I Want You (1951) User Reviews

Slice of American life at the start of the Korean war

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 24 February 2007]

"I Want You" is a 1951 film starring Dana Andrews, Dorothy McGuire, Farley Granger, Peggy Dow, Mildred Dunnock, and Martin Milner. The character that Dana Andrews plays, Martin Greer, is perhaps an extension of his character in "The Best Years of Our Lives" four years later. It's post-World War II, the men have returned, purchased homes, started families, and built businesses. Then troops begin to be sent to Korea and the draft letters start coming. The movie deals with the effect on a small-town family and the emotional exhaustion and recent memories of World War II. How difficult it must have been to go to war again, yet many did.

Martin refuses to write a letter asking that one of his employees, whose father also works for him, be exempt due to being necessary to his business; he begins an exemption letter for his brother at his mother's request, but he can't do it. In love with the daughter of a member of the draft board, Martin's brother Jack (Granger) believes that he is being drafted to put a distance between himself and his girlfriend (Dow). "We both know the reason why my knee was exempt three months ago and isn't now," he says to her father (Ray Collins). When he suggests at dinner that rather than have people go into battle, the Army should just drop bombs, his sister-in-law (McGuire) throws him out of the house, causing bad blood between her and her in-laws. And it begins a domino effect: Jack and Martin's mother (Dunnock) goes home and trashes her living room, filled with war memorabilia supposedly brought back from battle by her husband (Robert Keith) but in truth purchased in pawn shops; he spent the war as a general's orderly in a Paris hotel.

What is fascinating is that some of the conversation sounds either like what one heard during the Vietnam days or hears today - one push of a button and we'll all be blown to bits and the desperation to get a deferment. Other parts are strictly Dark Ages: Jack's upper class girlfriend Carrie doesn't want to get married until she's 25. She wants to travel, learn Japanese, and "maybe even get a job," all of these things apparently not doable once she's married, the ultimate career goal.

Most of the performances are excellent. McGuire gives a striking performance as a woman who lived as an army wife, and for whom the thought of her husband perhaps being asked to serve again brings up a lot of anger. "We've lived in this house two years," she says. "Two years. Is that all the happiness people are allowed today?...I don't want to be left alone anymore." Dunnock's character is more restrained by equally effective in her disappointment in having to constantly say goodbye to her sons as they go to war. Matinée idol Granger, at the time under contract to the producer of the film, Sam Goldwyn, always had a youthful and likable screen personality, though he was never much of an actor. Dow is fairly one-note as his girlfriend; she doesn't bring enough warmth to the role.

Dana Andrews brings heart to the part of Martin, a man who tries to live by his own conscience and with honesty. He's really the anchor of the film. Though Andrews had a limited range, what he could do was always very good and with a solid presence. The end of the film is extremely touching, in large part due to him.

I was not bored by this movie. I found it very interesting. We've changed in this country and yet we have some of the same concerns. A good deal of the rhetoric sounded quite familiar. Recommended.

A companion piece for "Best Year of Our Lives"

[wforstchen · 7/10 · 14 May 2009]

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.

Almost like a sequel to THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 1 July 2007]

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.

Dark, seething, fascinating look at patriotism, reaction to war

[trpdean · 13 February 2004]

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.

Greetings From Harry Truman

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 14 June 2010]

The comparisons between The Best Years Of Our Lives and I Want You are constantly being drawn. Both are from Samuel Goldwyn and have the same look about them. I don't recall the name of the town where the Greer family and their fellow citizens are from, but it sure does have the same look and feel of Boone City, Iowa.

The Greer family which consists of Robert Keith and Mildred Dunnock and their sons Dana Andrews and Farley Granger has already given one son up for the USA during World War II. A late brother of their's is referred to. Dana also served in the second World War and now just wants to raise his family with wife Dorothy McGuire. The second son Farley Granger is your average kid looking to have a good time and is somewhat irresponsible and a concern to the rest of the family. Granger's seeing Peggy Dow much to the consternation of her father Ray Collins whom as it were just happens to sit on the local draft board.

So when the Korean conflict begins and Granger gets his greetings letter from President Truman this sets off a chain of events for the rest of the film. Granger is reluctant to go and the whole film is centered around everyone else's reaction to him.

I Want You had a lot of potential and never quite realizes it despite some very sincere performances uniformly by a very good cast. Our attitudes were a whole lot different in this war than they would be in Vietnam. I can't imagine this film being made in 1971.

