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"The Guy Who Came Back" (1951-Joseph Newman), along with Jacques Tourneur's "Easy Living" made at RKO, depicted professional football in the 1940s with a touch of realism. Though the Tourneur film is broadcast on TCM occasionally, "The Guy Who Came Back" appears to have fallen off the map, though I can vividly recall seeing this broadcast on TV in the 1970s. I was touched and amused by the story of an aging football player living in the past until WWII allows him to relive his "glory days". Paul Douglas as the immature but very human guy is at his best, making you smile and feeling a tug of compassion for the man as he sees life as he imagined it, slipping away. Linda Darnell is very winning and gives a nuanced performance as an understanding beauty attracted to the big lug, and Joan Bennett, as she was in that year's big hit, "Father of the Bride", exceptionally funny, using her dry comedic skills to create a thumbnail portrait of a a woman who is vexed by her husband's lack of perspective on life. Each of the actors who appeared in this film are probably much more appreciated now than when they were working.Why would 20th Century Fox, which is renowned for the quality of the DVDs that it produces, allow this movie to moulder somewhere in a vault or at least broadcast it on FMC, as they have with other rarities, such as Paul Douglas' equally obscure "Everybody Does It" (1949-Edmund Goulding) and "Love That Brute" (1950-Alexander Hall)? Is there a copyright issue with this film?If anyone knows if this is available, please let me know.Thank you for any help you may be able to offer.
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