Homecoming

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.

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!!

This is a far from perfect film featuring Gable and Turner, but upon seeing it for the second time, it sure seemed a lot better than I remembered it. In particular, I appreciated that the film took a pretty big risk dealing with wartime romance between a married doctor and a nurse when they are stationed overseas. This sort of situation MUST have happened quite a bit with all those nurses and WACS/WAVS, etc. serving in action, though it is hardly ever mentioned in any film up until that time. Plus, it offered a very unusual situation where a man is in love with a woman he is not married to and yet he still loves his wife at home. Pretty adult fare for 1948, I must say! The film begins with Gable a rich and successful doctor in the States. He is very isolated from the real world and his main focus in on the country club and his pampered wife--unconcerned about much else. When the war comes, he does serve but seems to be pretty selfish. His head nurse in the field hospital is a much more giving and selfless individual and they are destined to hate each other because they are so different AND because this IS Lana Turner and Clark Gable (this plot device is necessary before they actually fall in love--a bit of a cliché, I know).

Gable and Turner are both excellent as the leads and their scenes together are excellent as well. I especially appreciated Lana's emotional range--it was better and more vulnerable here than I am used to seeing. The direction was pretty good and all the MGM production values were going full speed ahead! I especially appreciated the snow scene--you KNOW it was done in a sound stage and yet it STILL looked exceptional (though their breath didn't show--considering it was probably close to 70 degrees).

Overall, this is a must-see for Gable fans and a pretty good flick for anyone but people who MUST have a lot of action in their films. Despite being WWII, the film is pretty talking and there is quite a bit of romance--something action junkies will probably have a hard time accepting.

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.

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 !