When Willie Comes Marching Home

This unheralded opus from one of our greatest directors seems both oddly timed, (5 years after the end of combat in WWII), and unfortunately truncated. The thankfully preserved out-takes presented as deleted scenes on the DVD reveal that this may have been intended as Ford's only full fledged musical....which would have stood in strong contrast to his magnum opuses of this period (the beloved cavalry trilogy)...

As it stands the finished edit is shockingly good on all accounts...full of the director's astonishing eye for human detail and subtle performance. It plays like a slightly warmer hearted Preston Sturges wartime wacky fest (with William Demarest cementing the connection by almost reprising his great role in "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek".

The few numbers that remain are a tantalizing glimpse of how delightful a longer cut would have been...and the (incomplete) outtakes are both delicious and heartbreaking...

One has to wonder who decided to edit the film down...and how much more successful (and remembered) it might have been as Ford's big wartime set musical...

I saw this movie for the first time at 2:30 AM on TCM and loved it. It was a little hard to follow, not seeming like a comedy or drama, but it showed it's true color quickly, and was great. Dan Daley was fabulous as the somewhat goofy GI perpetually stuck assigned to his hometown, yet wanting to go overseas, and Corinne Calvet WOW! What a babe! And the actress who played his girlfriend-also WOW! The whole cast was great, and the plot funny and workable, once you give it a chance. I can't wait to get this one on DVD, so I can see Vera Miles, another super-babe, in her first, if brief movie role. See this one if and when you can, it's worth the time!!!

I have seen this film 55 years ago. My brother and I found it excellent, with natural acting actors and plenty of fine humor. Years later I always remembered with pleasure some parts of it, but I didn't remember neither the original name, nor the director. Recently, researching John Fords films I find this site. Trying to find more films from one of my preferred directors. I read about ¨When Willy come marching home". It was amazing as I realized that this was the Film I never dreamed to find again. I cannot remember so much to be sure that my recollections are correct. I need to see this film again in order to do a more exact comment. During all this years I have seen thousands of films. If "When Willy come marching home" let such an impression on me during all this time, I believed it should be a very good one.

Gerardo Arias

Although John Ford put in some touches that would make When Willie Comes Marching Home an identifiable Ford film, the film while good will never be considered in his top ten. It's more like the kind of service comedy Bob Hope would have done over at Paramount.

Dan Dailey is in the lead here and this would be the first of three films he did for John Ford, the other two being What Price Glory and The Wings Of Eagles. It's also the only one where we saw any of Dan Dailey's singing and dancing talents on display in a number.

Dailey who hails from Punxatawney, West Virginia is having as typical a Sunday as one would have been having in America on December 7, 1941. He's rehearsing with the band he plays trombone in when news of Pearl Harbor comes over the radio. His father William Demarest is head of the Punxatawney American Legion Post and as luck would have it Dailey is the first man drafted in the town.

But he turns out to be so skilled a marksman that he's needed as an instructor. And wouldn't you know it he's stationed at a new base near the old home town where everyone sees everyone else being shipped off to war. It plays havoc with your ego, even his girlfriend Colleen Townsend has her doubts especially since her brother was shipped off to the Pacific.

But within a week fortune both frowns and smiles on Dailey. He gets assigned as a belly gunner in a B-17 crew, gets shot down over France, meets beautiful resistance leader Corinne Calvet and performs a deed that might just change the course of the war. How that all works out you'll have to see When Willie Comes Marching Home.

I wasn't expecting to see Dailey sing and dance, but that's always a treat. He handles the comedy well, but Ford does not do comedy pictures. He's got a lot of rough house comedy in some of his best work, but they're not the center of the plot. This film would have also been better had a director like George Marshall or Frank Tashlin been at the helm. And while Dailey is good, Bob Hope would have made this a classic.

This unjustly neglected comedy is a variation on Preston Sturges's HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO. The first half, while well-acted and fluently directed, suffers from the comparison, especially with Sturges regular William Demarest playing a major role. However, about halfway through, the plot takes an original and unexpected twist, revealing that the first part was actually an ironic set-up for something funnier. Dan Dailey is fine as the endlessly frustrated soldier, Corinne Calvet looks absolutely stunning, and John Ford keeps everything moving.