The Hasty Heart

1949 Ronald Reagan, Richard Todd, Patricia Neal 102 minutes

Corporal Lachlan "Lachie" MacLachlan (Todd), serving in Burma, receives a lower-back wound in the last days of WWII. He grows increasingly bitter and suspicious as, himself fully recovered from his operation but kept for "observation," he watches his fellow Scotsmen recover and leave the British field hospital. The doctor doesn't explain to Lachie the severity of his situation, but tells head nurse Sister Parker (Neal) the truth: Lachie's wound required removal of one of his kidneys, and the remaining kidney is defective, giving him perhaps slightly more than a month before the organ gives out and he dies (in the days before kidney transplants). In order to make Lachie's final weeks happier, the doctor moves him into a ward with five other patients, including The Yank (Reagan) who's recovering from malaria. Sister Parker tells the five men Lachie's fate, asking them to befriend him.

Lachie, however, is suspicious of everyone and rejects their attempts at friendship. The men tire of trying to be nice to this rude, angry man, but Sister Parker urges them to keep trying, reminding them that he only has a short time left. Finally, the wall Lachie has put up around himself comes down, revealing how very lonely he's been. When the truth comes out that everyone has known Lachie's dying, except Lachie, how will he react to the friendships he was hesitant to accept?

"The Hasty Heart" is based on John Patrick's play of the same name. Reprising his Broadway role as Lachie, Richard Todd earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and he won a Golden Globe for Most Promising (Male) Newcomer. Todd followed Richard Baseheart in the role of Lachie in the Broadway production of "The Hasty Heart." At one point, Yank mentions "the Rock River, in Dixon, Illinois." Reagan was a lifeguard for five years along the Rock River in Dixon, where he saved seventy-seven people from drowning. This movie was remade in 1983 for TV and starred Perry King as The Yank, Cheryl Ladd as the nurse and Gregory Harrison as Lachie.

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