A 40's Blockbuster

Rating: Null/10 (16 February 2015)

And to think that the damaged veteran part almost went to pretty boy Farley Granger. Consider what that would have done to the movie's heartfelt appeal. Without real life amputee Harold Russell, the film would exchange real life impact for Hollywood glamour. After all, it's the ordinary looking Russell's coping with genuine disfigurement that lifts the film beyond the merely well done. Granger's a capable actor, but clearly shouts Hollywood in a film dedicated instead to Every Town, USA.
The first hour's compelling as the three vets return home to find out how much home has changed and how much they've changed. I like the way the three bond as they meet on their way home. That kind of war bonding can't be duplicated by relationships of civilian life, no matter how sensitively rendered. This part is persuasively written and acted. The second hour deals mainly with adjustments of finding a job, sorting out problems, and settling back into civilian routine. The last hour, however, drifts into standard Hollywood soap opera, except for the one scene showing how Homer (Russell) gets ready for bed. I doubt that such a mundane act has ever been more memorably presented.
All in all, the movie's well-acted and non-glamorously staged, as it should be. Of course, the movie's also a revealing time capsule of the post-war period, at least of how film-makers would like it to be. Sure, the movie's optimistic in outlook, but then I dare say that's what the audience wanted following five years of war induced trauma. Above all, it's the occasionally rich human-interest that continues the film's basic appeal, even seventy-years later.