Nicely directed mini Best Years of Our Lives, brought out the same year. Dorothy McGuire is top billed as the widow who sleeps around to numb the pain. Guy Madison is the principal male, who had briefly appeared in Selznick's Since You Went Away, and he's rather coyly experiencing PTSD and indecision. His buddy Robert Mitchum has a more physical issue, a wound which resulted in a plate in the head. Bill Williams is struggling to wear new legs. Meanwhile Guy's 15 year old neighbour Jean Porter (actually 24) has her eyes on him.
Notable scene where veterans' association reveal themselves to be racists and it turns into violent action. Another great scene where the couple help an ex serviceman who's experiencing the shakes at a bar. So definitely a story which needed telling at that time.
Madison was typecast in westerns on TV, then in tons of forgettable Italian and German productions.
A rare RKO production which was not scored by Roy Webb - it was Leigh Harline. Photographed by Harry Wild, Allen Rivkin adapted Niven Busch's 'They Dream of Home', produced by Dore Schary.
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