If you want to know what veterans feel coming home you need to see this film. I am a vet of two wars. This film captured my feelings in both wars better than I could describe them.
Thank you for your service. I never served because of my age. Too young for Vietnam by a couple years, too old for those that followed. I do have many family members and friends I worked with over the years that did/do serve. Most of my friends that served were in Vietnam. None of them were physically wounded but most were wounded in some way. This is one of the best movies ever. I wish more people would watch it.
if this movie doesn't make you tear up and think about your own family and your own mortality i don't know what will...this movie is simply the best.....
My brother-in-law, who usually doesn’t respect my opinion on anything, agreed that it was one of the best films he’d ever seen after I suggested he watch it.
This film is a masterpiece on so many levels - it's one of those rare works that consistently bring tears at certain points every time I watch it - not tears of sadness, but those shed when you see a work of great art that overwhelms the emotions. There are so many micro-scenes as well, that are themselves overwhelming in their own rite. Who can forget when Dana Andrews' father and stepmother lament his leaving home with no clear goals, and the dad then reading a letter of commendation from the War Department citing the valor and bravery of the son? The father's reaction - one of extreme pride, sadness and stoicism has to be one of the best pieces of work ever committed to celluloid, and the stepmother is equally masterful as she cries then looks away; the long shot in the bar with Hoagy Carmichael in the foreground, and Andrews ending his ill advised relationship in the background is brilliant; double amputee Russell smashing his hooks through the shed window as his shocked little sister and friends take a perfectly positioned stance in the distance is intense; there are too many such scenes to be mentioned here. See the film, it is undoubtedly one of the best ever produced.
I believe this is the greatest single film ever to come out of Hollywood in the post-war era. It's theme, its cast, its soaring music, it is incomparable on so many levels. For my money, this is the best MOVIE of our lives.
William Wyler had resonance with each of the three returning WWII veterans. Like Homer, he suffered a war-related disability. As a film director, he could relate to the financially successful banker, who returns home with a new perspective on those less affluent and like Fred, he experienced PTSD.
This is a breathtaking, incredible movie. Robert is correct. This is the best movie ever made in Hollywood. The TCM intros and back bits are always full of info. Even if they run the movie again, the info is different.
This film is as they say criminally underrated! I never even heard of it till I was in my 40's! Yet, I had heard of all the other famous, award winning movies from the 30's-50's when I was still in high school!
.....??? ..... underrated ?? maybe in your simpleton mind. Any film winning 7 Academy Awards and routinely appearing on dozens of "best of" lists is not considered underrated. Just because you were late to the party, doesn't mean everyone else was as uninformed as you. Next time you leave a comment, think about how stupid you sound to every one else.
One of the occasions when the phrase "Genius of the Hollywood System" truly applied. A masterpiece, right up there with , Dodsworth, Rio Bravo, Gone With The WindCasablanca, Singing In The rain, Bringing Up Baby,etc.(Note the films I am citing are all paradigmatic products of The Studio System, from a variety of genres)
Was just reading about him, he lost his hands in North Carolina training demolitions to the 13th Airborne when a faulty fuse set the explosives off early, he also is the only Oscar winner to auction off his statue, he got $61K for it to pay his 2nd wife's surgery though he said he didn't need the money, he kept the special Oscar.
