Veterans Day Movie
Released the same year, but preceding William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives, a far better, Oscar winning picture, Till the End of Time deals the same topic: the adjustment of World War II veterans to post-war civilian life.
Grade: C+ (** out of *****)
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Theatrical poster
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It was based on the novel “They Dream of Home” by Niven Busch (whose wife, actress Teresa Wright, appeared in The Best Years of Our Lives).
Starring Dorothy McGuire, Guy Madison, Robert Mitchum, it was directed by Edward Dmytryk, who a year later would make a splash with the superb 1947 noir drama, Crossfire, which was Oscar nominated (and also co-starred Mitchum).
Unlike Wyler’s film’s trio of soldier, sailor and airman, the male leads in Dmytryk’s movie are all U.S. Marines.
Right after VJ Day, two decorated Marine Corps buddies, Cpl. William “Bill” Tabeshaw (Mitchum) and Pfc. Cliff Harper (Madison), are discharged in San Diego.
Bill, a former cowboy, was wounded in Iwo Jima and has a silver plate implanted in his head. Cliff, a former college student, is physically uninjured but harbors resentment about losing four years of his life while enlisting after Pearl Harbor.
Arriving in Los Angeles, Cliff meets his new neighbor, Helen Ingersoll, a vivacious teenager, who’s is instantly infatuated with him.
Anxious to see old friends, he heads for Scuffy’s, his favorite ice cream shop, which has become a bar.
He finds his friend Pinky, a naval aviator, who introduces him to Pat Ruscomb. Immediately attracted to each other, they abandon Pinky and go to Pat’s apartment.
Pat reveals that she is a war widow who has never gotten over her husband’s death. Discouraged, Cliff returns home to be reunited with his parents, C.W. and Amy.
Cliff tries to talk about his experiences, but his mother shuts him down. As the parents insist that things should be just like they were before the war, Cliff becomes edgy.
He feigns sleep when his parents look in on him and his mother tries to tuck him in, then pulls off the sheet and cries himself to sleep.
Pinky invites Cliff to go to ice skating with him and Pat. Unsure about their relationship, Cliff brings along Helen as his date.
In the coffee shop, Cliff comforts a soldier having “the shakes,” while Pat encourages him to tell his family of his condition.
Under pressure from his father about his future, Cliff is unable making any decisions. At breakfast Cliff tries to relate to his mother the misery of living in a foxhole, but she shuts him down, telling him to “stop living in the past.”
Bill stops by to brag that he has won $2,100 gambling and intends to buy cattle ranch in New Mexico. While Cliff easily discusses girls, gambling and drinking, his mother sits in silent disapproval, hoping not to see Bill again.
Bill and Cliff visit fellow Marine Sgt. Perry Kincheloe, a legless double amputee who was in the hospital with Bill, now living with his mother. Perry, once a boxer, is grooming his younger brother to become the fighter he can no longer be and rejects any encouragement to use his artificial legs.
Perry, after progressing in the hospital with other Marines, has given to self-pity. Cliff notes that during the war everyone was part of a team, but Bill counters that in civilian life, with no one to guide them, they’re on their own.
After spotting Pat at the bar waiting for another captain, Cliff argues with his parents, who are upset that he is always out, accusing him of wasting time with a “boy” like Bill Tabeshaw, rather than following their plans for him.
Charging that “it’s just not like old times,” Cliff can’t make them understand that Bill is a combat mate, not just a “boy,” and that the “good old times” are long gone.
Cliff calls Pat a tramp, but the next day explains that it was out of jealousy. Pat breaks down and reveals that she married her husband knowing that what he needed “a dream of home” to get through the war, but that by its end his return had become hers.
Cliff admits that he too is lonely and confused. At Pat’s suggestion, Cliff takes a job at the electronics factory where she works, but on his first day he picks a fight with his foreman.
Cliff proposes to Pat, but she rejects him when he expresses his wish to only live carefree on the beach until his money is gone.
Cliff asks Perry for his help to get Bill to a doctor. Perry finally dons his artificial legs and joins them, but before they can persuade Bill, they are approached by men who invite them to join their veterans’ organization.
Told that the organization is restricted, excluding “Catholics, Jews, and Negroes,” Bill spits on them. Perry discovers that he can still throw a punch, but Bill is hit over the head with a beer bottle, which injures him seriously.
At the hospital, Bill is prepped for surgery, telling Cliff that if he pulls through, he will go back home and work and save to buy a ranch.
Cliff tells his father that despite the difficulties of readjusting to civilian life, he feels luckier than Bill and Perry; he has a job and he loves Pat.
C.W. then tells him what must have been the movie’s message: “You didn’t make yourself a soldier overnight, you can’t become a civilian overnight.”
Having learned that Bill will be all right, Cliff and Pat happily leave together.
Chopin’s Polonaise Op. 53 is played throughout the film, with lyrics by Buddy Kaye and Ted Mossman. It became a major hit for singer Perry Como, spending 10 weeks at number one on the Billboard popular music charts.
A B-level post WWII melodrama, the film made a modest profit of $490,000.
Despite good looks, Guy Madison had never become a major leading man. (We label him as Second Banana).
Meanwhile, the movie was a major stepping stone in the quick rise to stardom of Mitchum, who won a Best Supporting Actor nomination, and would go on to become one of Hollywood’s most reliable and bankable stars, excelling in all kinds of genre, especially in film noir (Out of the Past).
Cast
Dorothy McGuire as Pat Ruscomb
Guy Madison as Cliff Harper
Robert Mitchum as William Tabeshaw
Bill Williams as Perry Kincheloe
Tom Tully as C.W. Harper
William Gargan as Gunnery Sgt. Watrous aka “Gunny”
Jean Porter as Helen Ingersoll
Johnny Sands as Tommy
Loren Tindell as Pinky
Ruth Nelson as Amy Harper
Selena Royle as Mrs. Kincheloe
Harry Von Zell as Scuffy
Critics
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Screenplay by Allen Rivkin, based on They Dream of Home, 1944 novel by Niven Busch
Produced by Dore Schary
Cinematography Harry J. Wild
Edited by Harry Gerstad
Music by Leigh Harline
Production and Distribution: RKO Radio Pictures
Release date: July 23, 1946 (US)
Running time: 105 minutes
