Dr. Johnsons Heimkehr

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.

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!!

Successful surgeon Ulysses Johnson (Clark Gable) joins the Army Medical Corps during WW2. Once deployed, he develops a tempestuous relationship with his chief nurse, Jane "Snapshot" McCall (Lana Turner). Their constant bickering eventually morphs into romantic feelings, which Johnson's wife Penny (Anne Baxter) can sense back home through his letters. She looks for solace from crusading doctor Robert Sunday (John Hodiak).

This somewhat soapy romance features surprisingly good performances from the cast. Gable seems an unlikely surgeon at first, but he settles into that role well. Baxter and Hodiak, a real-life married couple at the time, give their best to underwritten parts. The real revelation is Lana Turner, an actress that I've never really warmed to. I thought she fit her role well in The Postman Always Rings Twice, but every other movie that I've seen her in, I couldn't help thinking it would be better with someone else cast. Here she's real and genuine and nuanced like I haven't seen her before. It may be the script, or direction that clicked, or co-star Gable, or all of the above, but it works, and it's the best acting job I've seen from her.

What a gem this story is! Here you will find no platitudes; no heroes 10 feet tall; no heels - most of all no heels. This is about the most caring, life-affirming story you are ever going to find, and it is done without any syrup, nor any gratuitous and tiresome acting-out of missteps.

There is a a single scene near the end which implies that a single misstep MAY have been committed, but sorry to tell you, you are going to have to work out for yourself what did or didn't happen, because it's not spelled out. It was brave rather than a cop-out to present a pivotal scene that way.

The film is technically excellent. The scene composition is superb. You have never seen a WW2 field hospital so meticulously and realistically re-created. There is a scene viewed through the door of a tent where someone walks away that is so amazingly technically well done (as well as evocative) as to be amazing. I can't tell you that the snow falling in that scene was real, but it LOOKED absolutely real. The fadeout as the figure walked gradually into the falling snow was perfect. It's a little thing that a film nut notices, because it's hard to do.

The messages are about finding one's humanity, daring to need, and daring to reach out to someone to need you back. By the end, you may find yourself touched so deeply as to be shaking.

As a rule I'm not much into romantic films, but there are exceptions and Homecoming is one of them.

Clark Gable and Lana Turner did four films together and this is the third one. It's Turner's show here. It's a great tribute to her charisma and star quality that she looks incredibly sexy in those army fatigues she has to wear as per the plot. Lana Turner in her

younger days had a quality of winsomeness that was never showcased than when she plays Jane "Snapshot" McCall, idealistic army nurse.

In this cynical age we would look with incredulity that a widow with a young son would follow her late husband off to war because his ideals became her ideals. Yet Turner makes you believe that in this film.

The plot is simply Clark Gable, very successful doctor in a small mid-west city, goes to World War II basically because its expected of him. He's a self centered guy, nice home, loving wife played very well by Anne Baxter, all the material things you could want and not a clue about why we are in World War II. He has a fellow physician friend, John Hodiak who does a lot of pro bono public service work who tries to act as a conscience, but fails. I guess Turner had something to offer Hodiak didn't.

At first Dr. Ulysses Johnson (Gable) and Nurse McCall don't hit it off after she's assigned to him as a nurse. But her beauty and idealism get to him he falls for her big time.

Because its 1948 Hollywood and Anne Baxter is by no means a bad person there was no way Turner was going to wind up with Gable in the end. She has to die, but Turner is given a death scene that is one of the most moving in the history of film. You have to be made of stone not to be touched by her and Gable at her bedside.

John Hodiak, a very talented and almost forgotten figure today is also terrific as Gable's friend Dr. Robert Sunday. Gable will be working with Hodiak at the clinic Hodiak has in a poor neighborhood and he will be doing it because of the social conscience Turner has instilled in him.

There are no bad people in this film except the Nazis shooting at Gable Turner and the rest of Eisenhower's army.

I believe this is Lana Turner's best film and fans of her's should not miss this one.