I am surprised this film has not gotten more play over the years. The acting of Clark Gable, Lana Turner, and Anne Baxter here is great. John Hodiak as Dr. Sunday is very good. Ray Collins (Lt. Tragg on Perry Mason) is Lt. Col. Avery Silver and he is so good in his support role that the movie has to recover a bit when he is killed.
Strange, Paul Osborn (East Of Eden), the writer here gets more credit for other films but his writing of Sidney Kingsley's (East of Eden's) story is just fine. Being an MGM film, there is a huge studio cast that is un-credited including Alan Hale Jr. (Gilligan's Island) and Arthur O'Connell who would go on into many bigger roles than this film.
The story is a bit more strict than the actual reality of war. I mean Baxter is super human as the wife waiting at home sacrificing every thing waiting for her man to return. Meanwhile, Turner and Gable develop an amazing chemistry here. They seem to keep avoiding the inevitable until quite late in the film.
Even later is the ending which really does some moralizing, but yet is so appropriate. The film starts in the present, then flashes back to before the war, then takes us through 3 1/2 years of war and then comes back to the present, only to flash back again for 1 month after the war. The script is strong enough to support the talented cast.
The most memorable idea is "Will they be able to adjust to us when we come home?" While the ending does address the problem of someone returning from the war well, it is a notch below the message in an earlier more powerful film - "The Best Years of Our Lives". Still, this film does deliver that message and several others quite successfully.
Strange, Paul Osborn (East Of Eden), the writer here gets more credit for other films but his writing of Sidney Kingsley's (East of Eden's) story is just fine. Being an MGM film, there is a huge studio cast that is un-credited including Alan Hale Jr. (Gilligan's Island) and Arthur O'Connell who would go on into many bigger roles than this film.
The story is a bit more strict than the actual reality of war. I mean Baxter is super human as the wife waiting at home sacrificing every thing waiting for her man to return. Meanwhile, Turner and Gable develop an amazing chemistry here. They seem to keep avoiding the inevitable until quite late in the film.
Even later is the ending which really does some moralizing, but yet is so appropriate. The film starts in the present, then flashes back to before the war, then takes us through 3 1/2 years of war and then comes back to the present, only to flash back again for 1 month after the war. The script is strong enough to support the talented cast.
The most memorable idea is "Will they be able to adjust to us when we come home?" While the ending does address the problem of someone returning from the war well, it is a notch below the message in an earlier more powerful film - "The Best Years of Our Lives". Still, this film does deliver that message and several others quite successfully.