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.
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.