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The great surprise with this film was to find Lana Turner totally different from all impressions you ever had of her and so much better. She actually makes the film, and every scene with her is golden cinematic sunshine and top film acting because of her. Clark Gable is always good, perhaps the most reliably excellent actor Hollywood ever had, and although he is on top also here, Lana outshines him. Anne Baxter was never lovelier, in the beginning, but she hopelessly falls in the shadow of Lana, and is well aware of it. Another surprise was John Hodiak as the friend and fellow doctor acting as something of a startling conscience but acting it without any effort, as a doctor should react absolutely frankly and matter-of-fact. Gladys Cooper also does a good job as usual as one of her many mothers, while you'll never recognize Cameron Mitchell here as a very young boy. The artistic excellence of unity permeates the film and fills it with warm humanity from beginning to end. Much of the credit for this seething warmth of human atmosphere and candid heartfiulness comes from the exquisitely discreet but nonetheless overwhelmingly beautiful musical score by Bronislau Kaper - I never saw that name before, while at the same time Mervyn LeRoy's masterhand at the direction is felt comfortably all the way. All this ends up to a top score of ten unhesitatingly. It could very well be both Clark Gable's and Lana Turner's best film.

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.

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!!

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.