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This film, a Thornton Wilder play, is about how many of the unnoticed details of day-to-day life are sweet and, in fact, ARE life. The Aaron Copeland music sprinkled through the film is lovely and fits the mood perfectly. The contrived ending (not part of the stage play) does not help the film, but by no means does it ruin it, either.

Why is this a film I dont wanna watch...because it moves me to uncontrollable tears everytime...It hits home...Thornton Wilder must have known my family ,understood my psyche..It hits home... Americana at the turn of the century.. my parents born... not in samll town america but Mid size city... still the thought the virtues the principals, the ideals were the same the happiness of a a home in America.. Mom & Dad providing a home, warm morning breakfasts on a cold winter day.. family members irrelevant yet unforgettable... the birthdays the graduations & the weddings the changes & the phases of life... and death are simply adequately & beautifully presented by Thornton Wilder & his play & screen play.. Emily portrayed by Marhta Scott is superb... if this doesnt bring a tear to your eye, you are not human... & George played by William Holden perfectly & the best supporting cast ever assembled.. Fay Bainter, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Mitchel, Guy Kibee,Dora Merande etc etc...non stop emotions.. non stop truth.. and the score ,all so memorable... i shouldnt watch this film..becsause its non stop tears everytime... but to me its an American Classic,,, maybe underrated...watch it absorb every line & cry your eyes out..

I haven't read or seen the play, so I'll leave that topic to a late night discussion group. Thanks to great production design (Menzies), cinematography (Glennon), and art direction (Rachmil), the movie raises small town conformity to near poetic level. Those majestic skyscapes hovering over the elegiac last third lift the narrative to a rare ethereal plateau. Such b&w effects are simply beyond the reach of modern coloration, and couch the film in an appropriate dream-like space.

Sure, nothing much happens in the story. But that's the point. It's the cycle of birth, love, work, death in an idealized small town that's celebrated. The wives agreeably clean and mother, the husbands agreeably earn and father, while the kids look forward to filling their slots. Do they lack imagination? Perhaps, but the overriding message is small town contentment. Happily, the results avoid the saccharine, largely because narrator Craven contrasts with what might become sticky. Thus we can concentrate on the banal events that make up a settled life, and maybe get a new appreciation of them. I can dig that even though I know early 19th century life in a factory or mining town would not yield the same harmonious results. Yes indeed, the rural Grovers Corner is an America that only exists in dreams of time past, and for folks who yearn for the "good ol' days". But the movie itself is none the worse for any of that.

Like "Harvey", "The Second Woman" and "Good Morning, Miss Dove", "Our Town" is set in an underpopulated United States town. Its 1901 look shares features with theirs, as do some of its story elements. Everyone knows practically everyone else; and the very fact that such towns are not the sort of place where important thing happens renders what does happen peculiarly intense, as if it had been placed under a magnifying lens in a powerful light. Author Thornton Wilder and his co-writers here adapt what was a most successful and atmospheric play into a deliberately-paced by I suggest an absorbing screenplay. It has the build perhaps of "Picnic" with the underlying calm of a good early western; only the setting here is Grover Corners, New Hampshire, a decidedly northeastern setting.. Sam Wood directed the film with his usual understated skill; and the writers I believe have retained the best of Mr. Wilder's crisp and often memorable dialogue. The film really divides into three parts--which I would nominate as Introduction, George and Emily and Two Futures(?). George Gibbs and Emily Webb in this film become two of the best remembered characters in U.S. fiction. Sol Lesser produced, with music by Aaron Copland, whose repressed melodies seem to me perfectly to serve this understated masterwork of dramatic construction. Production designer William Cameron Menzies and cinematographer Bert Glennon here tried for an uncompromising atmosphere rather than quaint or merely attractive compositions. Julia Heron did the remarkable interiors, with simple but effective wardrobe by Edward P. Lambert. Among the cast, Martha Scott is wonderfully young and unspoiled, and as Dr. Gibbs, Thomas Mitchell plays with Fay Bainter as his wife more-than-expertly. As their neighbors Editor Webb and his wife, Guy Kibbee is unusually restrained and Beulah Bondi as usual solidly dependable or better in every scene she is given. Stuart Erwin ad Frank Craven (as the stage manager) are quite good, and young William Holden shows to much better advantage than he did in several other films of the period. The supporting cast is not given a great deal to do but they do it very seamlessly, in my opinion. But what one remembers of "Our Town" I assert is its haunting, almost poetic quality. The production's pace is leisurely without being slow, electrically tense without being excited and focused without becoming too sad. The story here is about life, death, youth, love, honesty and fear--and the narrative evokes these emotions in the viewer honestly I claim because it is never pretentious and never striving for the effect that it admirably earns. It is I argue a touching black-and-white classic; and it is quite well acted also throughout.

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OUR TOWN is a timeless classic, and this 1940 film version captures the major themes from Thornton Wilder's great play.

At once simple and profound, unsentimental and heart-breaking, the story of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, and its citizens is a time capsule of early 20th Century America. Two neighboring families are examined in their everyday lives, and we especially follow George Gibbs (William Holden) and Emily Webb (Martha Scott) as they grow up and marry.

A stage convention, the Stage Manager (Frank Craven), acts here as a tour guide and talks directly to the audience and tells them the history of the town and stories about the characters. Independent of time, the Stage Manager can also see into the future and matter-of-factly see the various deaths of several characters as well as their pasts.

The scene from the cemetery is chilling yet is quite wondrous as the characters there ponder the timelessness of the universe. Also great is Emily's visit back to her family on her birthday, where she finally understand that life is made up or so many small and insignificant details that we hardly notice as times flies by.

The film boasts a terrific cast with Fay Bainter and Beulah Bondi outstanding as the mothers , Thomas Mitchell and Guy Kibbee solid as the fathers. Also notable are Doro Merande as Mrs. Soames, Arthur Allen as the professor, Philip Wood as the organist, Spencer Charters as the constable, Stu Erwin as the milkman, and Ruth Tobey as Rebecca, who gets to tell the "mind of god" anecdote.

The ending is different from the play's but works well in this version.

This is a film that badly needs restoration