In fact the days of the Selective Service are behind us. If the draft was ever re-instituted in this country, today's generation would understand far better what is going on.

I also think that the ending is so unbelievable that it almost rates being in the Twilight Zone. Let's just say that sacrifice and patriotism do have their limits.

Two very good performances are given by Walter Baldwin and Martin Milner who play a father and son who work for the Greer family. Milner is drafted and becomes an early fatality in the Korean War. Baldwin's scene in the local bar after this happens might be his best moment ever on screen.

I Want You is an earnest, but sadly dated film. It is also a good look at American attitudes in the middle of the last century.

nuclear family goes to war

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 13 July 2022]

It's the summer of 1950 in a small American town. The Greers are a happy, middle-America family with normal middle-America lives. With the approaching Korean War, they worry about their young son Jack who is at the top of the draft list.

I like the family drama pre-War and their struggle to keep Jack off the draft list. It could have gone anti-war. The second half is not as compelling. The happy ending feels inevitable. It's a nuclear family drama. Many reviewers seem to be comparing this to Best Years of Our Lives. I would say that it's playing the same sport but this one is trying to get into the pros while Best Years is one of the best player around.

called up for service

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 20 April 2021]

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.

Shadow of "Best Years" hangs over this Goldwyn film...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 8 August 2007]

While THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES dealt with the readjustment of three servicemen returning from the horrors of WWII, I WANT YOU is a more sentimental look at the home front following the return of those men to peacetime U.S.A. Peacetime, yes, until the draft meant the calling up of enlisted men again because of The Korean War, a war largely forgotten by today's generation.

The script in no way compares to that of BEST YEARS, but there are decent performances that hold the story on track. DANA ANDREWS and DOROTHY McGUIRE are the most impressive, with some good acting by FARLEY GRANGER and MILDRED DUNNOCK helping to keep the story afloat. But somehow, one never gets the feeling of urgency or involvement that is felt during the Oscar-winning Goldwyn film that preceded it.

A distinct weakness of the film is PEGGY DOW as Granger's sweetheart, a limited actress who lacks the warmth to make her part meaningful enough.

Summing up: Pales by comparison to Goldwyn's other masterpiece, but is competent enough on its own terms to merit watching. And DANA ANDREWS delivers his usual solid performance.

Outstanding look at "the forgotten war's" home front.

[Hermit C-2 · 10/10 · 13 August 1999]

This first-rate film about the effects of the Korean War on an Anytown U.S.A. deserves to be thought of in the same league as movies like 'The Best Years of Our Lives.' But just as history has done with the real wars, this movie seems to have gotten lost in the shadows of the much larger number of World War II dramas.

The Korean War came just five short years after WWII ended, just as many families whose lives were so disrupted by the bigger war were finally able to enjoy some peace and stability in their lives after struggles of readjustment. Lacking the impetus of a Pearl Harbor or the spectre of an Adolph Hitler, the draft was the prime mechanism for getting young men to the front lines in Korea. Older vets were now being asked to leave their homes and families again as well. This film shows surprising depth in its depiction of the problems and feelings of not only the eligible men, but their wives, mothers, fathers and girlfriends. The excellent script was written by Irwin Shaw based on magazine stories by Edward Newhouse and they provide us with an insightful look at this period in American history which doesn't get as much attention as the preceding or following decades.

Clay Blair called his book on the Korean conflict 'The Forgotten War' and this movie might be given a similar appellation, even though it deserves better. Simply as a piece of nostalgia it's enjoyable, but the movie is much more than that. It has a fine cast with many actors that even some of us baby boomers will recognize.

We're In It Again

[JackCerf · 6/10 · 12 April 2021]

The title "I Want You" is a double entendre, covering both the military draft and one character's romantic involvement. A strong script by novelist Irwin Shaw avoids patrioteering, flag waving, speech making and denunciations of the Communists.

Story shows a three generatoin family that owns a small contracting business dealing with the unexpected outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. The lead character, a WW2 engineer veteran with a reserve commission, turns down his bookkeeper's request for a letter that will get the bookkeeper's son a draft deferment as "indispensable." The lead's own younger brother is drafted, and the lead is faced with the possibility of being recalled to the army to build airfields, though he could probably obtain an exemption as a married business owner with two small children. The crisis comes when the bookkeeper's son is reported MIA in Korea, the bookkeeper blames his boss for not getting him the deferment, and the lead has to decide whether to return to active duty over his wife's strong objection.

