From This Day Forward

"fRom this day forward " looks like Wyler's 'best years of our lives " released the same year,a "best years" in miniature .

The main difference is that Wyler's work took place after the war whereas Berry's movie is part past (the year before the war) and part present (Mark Stevens'coming home) It also deals with the difficulties the soldiers come across with when they return to a country that has sometimes forgotten them.

The best scene,however, is to to be found on draft morning:the couple had put the alarm clock forward and forgotten it;the G.I. did not even have a breakfast (the cupboard is bare anyway);through the window ,Fontaine tries to make her husband come back:there's something of Frank Borzage in this sequence ("seventh heaven" "street angel".)

Although Stevens' presence on the screen is at least as long as that of Fontaine's ,he is granted a "and introducing...." -it was his debut- and Joan Fontaine is the only name before the title of the movie.