Clark Gable, Lana Turner, Anne Baxter, John Hodiak, and Gladys Cooper star in "Homecoming," a 1948 film about wartime and its aftermath. Gable plays a surgeon, Lee, who falls for a nurse (Turner) with whom he puts together the wounded, endures a life with only the barest of necessities, sits in shelters, and dodges. Back home, his devoted wife (Baxter) realizes by reading his letters that she's losing him.
World War II has been romanticized often in films and in music - somehow, it is perceived by people who lived through Vietnam, Desert Storm, and our current conflicts as being somehow a cleaner war. But no war is clean, and there were some homecomings that were difficult as well. This was touched upon in "The Best Years of Our Lives," and very well here.
The story is brought to life by its players. The role of Snapshot the nurse is a different one for the glamorous and beautiful Turner than what she was normally handed - the curse of the beautiful in Hollywood. She was capable of much more, and she gives a strong performance as an outspoken soldier who finally lets her vulnerability show. The stalwart Gable gives us a man who realizes the detached attitude he had toward his patients at home will no longer work, and he has to rethink himself and his life. Baxter is the "one left out," who can't experience the war, and she gives an excellent portrayal of a woman who loves her husband but doesn't know what to expect from him when he comes home. "I know he's changed," she laments, "but why couldn't we have changed together?" Her real-life husband, John Hodiak, looks quite handsome but doesn't have much to do as a family friend - his brief brush with stardom was a few years away.
A very nice movie that shows that homecoming can be uncomfortable and bittersweet.