There's also a romantic subplot between the lead's kid brother and the girl he dotes on. She's the daughter of a well to do family who has gone off to college. Her parents thoroughly disapprove of the young man as an unfocused scapegrace not fit for their daughter. Her father is head of the local draft board, and it is no accident that the boyfriend gets drafted despite a "trick knee" that had previously gotten him a deferment.

Dialog and behavior are low key, realistic and plausible. There are a couple of bits that stand out. One is when the lead offers to buy the bookkeeper's 19 year old kid a beer when the boy asks him for advice about getting along in the army. The bartender refuses to serve the underaged boy. Then the radio announces US involvement in the Korean War, and the bartender wordlessly pours the kid a beer. The second is a conversation between the lead's 7 year old son and their next door neighbor, an English war bride, about what it's like to be bombed. The child is not precocious, and the conversation develops naturally as one would between a curious boy and a kindly adult who gently tells him the truth. A third is a conversation between the girfriend and the lead's wife, who had married him at the beginning of WW2, about what the girlfriend could look forward to.

I had never heard of this move and was very pleasantly surprised. It isn't The Best Years Of Our Lives, but it's as honest and convincing a look at that time and place as Production Code Hollywood could have produced.

TCM's Osborne let me down & Why, Dana, Oh Why?

[oceanchick · 1/10 · 12 November 2008]

I am a classic movie lover, always tuned to TCM, and a serious Dana Andrews fan. I'm trying to watch every film he's done and thanks to TCM, I get the chance to see a few not available on DVD. After watching "The Satan Bug", (which nearly killed me) I just knew nothing could be worse, so I had hopes when I saw "I Want You" airing on TCM.

I tuned in to watch the film that Robert Osborne called an interesting film about the Korean War which addressed the topic of WW2 veterans called back to active duty and their sons being drafted, some immediately out of high school. Great idea for a story, time appropriate, potential to see how this guts the American family. It was described as similar to "The Best Years of Our Lives" with a different writer. Up until this film, I had great trust in ole Bob. He typically calls the films accurately, saying it isn't very good in a nice way if the film stinks, and advising if it is propaganda or government fueled, etc. This film was not described as being an educational propaganda film. Bobby Boy, you shook up my faith in you.

What the film turned out to be was almost 2 hours of boring "can't dodge the draft" conversations. Seriously. The entire film is propaganda. Here's the gist of it: You have older men who have served previously that want to be exempt but cannot. Young men with "bum knees" that aren't exempt. Young men who are the livelihood of their families that aren't exempt. You have older men who are the sole income for their families and cannot be exempt. You have people trying to say they are in college, or are too valuable to their work or families, the only child -- none of which are exempt. The entire film is people talking to each other about ways they want to avoid the draft but cannot. There is zero action. Mostly characters dressed in suits and ties standing around interacting with Andrews who is the central character in the film and is used as a propaganda sound-piece.

The film also addresses that young men who aren't old enough to have a beer in a bar are being sent off to war to be scarred for life and/or to die for their country. This scene was overplayed and under-developed.

Even the casting for the film couldn't raise this out of the cow patty pile. Dana Andrews sleep walks through his part, sounding like he's the sole source of information on a government issue training film. His heart obviously isn't in it. Farley Granger has a storyline with Peggy Dow that is confusing at best, but without material to work from, they fall deep into the pile of muck that is this movie. Great to see Martin Milner of Pete Malloy Adam-12 fame and Jim Backus who will forever be Thurston Howell III of Gilligan's Island, but bless their hearts, this couldn't have been a career booster unless it was considered paying your dues in the studio system. Somewhere in this stinker is Dorothy McGuire, playing a concerned protective mother to Farley Granger and Dana Andrews who is, incidentally, about 10 years older than her...and it shows! Heaven forbid she smells cloves or whiskey on anyone's breath.

Script: Stale. Unbelievable dialog. The movie goes straight from exposition into a mind-numbing boring that lacks anything to build to a climax.

Casting: Caliber of actors isn't the issue with this film as much as the script and lack of action in the film. Actors weren't connecting with their parts because there wasn't anything to connect to. Milner gave the best performance of the film when he explains he isn't trying to dodge the draft. Dow wasn't necessary to anything in the plot. Age is an issue with Andrews.

