Happy Land

I reviewed this back in 2001 and since then I have found it on DVD. I did a Google search for the title and I eventually came up with a place that sells self-copied movies that have fallen into the public domain. These folks had a ton of movies I never even heard of! I purchased a copy and it came in a case with a "home-made" cover insert as well. The quality of the copy was good. Sorry but it has been several years since I purchased it so I cannot give you a link - but Google it and you will most likely find it. Will also throw in a comment on another post- I loved the old AMC - uncut, no commercials, no colorized movies. What happened along the way? It was great having all those movies with no interruptions. I suppose they figured out that you can make a lot more $$$ by doing it the way they do now. It's a shame cause they played movies you absolutely cannot find.

Years ago (1980's) I happened on this film just as it was beginning on AMC. At that time I was a newly licensed pharmacist (less than 5 years experience.) I couldn't stop watching it. There on the screen was the story of a druggist like I'd always thought it should be--respected in his community, devoted to his fellow citizens' health, and always available night and day. This was the life I'd thought I was supposed to have before the reality of modern health insurance had fully settled on me. Don Ameche played the role perfectly. Harry Carry as the ghost of 'Gramps', Ameche's grandpa and druggist mentor, could not have been better cast. The central role of the Marsh drugstore was also perfectly set. This was like being in the era. Even a non-pharmacist would find this to be a charming look at an older generations' simpler life. Even with a world-war raging, the drugstore with its soda fountain and variety of dry goods was always there. People met their future spouses at the soda fountain, were able to find just the right remedy for what ailed and could get there favorite bath oils,etc. This is a must-see film for any pharmacist or anyone else who longs for the good-old-days. Anyone would find the story moving and even though most scenes take place in the drugstore, there is plenty of story to keep your attention. This film should be released on DVD. I know every pharmacist would want a copy.

We saw this film sometime in the late 1980's on the old AMC. You remember AMC, the station that didn't like colorized or edited movies. That showed films how they were meant to. Well enough of that.

The HAPPY LAND was one (1) of those fine WWII films that gave you a peek of what the home front was like and the effects the war had upon it. This was effectively and economically done. Not as long as SINCE YOU WENT AWAY or the HUMAN COMEDY more in line with the FIGHTING SULLIVANS another seldom seen home front film. Or at least seldom seen since AMC went to seed.

The importance of these films is to give a glimpse into the lives of our parents or grandparents and not just the war, but the effects of rationing, personal loss and the fear that we could lose. Many young people have no concept what a close run thing WWII was. Not that we would have been conquered. But that Asia and Europe would have been dominated by two (2) powers both with a race superiority agendas. The NAZI Germans who wanted to create a master race and Imperial Japan who thought they WERE the master race.

The film as far as we know is unavailable on any video format. Seems like a shame when so much bad material is rushed to DVD. 20th Century Fox should do something about this. After all they have released A YANK IN THE R.A.F which main claim to fame is Betty Grable and Tyrone Power.

I loved this movie and I highly suggest you catch this movie if you can. If for the very least, to see Harry Morgan (aka the crusty Col. Potter from TV's M*A*S*H) back when he was just a kid at 28 years old.

The other reason is it's a sweet and warm story of a small town family and how it deals with post WWII. The film's cinematography is a vivid Hallmark card of 1940s Americana.

There's a really tender scene where Morgan, a recent vet from the war, helps Don Ameche, the father of a fellow soldier stock the shelves of Ameche's Pharmacy. The art direction of this film is amazing as well.

Also look for Morgan as the mysterious bad guy in "The Big Clock" circa 1948 with Ray Milland which has an analagous plot line to "No Way Out" with Kevin Costner.

Finding this oddity on cable recently, I was quickly seduced by its opening sequence, a Welles-like plunge down main street into a small everytown's heart, Marsh's pharmacy. Here, as some clever camera work reveals, solid citizen Lew Marsh (Don Ameche) tends to the blisses of early 40's Hollywood America; everyone's prescription is filled, sundaes topped off with a cherry, local oddballs humored, etc.

What most recommends the film is its frame narrative. Quickly the idyll is broken when Marsh learns his son has been killed in the war. He sinks into a lengthy depression. Enter the ghost of Gramp to conduct psychotherapy: he spirits Marsh back into the past where we relive the childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood of the now-dead Rusty. While the mid-section unfolds linearly, Marsh and Gramp function offscreen as a Greek chorus (their melancholy dialogue often a grim counterpoint to the generally cheerful scenes). Then it's back to the present where an exorcized Marsh learns to stop questioning the wisdom of sacrificing young men in war. "Rusty died a good death," Gramp's ghost counsels, and we know it's only a matter of time before Marsh will agree.

Three years before "It's A Wonderful Life" (1946), "Happy Land" was already hijacking the "Christmas Carol" device of reliving the past on a therapeutic sightseeing tour. Unlike the Stewart film, though, the tone is more darkly somber, lingeringly mournful. The theme of sorrow outweighs the theme of recovery. Ameche looks and sounds wracked, bitter.

In fact, the film's heart is scarcely in its chief enterprise, which is to steel its audience for more wartime sacrifice. It seems at times almost to be working against its own message that war deaths are "good deaths." I imagine it may have helped salve some broken hearts, but the crime of this type of film is that, if it succeeds, it only helps to break more.