Faithful in My Fashion

Jeff (Tom Drake) has been away at war for years and has just returned home. The first place he goes is not home but to see his fiancee, Jean (Donna Reed), at her job at the department store. However, she's now engaged to another man...but doesn't tell him and her co-workers go along with this. So through most of the movie, she lies to him as they plan the wedding!

"Faithful in My Fashion" has a LOT running against it. After all, WWII had just ended and the notion of a guy coming back from the war to find his fiancee engaged to another is a tough sell...particularly when it's supposed to be a romantic comedy. I bet a lot of theater goers (particularly those who'd been in the war) were ticked to see such a film. Additionally, IF she ends up marrying the nice soldier by the end, you'd wonder WHY he would take her back! And, most importantly, how could you string all this along for 81 minutes?! After all, he returns, you tell him, he goes on with his life....5-10 minutes tops! To make it worse they cast Tom Drake--the perfect 'nice guy' actor for such a role and the notion of a woman lying to him or cheating on him seems particularly evil!! Yet somehow someone at MGM thought this would make a great film...and parts of it are (ALL the portions with Harry Davenport are like gold)...but overall it's a dud....an ill-conceived one at that. Slickly made...but horrible.

Did this movie ever appeal to anyone under 65? Just asking.

This is kind of a lightweight comic version of "The Best Years of Our Lives." A soldier returns from World War II on a final two-week leave before getting out of the service. Visiting the New York department store where he used to work, he declares that he intends to go back to being a stock clerk and marry the girl he left behind in the stockroom. But things have changed: The girlfriend is now a store executive, and she's engaged to another man.

Sympathetic workers at the store devise an elaborate plan to fool the young vet for two weeks, making him believe things are just as he left them. They even talk the old girlfriend into playing along, but obviously their real hope is that love will be rekindled.

OK, give it credit for a cute premise. But as a comedy of mix-ups, this one doesn't work especially well. It's more likable than funny. (The most amusing character by far is the insecure new fiancé, but he's barely on screen.) Best enjoyed as a period piece.

It's interesting to see Donna Reed and Barbara Billingsley in a movie together, although Billingsley's role is very small. Who could have guessed that in just a few years, these two would be America's most beloved TV mothers? Nobody.

On the surface, this is an above-average post-war romantic comedy. Beneath the veneer, it is MGM character actor stunt-casting at its funniest.

The leads are straightforward, but all the secondaries are cast much against type. Margaret Hamilton (aka Wicked Witch of the West), Edward Everett Horton (professional obsessive-compulsive fussbudget), and Sig Ruman (the Marx Brothers' nemesis in _Night In Casablanca_ and the always-wonderful _Night At The Opera_), playing a well-intentioned gang trying to bring the two leads together, instead of driving them apart as their "usual" characters would do.

It also pokes fun at many romantic-comedy conventions, which is another indication that this could be not so much a "straight" romantic comedy, as it is a wry send-up of the many post-war romantic comedies & their 2-dimensional, stock characters.

I've seen it only once, with interruptions, so I can't be positive, but this movie may be one of those that worked better in the context of the time at which it was made, but is less successful now that viewers "see" these secondary characters through a completely different lens. I'm assuming this is the case when I give it 9 stars. I thought it was hysterical.

I loved this movie!!! The characters were people that you could feel for. The young man back from the service still in love with the girl he left behind. Tom Drake is always perfect in the romantic lead as well as Donna Reed as the love of his life. The looks he gives her as if he has been starved for the sight of her as well as her hesitation and confusion as too her feelings for him were played very well. The rest of the quirky characters at the store were perfect as they tried to bring them together. The most touching scene however, was the young couple at his great grandfather's house. I laughed in parts, cried in some and thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie. In fact I've re-watched it about 5 times. A definite must see for total romantics.