Cinematography: Basic studio lighting with a horrible opening sequence aerial shot that is running too fast. No real moving shots, mostly stationary camera. Filmed almost like a Leave it to Beaver TV episode, where the actors move but the camera doesn't. But I'll be honest, a nice complex crane, jib or dolly shot wouldn't have helped anything in this film.

Shot Selection: Dull. Mostly med-wide 2 shots resulting in a lot of talking torsos.

Direction: That-a-way. If the actors received any direction at all, it should have been towards the sound stage exit. As it stands, I don't see any evidence of directing the actors, neither through motivation or even career salvaging. It's difficult to believe that any director would ever have this movie pictured as their ideal finished product. They should have had Ed Wood direct this. Wood would have at least made sure the film had something watchable in it! It would possibly stink, but in a better way.

Editing: Strictly studio. Should have done something different w/ opening shot. Could have been tighter. Inter-cutting with some closeups would have made the scenes a bit more visually interesting.

This film makes the "Why We Fight" series look like "Gone With the Wind". It makes the government issued films of the 50s about home life, how to be a good wife, how to properly groom, how to give an effective public speech, how important a spring is, how to be a good employee, and the famous how to duck and cover all look Oscar worthy. "I Want You" would have been a perfect candidate for a MST3K riffing, but I believe it could have potentially killed the show. Someone please toss this film onto one of the garbage barges floating around and let it rot there before it can torture another viewer. Dana, I'll still be watching your films as surely none of the rest could be as bad as this. Oh, and Bob, I just don't know if I can forgive you for this one. Tsk Tsk Tsk.

The same "verse" for every war

[sksolomonb · 10/10 · 11 April 2021]

So many reviewers have missed the mark in reviewing this film which I started watching again just a few minutes ago. The intrusion of war, with its unfairness, waste, and death, shown in this film reminded me so much of the Vietnam era which I lived through as a young woman of the baby-boomer generation. As a result, I felt compelled to write this review.

Oceanchick accurately described so many factual aspects of the film, but I believe she misinterpreted the objectives of the plot and dialogue. Other reviewers claimed many scenes were underplayed, but I believe this kind of understatement was intentional so that the viewer's mind could expand to envision the deceit, horror, and.death about to be unleashed on the innocent, trapped characters. I saw so much of this.tragedy looming in my peers' lives during Vietnam, along with the ignorance, selfishness, and indifference of parents who willingly wanted to be lied to, to be told the war would bring prosperity as World War II had, and to be told their sons were being sent to an "adventure" no more dangerous than a church picnic or Boy Scout Camp. Of course, everything was wrapped in the flag of patriotism. The worst cruelty was the feigned indifference of a draft board so that the local big-wigs serving on it could use the war as a way to eliminate young men they considered losers, young men they did not like, or young men they believed "unworthy" of their daughters. If I were to put the whole scene into a nutshell, I would call it "Lies and Death.".

Some reviewers called this film a pro-war propaganda film, but I believe it is just the opposite: a war protest film that shows how a war impacts everyone in a society and how a draft board is a merchant of death. If there ever was an advertisement for an all-volunteer army, this film is it.

The Indispensable

[jromanbaker · 7/10 · 29 January 2024]

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.

Sometimes moving, but mostly dull Korean War follow-up to "The Best Years of Our Lives".

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 17 November 2011]

While Dorothy McGuire and Dana Andrews are the top-billed stars of this Samuel Goldwyn produced war drama, it is young Farley Granger who gets the bulk of the story. It is 1949, and war in Korea is looming. Granger's father, Robert Keith, served in World War I, brother Andrews (like his "BYOOL" alter-ego) served in World War II, and now it is Granger's turn. He's a bit of a rover, more interested in playing around with the mayor's daughter (Peggy Dow) than being patriotic and caring about what's going on between North and South Korea. It takes sister-in-law McGuire to tell him off the night Granger leaves for basic training to wake him about about what his part in protecting America is, although her mother-in-law (Mildred Dunnock) instantly resents her for it, and gives her the silent treatment for months. In a follow-up scene, Dunnock angrily confronts her husband (Keith) about the lies and fake souvenirs of his World War I involvement. Ms. Dunnock is brilliant with her seemingly Apple Pie mom erupting in anger as her family structure falls apart. Fay Holden's Mrs. Hardy she ain't.

