I Want You

Of course, the first thing - and movie - which you think first after watching this one is THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, produced by the same Samuel Goldwyn company, the analysis, character study of a small town regarding the issues that the Korean war will bring among those people. It prepares us to THE DEER HUNTER and many more films of this kind - including WE WERE SOLDIERS, Vietnam, Irak, Afghanistan wars and so on. This movie, unlike those more recent ones, doesn't evoke too much post war traumatic stress disorders. But Mark Robson, the director of this very one, will give us LIMBO in 1973, telling a story very close to the above titles: Vietnam war wives and widows dealing with a hopeless life and personnal problems. Good film this one, as LIMBO.

It's the summer of 1950 in a small American town. The Greers are a happy, middle-America family with normal middle-America lives. With the approaching Korean War, they worry about their young son Jack who is at the top of the draft list.

I like the family drama pre-War and their struggle to keep Jack off the draft list. It could have gone anti-war. The second half is not as compelling. The happy ending feels inevitable. It's a nuclear family drama. Many reviewers seem to be comparing this to Best Years of Our Lives. I would say that it's playing the same sport but this one is trying to get into the pros while Best Years is one of the best player around.

This first-rate film about the effects of the Korean War on an Anytown U.S.A. deserves to be thought of in the same league as movies like 'The Best Years of Our Lives.' But just as history has done with the real wars, this movie seems to have gotten lost in the shadows of the much larger number of World War II dramas.

The Korean War came just five short years after WWII ended, just as many families whose lives were so disrupted by the bigger war were finally able to enjoy some peace and stability in their lives after struggles of readjustment. Lacking the impetus of a Pearl Harbor or the spectre of an Adolph Hitler, the draft was the prime mechanism for getting young men to the front lines in Korea. Older vets were now being asked to leave their homes and families again as well. This film shows surprising depth in its depiction of the problems and feelings of not only the eligible men, but their wives, mothers, fathers and girlfriends. The excellent script was written by Irwin Shaw based on magazine stories by Edward Newhouse and they provide us with an insightful look at this period in American history which doesn't get as much attention as the preceding or following decades.

Clay Blair called his book on the Korean conflict 'The Forgotten War' and this movie might be given a similar appellation, even though it deserves better. Simply as a piece of nostalgia it's enjoyable, but the movie is much more than that. It has a fine cast with many actors that even some of us baby boomers will recognize.

I agree with the previous reviewer from 2007. Ironic in that I teach a college course on WWII and always end the semester showing the coming home scene of Homer from "Best Years of Our Lives." It has always been so powerful that I can't speak after showing it, and just let my class end on that note, of Homer raising his steel claw hand to wave good bye.

But what of the rest of their lives of that "greatest generation." The day after showing "Best Years," and ending a semester, TCM ran this little gem, "I Want You," and it is almost like a sequel of five years later, about a generation that fought a global war, thought they were coming home to peace and now face remobilization, and also watching their kid brothers getting drafted to go off to a distant unknown front. It is by no means as good as Best Years, but you will see the connection with so many of the same actors, and it almost looks as if it was shot in the same town.

One must definitely remember the context of the time to better understand this film. When made, the bitter quagmire of Korea was still being fought out, hanging over all the specter that it could escalate into yet another global war, this time with nuclear weapons. The tragedy is so evident, recalling how the three vets in Best Years say that all they want is a family and to live in peace. Again, when made, how the conflict would end, if it would ever end, was an unknown.

So definitely see the two films together in sequence. The greatness of the first will lead you into this second, that though no where near as good, is an accurate reflection on the tragic world of our parents and grandparents who after fighting WWII simply wanted to live in peace, and found they never would.

Samuel Goldwyn produced, and Mark Robson directed. The stars of the film Dana Andrews, Dorothy McGuire and Farley Granger. Alongside them Peggy Dow, Midred Dunnuck ( excellent in her role ) and another excellent performance from Martin Milner as a teenager too young to drink beer, but old enough to go off and fight in the Korean War. Some people did not go to war because they were indispensable but Milner was not, and his elderly father is left to grieve his loss. One could say these peripheral people in this film are outside of the core family that the main stars are in ( except for Dunnock who has some of the best dialogue, ) but in my opinion they are at the heart of the matter. Dorothy McGuire wants men to go to war, but changes her mind when her husband played by Dana Andrews enlists. No more spoilers. I found the film saddening, well acted and I was surprised that an almost forgotten film in a poor copy could affect me so much, and leave me with so many questions I had to ask myself. Robson directs reasonably well, and only Farley Granger in uniform as Dana Andrews brother did not quite convince. In Luchino Visconti's ' Senso ' he was again in uniform, and gave of his best and proved in my opinion to be a fine actor. If viewers can find this film it is well worth seeing.