Till the End of Time

Dorothy McGuire's performance (as Pat Ruscomb, war widow) is exceptionally good in this film. She is so convincing that viewers need focus on the effects of World War II on the war widows as much as the effects on returning servicemen. Despite her plight, she is the character that holds the film together when all else is chaos. One can only wonder how many women were left in like situations after the war. Where "The Best Years of Our Lives" adequately portrays the problems of readjustments of soldiers to civilian life, this film gives us a look at the sinister effect on those who remained on the home front. The scars on women, families, and homes do extend "till the end of time."

After seeing the book Heartthrobs in the bookstore I was dying to see the beautiful man on the cover actually moving and speaking. Guy Madison is absolutely the most beautiful person that I have ever seen, male or female. Looking at him is truly like staring at a piece of art. It's no wonder some casting director thought to himself "the world needs to see this man 30 feet high" - the camera cannot seem to catch this guy at a bad angle. Guy is not the best actor you'll come across, but he is charming and earnest and hey his co-stars are Robert Mitchum and Dorothy McGuire so check it out! Dorothy's a fine actress, but a little matronly in this one - she's seems more like Guy's mother than a suitable love interest. If only they'd given her better ensembles - there's one scene with her in slip and much to my surprise she had a lovely little figure hiding under those awful jackets.

..If only to see beautiful and appealing Guy Madison in one of his earlier roles before lost to western films and TV ("Wild Bill Hickok") in the 1950s. Madison is the focal point here, portraying a returning serviceman from World War II and his subsequent adjustment to civilian life with sincerity and easy-going charm. Brad Pitt has a bit of his extremely handsome blonde, athletic looks, but not ingratiating acting prowess. (Madison is on the cover of "Hearthrob", a book about male cinema stars). Top-billed Dorothy McGuire is really support, somewhat of a matronly mis-matched love interest for the youthful Madison. A lovely score and good direction offset some dated aspects in the script. But Madison carries the day!

This takes one back to the end of WWII when GIs were being released from service and coming home to dubious situations.

Confused, disoriented, and restive, these ex-service men were suddenly thrust into lifestyles for which they were unprepared. From holding a bayoneted rifle to pushing a pencil, the transition was abrupt and strange.

Many drifted into and out of relationships, while others took to the bottle as a form of escape. "Till the End of Time" dramatizes a few of these plights with some interest.

Cast in the lead role was Guy Madison, newly "discovered" by Henry Willson and David O. Selznick for a snippet but memorable scene in "Since You Went Away" (and shot quickly while Madison was on navy leave). After being mustered out of the service a couple of years later, Hollywood was eagerly waiting to cast him in what really amounted to his first feature (barring the earlier "cameo"). Unfortunately it was a starring role.

That was a pity, for the young "find" needed small vehicles in which to mature and grow in the profession. That he comes off as well as he does here is commendable, yet it does him a great disservice. Guy's reedy, inconsistent, and even amateurish looking--qualities that would have been honed and polished, had he the sensitive career management other similar "discoveries" were afforded.

Having his greatest weaknesses so exposed in a lead part, Madison was "written off" for other starring roles, and pushed into routine westerns--where he more or less remained for the rest of his career. However, his appearance in some seven dozen radio, television and movie parts ain't especially hay. And while he may not have been considered the greatest actor, he did make an honest living that put food on the table for the rest of his life.

His costars here are the excellent Robert Mitchum and Dorothy McGuire, and they certainly help bolster the proceedings. All in all, "Till the End of Time" is an interesting drama, and Guy Madison's most notable vehicle.

The pop adaptation of Chopin's "Polanaise" played throughout doesn't hurt.

No need to repeat the plot. That scene where Pat (McGuire) and Cliff (Madison) encounter the shell-shocked outpatient is genuinely disturbing. For a screenplay, that's a tough problem to treat in a single set-up. Pat's little anecdotal lesson works pretty well-- the soldier is relieved of his demons for the moment. But for how long, I wonder. And what will become of him, sitting alone, quaking, and afraid to go home. And how many others will come home like him. The script says the inner wounds will wear off eventually, but then it had to say something like that, otherwise the movie's hopeful tone would be compromised. And that would be counter to what the country needs following four years of horror.

It' a decent, earnest movie, produced by the studio's (RKO) head honcho Dore Schary, so it's a prestige production. Looks like they took a gamble on an unknown Guy Madison in the lead role. He certainly looks the part—I can just about hear the echoing squeals of bobby- soxers even 60 years later. He does bring an earnestness that's refreshing, even if his range is pretty limited as the heavier scenes show. Newcomers Mitchum and the underrated Bill Williams also register, along with the dewy-eyed Dorothy McGuire before she became a favorite movie mom. But I especially like Jean Porter's vivacious teenager. It's really her Helen who projects the buoyant spirit of the coming consumer age.

There were, of course, a number of these "adjustment" films as the country struggled with a return to normalcy. Where this movie excels is with the uncertainty of a recovering civilian world. Each main character is drifting as a result of the war. Each has been changed and must now work out how to fit back in. Then too, I like the rather ambivalent way the movie ends, avoiding easy solutions.

There's one other sequence worth noting. The barroom brawl is both over-done and clumsily staged. Nonetheless, it makes an important point. Namely, that the war has changed society as well as individuals. A post-war America will be more inclusive than the traditional America. The logic appears to be that since it took everyone to win the war, no one should be excluded from the fruits. Given the civil rights movement soon to emerge, the movie thus proves prophetic. Too bad this worthy movie effort now seems so obscure. Despite the years, it remains an affecting look at a key period in American life and merits catching up with.

(In passing—that's filmmaker Blake Edwards of Pink Panther fame as the shop foreman that Cliff tangles with, soon to become a screenwriter, and then an A-picture producer-director.)