Peggy Dow plays town mayor Ray Collins' daughter who falls in love with neer-do-well Granger against papa's wishes. This romance is predictable from the get-go, while Andrews and McGuire's marriage is glimpsed into only sporadically. More moving is the sometimes humorous tale of young Martin Milner as a 19-year old draftee whose sensitive widowed father (Walter Baldwin in an outstanding performance) asks his boss Andrews to write a letter to keep his son out of the service. Andrews must decline however, which leads to a very moving confrontation late in the film between Baldwin, Andrews, and Jim Backus, as Andrews' old army buddy. On the humorous side of Milner's storyline, there is the running joke of him claiming to be 26 to get a beer, even though every bartender he encounters can tell differently. Overall, the film really isn't all that interesting, more "moments" than "story". Somehow, the great director Mark Robson doesn't manage to get all of the fragmented pieces together, making this more of a soap opera than a look at the last days a family spends together to one of them going off to war.

Worth Looking Into

[dougdoepke · 11 December 2008]

Probably this sincere family drama is too low-key and idealized to make a lasting impression. Nonetheless, it's one of the few attempts at portraying effects of the Korean War on average Americans through the impact on one family. The obvious comparison is with the WWII family drama The Best Years of our Lives, but the differences are illuminating. Unlike WWII, there is no moral clarity to this war. The screenplay inserts two rather vague justifications for American intervention; however, these remain abstract, without the concrete appeal of a Pearl Harbor. By and large, this is how the country reacted to the intervention-as a matter of anti-communist duty, but without any enthusiasm. The movie, I think, conveys some of this ambivalence. However, the upbeat ending looks also like an effort to fold the unease into an idealized celebration of middle-class adjustment and normality.

And that was the problem of the war for many Americans. Note in the movie how the Greer's business is expanding. In fact, the entire civilian economy was expanding, creating millions of new jobs and new middle-class life styles after years of Depression and WWII sacrifice. The Korean War came as an unwelcome distraction to those fast rising prospects. So, when Eisenhower campaigned in 1952 on ending the war, the pledge was enthusiastically received. It's not hard to imagine both the Greers and the Turners turning out solidly for the ex- general on that basis.

Given the life and death circumstances, the movie amounts to an exercise in intense emotional restraint, as though the producers are avoiding anything that might alarm the audience. Note that the likable Junior (Milner) is listed in the less threatening category of missing-in-action rather than killed-in-action. Thus the human cost is not driven home as forcefully as it could have been. Note too how risks of civilian bombing casualties are underplayed by the neighbor woman Krupka in her flat account of surviving WWII bombing in Europe.

Also when war risks are brought up, they have not specifically to do with Korea. Instead the allusions are to Soviet stereotypes (though the Soviets are never mentioned by name) and to the dangers of atomic warfare. This again has the effect of removing the war from its concrete context of an Inchon landing, a Chosin retreat, or a Pusan perimeter. I suspect that the effect on today's viewers of turning the war into an abstraction is more pronounced than it was in 1951.

Actually, using atomic weapons in Korea, especially to fend off the Chinese "hordes", was a live issue at the time. After all, as hawks argued, what's the value of these super-weapons if we don't use them. Add to that the fact that the Soviets lacked a long-range delivery system to hit American shores (not mentioned in the movie) and the hawks have a fairly compelling case. The movie, however, turns the issue into a morally simpler matter of Jack's (Granger) being selfish against Nancy's (McGuire) legitimate concern for the unsparing destruction an atomic war would cause just to lessen Jack's chances of being killed in combat. Nonetheless, when Jack comes around to Nancy's view at movie's end, it's not clear whether he's merely rejecting his former selfishness or the whole idea of atomic warfare. Nor, for that matter, do we know Nancy's general position on the nuclear question. Thus the film muddies a key issue plaguing not only the Korean period, but the entire Cold War era.

One issue the screenplay deals with effectively is the draft. The dramatic highpoint comes when George Sr. (Junior's father, beautifully played by Walter Baldwin) confronts Martin (Andrews) as the man who sent Junior to his probable death by not writing an exemption letter to the draft board. In practical terms, Junior should not be exempted because he's not "indispensible" to the war effort at home. So, Martin is on solid ground in that regard. However, as a moral matter, is Junior any less valuable than any other draft-age young man. And therein lies the nub of the problem that has plagued the concept of Selective Service over the decades- a clash between morality as securing the "greater good" and morality as treating people as equals. Martin has to operate on the basis of the former while George Sr. Feels the injustice of the latter. It's the movie's best scene, and one that definitely benefits from a sense of intensely restrained emotion.

