Dr. Johnsons Heimkehr

Ulysses ,what a name for a major whose odyssey took place in WW2,who learned after his "voyage" that success is no success at all,that selfishness leads to nowhere and that a doctor's work is to help his fellow men;we are not far from Stahl's "magnificent obsession" in which a reckless playboy was told that a man (Jesus ) had given his life so man was saved .

It's strange that the world Ulysse lives in is full of altruistic persons ,from "Snapshot" the nurse who never has a rest till all the wounded soldiers are operated to the Chester doctor (Hodiak) whose war has begun long before WW2,and from "Monk" the unfortunate soldier to the good doctor Sunday (again,what a name!).The US army looks more like Salvation Army! The title is partly a misnomer because it's essentially a long flashback (actually several flashbacks) dealing with the hard life of a military medical team in the war.Thus Gable is torn between his faithful wife (Anne Baxter) and his courageous nurse (their relationship is much too predictable).Best scene is perhaps the "Roman " bath :we feel that Gable is very human when she takes her bath and he 's got to force himself to stay calm and not to have a little look !

2nd viewing and a lot of time in between.

Enjoyed it first time especially how Lana pulls her role off and how sincere Gable was. Both great actors always worth watching. Anne Baxter was also very,very touching and deep as the wife.

What really got me this time, having spent war time in Nam, was the changes Gable went through and the HOMECOMING. Anyone who has NOT experienced the razor's edge of actual combat, the terror the elation and the horror of seeing others die can feel what Gable projected magnificently in coming home after all that madness and trying to feel like you fit in again anywhere. You don't....for a long time. That why Gable said "...bear with me for a while..." Not only was he talking about losing Lana but returning home from a war, sometimes much more difficult than war itself. This film has so much deep feelings embedded in all three major characters it is amazing to me. The writer nailed it and Mr LeRoy was almost genius in bringing out such performances by all. I'm glad I got to view it on TCM a 2nd time. It really brings out a HOMECOMING!!

I've never been one to compliment Clark Gable's acting talents. Yes, he had a great screen presence and represented the everyman in the early '30s when no other good-looking actor fit the bill, but I usually thought all he did was shout and talk quickly. In Homecoming, he surprised me. Full of subtleties and tender expressions, he stars as a man coming home from the war but holds memories he'll never be able to bury.

Told in flashback format, a reporter, talks to different soldiers returning on the ship. When he approaches Clark Gable, he's initially resistant. But thanks to the camera, we get to learn what Clark doesn't tell the reporter. Clark was a doctor, stationed overseas with his pal and fellow doctor John Hodiak. His nurse was the capable Lana Turner, in a rare break from her sexpot roles. They worked fantastically well together and bonded over seeing the horrors of war. Homecoming is a rare honest movie that shows how overworked and underappreciated the doctors, nurses, and medics were. The movie shows them being just as bombarded as the fighting men, with influx after influx of severely injured soldiers coming into the medical tent so quickly and urgently that they can't catch their breaths. It's far different to be a doctor at home than a doctor at war, and only those who have experienced it can truly understand. If you were moved by Lara and Dr. Zhivago's relationship, you'll love this movie.

If 1948 hadn't had such stiff competition, as Hatter's Castle, All My Sons, and Enchantment, I'm sure this movie would have racked up some nominations at the Hot Toasty Rag Awards. As it was, this move wasn't honored, but I do highly recommend it. It's a change of pace for both leads, and in a post-war world, it was the perfect type of war movie to be released in 1948. Many veterans had a tough transition from the battlefield to civilian life, and this movie shows one man's struggle. In the supporting cast, you'll see Anne Baxter, Marshall Thompson, Gladys Cooper, Ray Collins, Queenie Leonard, Cameron Mitchell, and cameos from Jeff Corey and a pre-famous Arthur O'Connell.

Movies like this one are discoveries. Mervyn LeRoy was a director that always knew where to go for a good story and get amazing performances out of his actors. In this film he demonstrates how to create a movie that holds the viewer's attention. It is based on a story by Sidney Kingsley and was adapted by Jan Lustig.

The movie shows the American cinema at its best as it combines a look to WWII and a forbidden love, something that probably had a hard time passing the censor's scissors. Mr. LeRoy makes the picture highly engrossing because of the way he presents the story. Men and women, for the first time were in the front lines; the men as combatants, or in this case, a doctor and the women as nurses, or filling in for the jobs the men couldn't do because they did the fighting.

Clark Gable was an actor that made this picture the joy it is to watch by making us believe he is this surgeon, Dr. Lee Johnson, a man that awakes to reality when he has to deal first hand with treating the wounded soldiers. Mr. Gable casts such a virile shadow in his best work that we know where he stood all the time. His Dr. Johnson shows the strain of the stress of war, the loyalty to his wife at home and the sudden love he finds for "Snapshot" McCall. He remains throughout the film focused in helping the soldiers, until the passion he feels for his nurse, gets the best of him.

Lana Turner is the real surprise of the movie. She is playing a role that probably would not have been offered to her because of the heat and glamour she projected. Her nurse McCall is a woman that life has made a cynic because of the tragedy in her own life and the fact that she is separated from her young son. The magnetism between Ms. Turner and Mr. Gable is what keeps us interested in the movie. Lana Turner shows she had the potential for playing dramatic parts that were not offered to her; she was type-casted as the siren, or the sophisticate in most of her work, but she had the range and the potential that probably only Mr. LeRoy, who discovered Ms. Turner, saw she had. Only a director like Mr. LeRoy could elicit this performance from Ms. Turner.

Anne Baxter is the wife that stays home hoping her man will come back alive. Her Penny Johnson makes her appear as insecure because she perceives her husband's affection might lie with the nurse that he complains to her at the beginning of his correspondence. John Hodiak plays the friend, Dr. Sunday, a man who has his feet on the ground and believes he should help the poor people of his area, instead of the society types that Dr. Johnson attracts.

The movie is satisfying because is tells a good story with characters one is easily identified with. Mr. LeRoy was the one that got all the elements together and gave us this classic film that is timeless.

Clark Gable, Lana Turner, Anne Baxter, John Hodiak, and Gladys Cooper star in "Homecoming," a 1948 film about wartime and its aftermath.

Gable plays a surgeon, Lee, who falls for a nurse (Turner) with whom he puts together the wounded, endures a life with only the barest of necessities, sits in shelters, and dodges. Back home, his devoted wife (Baxter) realizes by reading his letters that she's losing him.

World War II has been romanticized often in films and in music - somehow, it is perceived by people who lived through Vietnam, Desert Storm, and our current conflicts as being somehow a cleaner war. But no war is clean, and there were some homecomings that were difficult as well. This was touched upon in "The Best Years of Our Lives," and very well here.

The story is brought to life by its players. The role of Snapshot the nurse is a different one for the glamorous and beautiful Turner than what she was normally handed - the curse of the beautiful in Hollywood. She was capable of much more, and she gives a strong performance as an outspoken soldier who finally lets her vulnerability show.

The stalwart Gable gives us a man who realizes the detached attitude he had toward his patients at home will no longer work, and he has to rethink himself and his life.

Baxter is the "one left out," who can't experience the war, and she gives an excellent portrayal of a woman who loves her husband but doesn't know what to expect from him when he comes home. "I know he's changed," she laments, "but why couldn't we have changed together?"

Her real-life husband, John Hodiak, looks quite handsome but doesn't have much to do as a family friend - his brief brush with stardom was a few years away.

A very nice movie that shows that homecoming can be uncomfortable and bittersweet.