Homecoming

The great surprise with this film was to find Lana Turner totally different from all impressions you ever had of her and so much better. She actually makes the film, and every scene with her is golden cinematic sunshine and top film acting because of her. Clark Gable is always good, perhaps the most reliably excellent actor Hollywood ever had, and although he is on top also here, Lana outshines him. Anne Baxter was never lovelier, in the beginning, but she hopelessly falls in the shadow of Lana, and is well aware of it. Another surprise was John Hodiak as the friend and fellow doctor acting as something of a startling conscience but acting it without any effort, as a doctor should react absolutely frankly and matter-of-fact. Gladys Cooper also does a good job as usual as one of her many mothers, while you'll never recognize Cameron Mitchell here as a very young boy. The artistic excellence of unity permeates the film and fills it with warm humanity from beginning to end. Much of the credit for this seething warmth of human atmosphere and candid heartfiulness comes from the exquisitely discreet but nonetheless overwhelmingly beautiful musical score by Bronislau Kaper - I never saw that name before, while at the same time Mervyn LeRoy's masterhand at the direction is felt comfortably all the way. All this ends up to a top score of ten unhesitatingly. It could very well be both Clark Gable's and Lana Turner's best film.

This is a far from perfect film featuring Gable and Turner, but upon seeing it for the second time, it sure seemed a lot better than I remembered it. In particular, I appreciated that the film took a pretty big risk dealing with wartime romance between a married doctor and a nurse when they are stationed overseas. This sort of situation MUST have happened quite a bit with all those nurses and WACS/WAVS, etc. serving in action, though it is hardly ever mentioned in any film up until that time. Plus, it offered a very unusual situation where a man is in love with a woman he is not married to and yet he still loves his wife at home. Pretty adult fare for 1948, I must say! The film begins with Gable a rich and successful doctor in the States. He is very isolated from the real world and his main focus in on the country club and his pampered wife--unconcerned about much else. When the war comes, he does serve but seems to be pretty selfish. His head nurse in the field hospital is a much more giving and selfless individual and they are destined to hate each other because they are so different AND because this IS Lana Turner and Clark Gable (this plot device is necessary before they actually fall in love--a bit of a cliché, I know).

Gable and Turner are both excellent as the leads and their scenes together are excellent as well. I especially appreciated Lana's emotional range--it was better and more vulnerable here than I am used to seeing. The direction was pretty good and all the MGM production values were going full speed ahead! I especially appreciated the snow scene--you KNOW it was done in a sound stage and yet it STILL looked exceptional (though their breath didn't show--considering it was probably close to 70 degrees).

Overall, this is a must-see for Gable fans and a pretty good flick for anyone but people who MUST have a lot of action in their films. Despite being WWII, the film is pretty talking and there is quite a bit of romance--something action junkies will probably have a hard time accepting.

Movies like this one are discoveries. Mervyn LeRoy was a director that always knew where to go for a good story and get amazing performances out of his actors. In this film he demonstrates how to create a movie that holds the viewer's attention. It is based on a story by Sidney Kingsley and was adapted by Jan Lustig.

The movie shows the American cinema at its best as it combines a look to WWII and a forbidden love, something that probably had a hard time passing the censor's scissors. Mr. LeRoy makes the picture highly engrossing because of the way he presents the story. Men and women, for the first time were in the front lines; the men as combatants, or in this case, a doctor and the women as nurses, or filling in for the jobs the men couldn't do because they did the fighting.

Clark Gable was an actor that made this picture the joy it is to watch by making us believe he is this surgeon, Dr. Lee Johnson, a man that awakes to reality when he has to deal first hand with treating the wounded soldiers. Mr. Gable casts such a virile shadow in his best work that we know where he stood all the time. His Dr. Johnson shows the strain of the stress of war, the loyalty to his wife at home and the sudden love he finds for "Snapshot" McCall. He remains throughout the film focused in helping the soldiers, until the passion he feels for his nurse, gets the best of him.

Lana Turner is the real surprise of the movie. She is playing a role that probably would not have been offered to her because of the heat and glamour she projected. Her nurse McCall is a woman that life has made a cynic because of the tragedy in her own life and the fact that she is separated from her young son. The magnetism between Ms. Turner and Mr. Gable is what keeps us interested in the movie. Lana Turner shows she had the potential for playing dramatic parts that were not offered to her; she was type-casted as the siren, or the sophisticate in most of her work, but she had the range and the potential that probably only Mr. LeRoy, who discovered Ms. Turner, saw she had. Only a director like Mr. LeRoy could elicit this performance from Ms. Turner.

Anne Baxter is the wife that stays home hoping her man will come back alive. Her Penny Johnson makes her appear as insecure because she perceives her husband's affection might lie with the nurse that he complains to her at the beginning of his correspondence. John Hodiak plays the friend, Dr. Sunday, a man who has his feet on the ground and believes he should help the poor people of his area, instead of the society types that Dr. Johnson attracts.

The movie is satisfying because is tells a good story with characters one is easily identified with. Mr. LeRoy was the one that got all the elements together and gave us this classic film that is timeless.

Ulysses ,what a name for a major whose odyssey took place in WW2,who learned after his "voyage" that success is no success at all,that selfishness leads to nowhere and that a doctor's work is to help his fellow men;we are not far from Stahl's "magnificent obsession" in which a reckless playboy was told that a man (Jesus ) had given his life so man was saved .

It's strange that the world Ulysse lives in is full of altruistic persons ,from "Snapshot" the nurse who never has a rest till all the wounded soldiers are operated to the Chester doctor (Hodiak) whose war has begun long before WW2,and from "Monk" the unfortunate soldier to the good doctor Sunday (again,what a name!).The US army looks more like Salvation Army! The title is partly a misnomer because it's essentially a long flashback (actually several flashbacks) dealing with the hard life of a military medical team in the war.Thus Gable is torn between his faithful wife (Anne Baxter) and his courageous nurse (their relationship is much too predictable).Best scene is perhaps the "Roman " bath :we feel that Gable is very human when she takes her bath and he 's got to force himself to stay calm and not to have a little look !

Clark Gable, Lana Turner, Anne Baxter, John Hodiak, and Gladys Cooper star in "Homecoming," a 1948 film about wartime and its aftermath. Gable plays a surgeon, Lee, who falls for a nurse (Turner) with whom he puts together the wounded, endures a life with only the barest of necessities, sits in shelters, and dodges. Back home, his devoted wife (Baxter) realizes by reading his letters that she's losing him.

World War II has been romanticized often in films and in music - somehow, it is perceived by people who lived through Vietnam, Desert Storm, and our current conflicts as being somehow a cleaner war. But no war is clean, and there were some homecomings that were difficult as well. This was touched upon in "The Best Years of Our Lives," and very well here.

The story is brought to life by its players. The role of Snapshot the nurse is a different one for the glamorous and beautiful Turner than what she was normally handed - the curse of the beautiful in Hollywood. She was capable of much more, and she gives a strong performance as an outspoken soldier who finally lets her vulnerability show. The stalwart Gable gives us a man who realizes the detached attitude he had toward his patients at home will no longer work, and he has to rethink himself and his life. Baxter is the "one left out," who can't experience the war, and she gives an excellent portrayal of a woman who loves her husband but doesn't know what to expect from him when he comes home. "I know he's changed," she laments, "but why couldn't we have changed together?" Her real-life husband, John Hodiak, looks quite handsome but doesn't have much to do as a family friend - his brief brush with stardom was a few years away.

A very nice movie that shows that homecoming can be uncomfortable and bittersweet.