It looks like a carefully chosen ensemble cast. Milner is especially affecting as the ill-fated Junior. It's he who gives the movie real poignancy as he becomes a stand-in for every fine young man whose life is put at risk in a dubious war. The screenplay can't resist over-doing his youthful frustrations at times, but the point is there and it's his earnest-life-cut-short that's stuck with me over the years. On the other hand, Granger and Dow as the young lovers are about ten lip-smacks too sweet and take up too much screen time, especially with their poorly staged "strolls in the park". I get the feeling their roles were expanded to expand box-office appeal.

Nonetheless, the movie remains an interesting artifact of its time, but is ultimately too pallid and idealized to make a lasting impression. Beyond the fairness of the draft, the screenplay really doesn't confront the sticky political issues that defined the war itself. In short, the story lacks the sort of forceful confrontation that Fredric March has with Grace Kelly in The Bridges of Toko-Ri, the best movie I think on the war. There, the whole moral question of Korea is dealt with specifically, and it's to that movie's lasting credit that the defining sense of unease lasts throughout with no "happy" ending, just like the war itself. Anyway, this film is still worth a look-see for those interested in America past and in some ways America present.

Perhaps director, Mark Robson, was a little too hard on himself?

[JohnHowardReid · 3/10 · 14 September 2017]

Producer: Samuel Goldwyn. Released through RKO Radio Pictures. Copyright 21 December 1951 by Samuel Goldwyn Productions, Inc. New York opening at the Criterion: 23 December 1951. U.S. release: January 1952. U.K. release: 31 December 1951. Australian release: 6 June 1952. 9,138 feet. 102 minutes.

NOTES: Nominated for the annual AMPAS award for Best Sound Recording, losing to The Great Caruso.

COMMENT: Well-made film, smoothly directed, attractively photographed, a literate script convincingly acted, but alas it has no soul. Apart from the involving introduction, it's dullsville. The acting is in fact too careful. Not a word of Shaw's dialogue is muffled or lost. And, alas, 99% of it doesn't deserve such reverential treatment.

Alas, too, the players have given us similar performances and portrayals many times in the past. It's just the same again, but here their roles are less involving, have less heart. It's such a familiar parade of characterizations — almost all in roles of lesser importance than their parts of the past — that Walter Baldwin stands out, giving a realistic, haunting portrayal in what is probably the one really major role of his career.

On the other hand, Peggy Dow comes across as a Ruth Roman imitator, both in acting and make-up, whilst Granger is his typical boyishly selfish self, and Mr. Andrews somewhat unnecessarily glum.

Robson is at his most fluid in the location sequences. Otherwise his careful, reverential approach to his so-so material does not inspire.

Aside from a bit of obvious stock training footage, the film has all the Goldwyn professionalism about it. The problem is that the script is too dull and both too long and too short. For example, one of the effective scenes has Dunnock throw Keith's trophies on the floor and denounce him. This would have had much more dramatic impact had we been led up to it. I don't think we ever saw the trophy room before Dunnock dismantled it. Maybe the scene was shot and later cut. If so, it's missed.

On the other hand, the scissors could have been taken to many other scenes. The film is full of unnecessary and extraneous material, no doubt as the result of using short stories as the basis for the script. The film just goes on and on — and then ends abruptly!

OTHER VIEWS: One of the worst films I ever made. It was awful. — Mark Robson.

And I don't refuse this film

[searchanddestroy-1 · 1 May 2024]

Of course, the first thing - and movie - which you think first after watching this one is THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, produced by the same Samuel Goldwyn company, the analysis, character study of a small town regarding the issues that the Korean war will bring among those people. It prepares us to THE DEER HUNTER and many more films of this kind - including WE WERE SOLDIERS, Vietnam, Irak, Afghanistan wars and so on. This movie, unlike those more recent ones, doesn't evoke too much post war traumatic stress disorders. But Mark Robson, the director of this very one, will give us LIMBO in 1973, telling a story very close to the above titles: Vietnam war wives and widows dealing with a hopeless life and personnal problems. Good film this one, as LIMBO.