herrick416

Similar to Best Years ... as everyone's said but I too think this is the superior film. When understated still manages to drive the point home, those deeply moving moments are unexpected gifts. As also said by many, just looking at an excruciatingly handsome Madison was fun indeed, adding to that the extraordinarily sexy young Mitchum with that cleft in his chin - but all that beauty wouldn't have worked without the natural appeal of modesty and decency inside these returning Marines. There's so much more to the story and without the noise of predictable dialogue and stereotypical characters, the message is profoundly new and raw and enlightening. If you're willing to hear it.

Reminds me a little bit (atmosphere-wise) of "night must fall" I have to look it up because I'm not sure that's its name; no plot resemblance but the tension, use of shadow and music .. Yikes! I was taken by surprise at the conclusion even though I knew something was coming-I love ot when a story surprises me. One twist is all that's necessary if it's good enough. These old black and white films in my opinion if the plot is unique and there's brilliance in the production... they are so much more frightening than most of the films that boast so loudly since. The old cliché is true. They don't make em like they used to.

No matter how one may see this as a downer movie, hang in there long enough to see the showered (cleansed) water-drinking version of a man ripe for recovery just not quite ready to feel the pain of an idealistic heart, a man possibly too sensitive for life I understand completely. He needs to be numb. On alcohol, coke (or crack when he's too broke to afford an 8 ball of the white man's version). But I fell in love with this lonely character by an actor who has slowly won me over by and whose varying roles were good until he immersed his soul in this lonely optimist pessimistic struggling human being with whom I relate. I love his eyes, his half interested glance that's really a stare .... a face that has at last won me over. Do not watch this film if you're jonesing for a drug like crack. Wait. And don't see the film to feel good. Watch it to feel.