The War Widow

As with all the other reviewers, this movie has been a constant in my mind after 30 years. I recall going to the library researching all that I could on this story. I even wrote to the PBS station for more information. Despite all this, all I was able to find out was that it was a story printed in a newspaper in the early part of the 1900s.

Fastward to 2002, after years of searching ebay for on a weekly basis and there it was, a VHS copy of the movie. There was one other bidder but I was determined to win this movie. The losing bidder wrote me asking for a copy which I gave her. Despite owning a copy, I still searched and searched finally finding a site that sold a DVD copy of the movie. You can find it at: http://www.johntopping.com/Harvey%20Perr/War%20Widow/war_widow.html

Originally broadcast by KCET (PBS) on their dramatic showcase series, "Visions," this sweet, quiet film has never been forgotten by any woman who ever saw it. Set during World War I, it is the story of Amy, a proper, but lonely housewife whose husband is away at war. She finds solace in a friendship with a more worldly female photographer, only to have her entire world turned upside down when the friendship becomes genuine love and she is forced to choose. Groundbreaking for its powerful yet non-prurient portrayal of lesbian first love.

The previous reviewer has said it exactly. I saw it once, was enchanted, saw it a second time when it was re-broadcast within a week or two of the first airing. I still remember some of the scenes. The setting is the opening of the 20th century, the war referred to in the title is World War I. One of the scenes was set in a women-only section of a public place, which was an interesting historical note. The moment when one of the women first touches the other is one of my all-time great movie moments. I don't think of this as a "gay movie," it's an interesting and tender period love story, where the two principals happen to be women. I would love to see this movie again; I would buy this one if it ever came out on DVD.

I saw this movie in 1976, my first year of living in New York. I went on to live there for the next 26 years,but never saw anything as delicate and beautiful again as this small TV movie. It was part of a PBS series as I recall, and I've never forgotten it.

There are no sex scenes to speak of, just delicate, moving, extraordinarily touching moments full of tension and excitement, all set within a conservative, Boston (I think), World War 1 environment where women played the role of devoted wife awaiting the return of husband from the war, and did not seek out a career and financial independence. Frances Lee McCain is superb in the role of career photographer and I have spent the next 30 odd years searching for her in equally challenging roles to no avail.

There has to be a video of this movie? Sure it should be on DVD but surely at least a video?

in 1976 i had just moved to the us from ceylon. i was 23, and had been married for a little over three years, and was beginning to come out as a lesbian. i saw this movie on an old black and white TV, with terrible reception, alone, and uninterrupted, in an awakening that seemed like an echo of the story. i was living in a small house in tucson arizona, and it was summertime... like everyone else here, i never forgot the feelings the images of this story called forth, and its residue of fragile magic, and i have treasured a hope that i would see it again someday. i'll keep checking in. i also wish that someone would make a movie of shirley verel's 'the other side of venus'. it also has some of the same delicacy and persistent poignancy...