scene. And it's always good to see Jane Darwell, even though she is glimpsed but briefly.Blystone's direction starts briskly at the graduation, which is nicely paced and composed, but once in New York his efforts become quite routine and undistinguished, although the deft cutting of Margaret Clancey does something to spark a bit of dramatic life into certain scenes.Production values are moderate. Stock footage of New York is used liberally throughout. Although treating the girls somewhat harshly, Hal Mohr's lighting is rich in attractively glossy blacks. Aside from the opening graduation scenes, the sets, however, — even those supposed to be luxurious — prove disappointingly drab.

Burdened with a less than exciting script, Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell ended their twelve film partnership with the undistinguished CHANGE OF HEART. Four recent college graduates (Gaynor, Farrell, Ginger Rogers and James Dunn) travel together to New York to make their fortunes. You would think that the travails of young friends trying to make their ways in the big city would make for compelling drama, but it rarely does.Gaynor plays a saintly soul with the patience of Job, and it's a testament to her skill as an actress that she makes so treacly a role thoroughly likable. Poor Farrell acts well enough but, as became customary for him in these talkie pairings with Gaynor, is stuck playing a dumbbell who actually falls sick unto death simply because Rogers has married somebody else! Gaynor finally wins her true love by nursing him back to health. This happens in a long, long scene during which she shaves him! I don't want to blame filmmakers for taking chances, but this was one chance that didn't pay off.Ginger Rogers was in the interregnum between FLYING DOWN TO RIO and THE GAY Divorcée, meaning that she was a rather hot property but not yet a true star. This role, commonplace in thirties' cinema (heck, Claire Dodd made a career playing it), is unique in her own career and one of the few unsympathetic characters that she ever played. She probably performed it better than the film deserved, something you could say for its entire excellent cast.

I thought this was a sweet and sincere movie, capturing a sense of New York in the 1930s. Both Janet Gaynor and Charlie Farrell are perfect as the innocent lovers, and Ginger Rogers nails the role of the egotistical yet classy "friend." I did think the last scene was a bit abrupt, but otherwise, a well-done movie. For those who enjoy heart-warming light romances, this is a treat.Along with Janet Gaynor, Charlie Farrell and Ginger Rogers, the cast is filled with stellar talent, not the least of which is Shirley Temple in the airplane scene. Beryl Mercer, Jane Darwell, James Dunn and Mischa Auer all do laudable jobs, although Dunn's role is unevenly scripted. I found the close-ups in this movie to be very well done. The shaving scene with Farrell and Gaynor is a classic--full of sentiment yet composed. Also, the scene between the doctor and Gaynor, with the camera just catching Gaynor from the back of her head, was masterful. It's a joy to watch understatement so beautifully played!

CHANGE OF HEART (Fox, 1934), directed by John G. Blystone, reunites the ever popular love team of Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell for the 12th and final time. Their union, which began with the silent romance story of SEVENTH HEAVEN (1927), expanded successfully for its time through the sound era in an attempt to recapture the magic of their initial pairing. Throughout those seven years and ten additional romancers (one as guest stars in an early musical), their efforts ranged from good to satisfactory, with popularity solely due to the loyalty of their audiences. With each passing year, tastes change in favor for better constructed stories and newcomers on the rise. By 1934, Gaynor and Farrell were on the wane, while the supporting players of James Dunn and Ginger Rogers have juicer roles, especially Rogers, cast against type, as the selfish girl who really doesn't know what she wants in life, thus, jeopardizing her friendship to get what she wants at all cost.The story linked with CHANGE OF HEART has nothing to do with medical students performing heart transplants, but the focus on two couples just graduating from a California college and leaving their roots to fulfill their life's ambition in New York City: Catherine Furness (Janet Gaynor), an orphan, yearns to be a writer. The only luck she has is obtaining employment at a salvage shop making clothes for orphaned babies under the supervision and care of Harriet Hawkins (Beryl Mercer); Chris Thring (Charles Farrell), wants to be an lawyer; Mac McGowan (James Dunn), a radio crooner like Rudy Vallee; and Madge Roundtree (Ginger Rogers), a Broadway actress. In true soap-opera tradition, Mac loves Catherine who secretly loves Chris, who loves Madge, who gives up Chris to move back to California, becoming a "companion" to wealthy producer Howard Jackson (Kenneth Thomson), in order to advance her acting career. Despondent, Chris becomes ill with high fever, leaving Catherine to nurse him back to health. After they marry, Madge, realizing the error of her ways, returns to New York to reclaim Chris, regardless of how Catherine might feel about it.During the 1960s and early 70s, TV Guide magazine used to label this version of CHANGE OF HEART in its schedule. Quite confusing since THE HIT PARADE OF 1943 (Republic) starring John Carroll and Susan Hayward has been retitled CHANGE OF HEART (taken from a hit song from that movie) for television. In Leonard Maltin's earlier edition to his "Movies on TV" book published in the 1980s, he critiques CHANGE OF HEART with a "BOMB" rating, later eliminating his review from subsequent editions. While this can be labeled a companion piece of the much better GENTLEMAN ARE BORN (Warners, 1934) starring Franchot Tone and Jean Muir, having very much the same theme, CHANGE OF HEART does have its flaws, such as accepting these slightly older principal players as college graduates; Dunn's obnoxious personality (which he is supposed to be anyway); Rogers in an unsympathetic role; extensive scene involving Gaynor nursing the bedridden Farrell back to health, each reciting some sappy dialog while she gives him a shave; or Gaynor speaking out her emotions through facial gestures as she did in her silent movies, but on the whole, it's really not that bad.What makes CHANGE OF HEART even more worthy of recommendation for film buffs is the assortment of familiar actors, whether receiving screen credit for their work or not, in smaller roles, including James Gleason as a Coney Island vendor; silent screen's Mary Carr with Jane Darwell each playing mothers during the opening graduation sequence; Gustav Von Seyffertitz as the kindly doctor; Mischa Auer as a party guest; Dick (billed as Nick) Foran taking time to sing, "Who Cares?"; and of course, Shirley Temple. Temple's performance in circulating prints that show on either Fox Movie Channel or Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: August 12, 2016) comes as a bitter disappointment for Temple fans due to the fact that she's hardly in the movie at all. She's actually in for a fraction of a second on the TWA airliner as a little girl who's given a paper airplane. While billed as Shirley during the closing cast listing, chances are that her scene(s) and spoken dialog were cut, an severe oversight from the film editor who didn't have the foresight this child was to become one of Hollywood's biggest/littlest legendary stars.For all it's worth, CHANGE OF HEART is very nostalgic in the way it presents itself: Imagine taking an airplane ride from California to New York in just 15 hours; the cost of 5 cents for the use of a public pay phone; earning $70 a week or paying $30 a month for an apartment. It also succeeds in recapturing New York City the way it was during the Depression era 1930s through its use of montage footage. These reflections of the times gone by makes CHANGE OF HEART, a rarely seen item from the old Fox Studio vaults, a worthy time capsule piece. (***)