Ernie Mott (Cary Grant) is an irresponsible vagrant roaming the streets of London. His father had died in the Great War. His mother (Ethel Barrymore) runs a small shop by herself. He plays the piano, fools around with a gangster's ex Ada Brantline (June Duprez), and has a friendship with nice neighborhood girl Aggie Hunter (Jane Wyatt). After learning about her mother's cancer, he stays to run the shop despite their combative past.Ernie is not really an appealing character and that's tough to do for Cary Grant. I'm also annoyed by his relationship with Ada. I want more time with Aggie and have more love triangle action. The character would be appealing as an exuberant youth struggling to find his way in the world. Cary Grant was 40 by then. I can see this as a lower class melodrama like a Mike Leigh movie but Cary Grant doesn't really fit the role. It's interesting nevertheless.

Just like John Wayne, Cary Grant was skilled at playing himself. Here the boy from Bristol tries and fails to play a Londoner - his accent is less plausible than the American actors around him. He sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb in a 'spiv-suit' attempting to portray a cockney 'wide-boy' while Hollywood's idea of thirties London stinks of caricatures and stereotypes - the Jewish moneylender Ike Weber and the Irish 'son of the sod' Henry Twite, played by that excruciating 'stock' Irishman Brry Fitzgerald . Mawkishly sentimental as only Hollywood could be, it struggles aimlessly to create any believable character, setting or plot. The only thing that kept me watching was the expectation of a shoot-out of some sort. God knows where it was filmed. And, to cap it all, Grant apparently was Oscar-nominated for it! Acted by the cast of 'Brighton Rock' there may have been some veracity but I doubt any English viewer could watch this without being astonished at just how stereotypical it is. Of its era and location - it's a construct for American eyes only.

What a shock, this film! It is not your typical Cary Grant film to say the least! Grant's role would have been better suited to a lesser actor, a character actor perhaps more associated with horror films than mainstream films.Was this Cary's experimental film? Did he feel the need to play a really despicable man?Here you'll find characters of a kind you come to hate, and a dark story of a kind that disturbs you - and it's one without redemption. Even the great Ethel Barrymore comes across as someone you'd want nothing to do with. Grant - as always - is convincing as the horrible character he is portraying. Don't get me wrong. But why he would want to take on this role is questionable. I don't know about you, but if I don't care about the characters in a movie - or I thoroughly dislike them - I don't care about the movie and I don't care to see the movie. That's the case in None But The Lonely Heart. Yet - unlike other bad films I've seen - I'm not arguing this is a bad film because of poor acting or writing or direction or cinematography (which is far darker than even the darkest film noir). It's not a great film, but it's not amateurish either.For its genre - a B-type film that's almost a horror story - it's a well-done film. It's just a story line I don't ever want to see nor would I expect to see Cary Grant in it.I can't relate to or root for a bad guy. I don't want to be dragged down in the dirt with one. This movie suffers from choosing a poor subject and story - a really nasty story.And here, you see one of your favorite actors of all time, Cary Grant, in an ugly light that is almost scary. He's almost TOO convincing as a mad man - a role I can't recall him ever playing before, in all its darkness here. It only makes the movie more upsetting and unsatisfying. All the while you're wondering, "Why did you want to portray such a horrible man, Cary?" I don't want to see a character such as the one Cary played here any more than I'd want to see a biopic on the Sandy Hook shooter. Sorry. Just don't want to get into their minds or lives. I don't want to know anything about them. This movie forces you to get familiar with someone you don't want to get to know.Furthermore, I regret ever having seen this film because I don't feel it fits in with the wealth of great roles Cary Grant played. Plus, it adds, for me, a disturbing note to his career. And it's perhaps the only Cary Grant film I could ever imagine giving a 5-star review to.

Maybe we're spoiled by today's almost flawless actors' regional accents and authentic background detail in studio scenes but the movie was spoiled for this Eastender by lack of attention to these matters.None of the actors, including Cary Grant, had convincing Cockney accents. (He was raised in the West of England, where the local accent is very different from the unique Cockney dialect). Many didn't even try to camouflage their Yankee drawl. Dan Duryea working in a London Fish and Chip shop? Wasn't Stanley Holloway available?Although the cars correctly drove on the left side of the road, few were English and even the license plates were not correct. For example, seven digit license numbers weren't introduced in the UK until 1963. Trivial maybe, but these distractions spoiled the movie for me. I can understand why it wasn't a box office success.I bet it was hooted off the screen when it was shown in the real East End of London. Them Cockneys are an unforgiving bunch. And by the way, they call their mothers "Mum" not "Ma". Archie Leach must have known that.