Face à l'orage

While this was not intended as a sequel to the wonderful film THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, it did make a nice follow-up film and is very similar in style and tone--perfect to be seen together as a double feature. A lot of the reason it seems almost like a follow-up is because both films were produced by Samuel Goldwyn and both starred Dana Andrews. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES concerns the adjustment of three men to civilian life following WWII. This film is set just a few years later and has to do with the coming Korean War and its impact on some families in an unnamed American town.

I read one review for this film that said it was "dull" and while I don't agree, I could understand how some might feel that way. The film is sentimental but never comes close to making the impact of THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES and it also doesn't give clear answers in some cases, so it might actually make you think. It's about a scary era in history and how it effects "the little people"--not exactly a topic that generates millions at the box office. Still, from a historical point of view it's a super-important curio as it's about the only film I know of that addresses the topic of the draft and Korea, and someone who would like to learn not just about history but the impact of events on peoples' lives will doubt enjoy this little curio. If you want explosions and action, then this certainly isn't a film for you. If you want to see a film with excellent acting that rings true about real folks facing real problems, then this film is highly recommended.

I agree with the previous reviewer from 2007. Ironic in that I teach a college course on WWII and always end the semester showing the coming home scene of Homer from "Best Years of Our Lives." It has always been so powerful that I can't speak after showing it, and just let my class end on that note, of Homer raising his steel claw hand to wave good bye.

But what of the rest of their lives of that "greatest generation." The day after showing "Best Years," and ending a semester, TCM ran this little gem, "I Want You," and it is almost like a sequel of five years later, about a generation that fought a global war, thought they were coming home to peace and now face remobilization, and also watching their kid brothers getting drafted to go off to a distant unknown front. It is by no means as good as Best Years, but you will see the connection with so many of the same actors, and it almost looks as if it was shot in the same town.

One must definitely remember the context of the time to better understand this film. When made, the bitter quagmire of Korea was still being fought out, hanging over all the specter that it could escalate into yet another global war, this time with nuclear weapons. The tragedy is so evident, recalling how the three vets in Best Years say that all they want is a family and to live in peace. Again, when made, how the conflict would end, if it would ever end, was an unknown.

So definitely see the two films together in sequence. The greatness of the first will lead you into this second, that though no where near as good, is an accurate reflection on the tragic world of our parents and grandparents who after fighting WWII simply wanted to live in peace, and found they never would.

Samuel Goldwyn produced, and Mark Robson directed. The stars of the film Dana Andrews, Dorothy McGuire and Farley Granger. Alongside them Peggy Dow, Midred Dunnuck ( excellent in her role ) and another excellent performance from Martin Milner as a teenager too young to drink beer, but old enough to go off and fight in the Korean War. Some people did not go to war because they were indispensable but Milner was not, and his elderly father is left to grieve his loss. One could say these peripheral people in this film are outside of the core family that the main stars are in ( except for Dunnock who has some of the best dialogue, ) but in my opinion they are at the heart of the matter. Dorothy McGuire wants men to go to war, but changes her mind when her husband played by Dana Andrews enlists. No more spoilers. I found the film saddening, well acted and I was surprised that an almost forgotten film in a poor copy could affect me so much, and leave me with so many questions I had to ask myself. Robson directs reasonably well, and only Farley Granger in uniform as Dana Andrews brother did not quite convince. In Luchino Visconti's ' Senso ' he was again in uniform, and gave of his best and proved in my opinion to be a fine actor. If viewers can find this film it is well worth seeing.

Starts out very happy go lucky; the Greer brothers (Dana Andrews and Farley Granger) are sitting down to dinner, not a care in the world. But they are throwing around the words "draft board", so we know pretty soon they will be dealing with the Korean War. Discussions about who is essential, and might get out of serving. Twenty year old marty milner, who will probably be best known for adam 12 tv series. And of course, the awesome Jim Backus (Mr. Howell !) movie filmed during the summer of 1951, but the U. S. had actually already begun to take action. It's quite good. Gets very serious about halfway through. Gone are the carefree, small town days. Directed by Mark Robson. Nominsated for two big, sprawling films, back to back... Inn of the Sixth Happiness and Peyton Place.

Clearly this movie was meant by Goldwyn to be comparable to Best Years of Our Lives. The difficulties with such an effort are that:

a) this movie looks at the beginning, not the end of a war - at the trepidation, the dislocation and sacrifice -- not the sweet relief of an ordeal over and the prospects for improvement in one's welfare; and

b) like all wars America has been in since W.W.II, Korea was not a "total war" (engrossing and engulfing the lives of all in the country) but instead one in which a peacetime prosperity and security continued for those at home while a relative handful out of the American population bore the entire brunt.

These factors produce a very different movie than Best Years - a movie of families riven by conflict over the disparity of the sacrifice, over whether to seek to avoid that sacrifice, over basic feelings about what is personally owed to the country (rather than self or family), and over the pride or shame in participation in a war.

The movie seethes with conflict and bad blood - often unspoken. The conflicts arise over deeply felt divisions in social class, in gender and in generation, and result in unspoken accusations of callousness and cowardice, vanity and selfishness.

In many respects this is a movie of another time - these days, unless a family has a strong military tradition, I can imagine few families now enraged by a son's expressed wish that a war could be won without his involvement, few families in which an employer would not draft a letter for his decades-long employee's only child to keep him out of war - and even refuse to write a letter (for which his mother pleads) for his own beloved brother's draft deferment.

One sees many views of war and patriotic obligation in this movie: views that deeply clash with one another, views that are expressed with strong emotion and that upset others.

The only comparable scene in Best Years of Our Lives is the darkest - the scene with Dana Andrews and the cynical customer at the soda fountain. Best Years is a far warmer and more optimistic movie (despite the predicament of the protagonists). In Best Years, one always senses that one day, there will be a workable re-adjustment.

In "I Want You", one has no such assurance - and it contributes to making this very realistic, often grim, and altogether fascinating.