There's this movie and then there's everything else

Rating: 10/10 (7 August 2005)

It will not be difficult for me to describe my feelings and thoughts about this film. It is simply the best I have ever seen. Fredric March(the most overlooked of great actors) gives the greatest performance by a leading man ever, as the returning sergeant who was previously a banker. In real life, March was indeed a banker for a short while. Maybe that is part of the reason his performance is so elegant. This movie reaches so many areas of human behavior, by exploring the families reactions to the returning veterans and the later relationships between the men themselves, that it's apparent complexity is in reality the simplicity of the continued struggle for survival. Of course the rest of the cast is wonderful. Including the colorful Hoagy Carmichal as Butch, the local tavern owner, who also happens to play piano. Here's an interesting twist. In one scene Homer (the disabled vet) asks Butch if he remembers how to play " Up A Lazy River". After nodding, Butch starts to play the song and while he plays he questions Homer about why he's not at home with his family. Now in 1946, Homer's musical request must have been humorous to the viewing audience because Hoagy Carmichael wrote that song, and the audience must have known it. Carmichael was at the time a big musical star and wrote many famous songs, including "Stardust" and "Georgia On My Mind" (which was later recorded by Ray Charles) among many others. I have seen this movie many times and only came to the aforementioned conclusion during my last viewing about two months ago. That also brings me to a very important part of this film: the music. It is simply wonderful. I was under the impression (until I recently viewed it) that the music was written by Aaron Copland. Now please exuse me for being a bit tutorial, but Aaron Copland for those of you who are not familiar with the name is considered the first great American Symphonic Composer. Leornard Bernstein, the composer of West Side Story, studied with Mr.Copland. The music for the film was composed by Hugo Friedhoffer, a familiar name in many movie credits of the era. What's interesting here is that the similarity between Mr. Friedhoffer's score and Copland is deliberate. Now whether they couldn't get Copland to write the music and told Friedhoffer to make it sound that way on purpose or whether Freidhoffer did it on his own I know not. Either way the unique sound is typically (by now) and primarily American and this is a story about America. It is what we would now call "Americana" This movie is full of emotion. There is great tragedy, humor in abundance, moving music, disappointment, longing for love, peace and security, and even confrontation and violence. It is human in every way. It is the human story. It is wonderful and it is the best, (should I ? oh! why not) "movie of our lives".