Coming Home (1978)

A woman whose husband is fighting in Viet Nam falls in love with another man who suffered a paralyzing combat injury there.

Director:

Hal Ashby

Writers:

Waldo Salt (screenplay), Robert C. Jones (screenplay)

Stars:

Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, Bruce Dern

Won 3 Oscars. Another 11 wins & 14 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jane Fonda	...	Sally Hyde
Jon Voight	...	Luke Martin
Bruce Dern	...	Capt. Bob Hyde
Penelope Milford	...	Vi Munson
Robert Carradine	...	Bill Munson
Robert Ginty	...	Sgt. Dink Mobley
Mary Gregory	...	Martha Vickery
Kathleen Miller	...	Kathy Delise
Beeson Carroll	...	Capt. Earl Delise
Willie Tyler	...	Virgil
Louis Carello	...	Bozo (as Lou Carello)
Charles Cyphers	...	Pee Wee
Olivia Cole	...	Corrine
Tresa Hughes	...	Nurse Degroot
Bruce French	...	Dr. Lincoln

Storyline

Sally Bender is the wife of a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. He is sent over to Vietnam, and Sally is alone. With nothing else to do, she decides to volunteer at a local veteran's hospital, where she meets Luke, who went to high school with Sally. Luke was wounded and is paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. When Sally begins to fall in love with Luke, she has to make a crucial decision about her life.

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Plot Keywords:

vietnam | paraplegic | vietnam war | wheelchair | u.s. marine corps | 

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Taglines:

A man who believed in war! A man who believed in nothing! And a woman who believed in both of them!

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Genres:

Drama | Romance | War

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

15 February 1978 (USA)

Also Known As:

Buffalo Ghosts

Filming Locations:

Manhattan Beach, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$3,000,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$32,653,905

Company Credits

Production Co:

Jerome Hellman Productions, Jayne Productions Inc.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

127 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006), this movie was used as an example of how much more strict the MPAA had become with regards to the sexual content of movies since the 1970s. It was noted that this movie got an R-rating despite a long scene where a woman reaches an orgasm from oral sex, whereas similar scenes made in the 1990s and 2000s gave their respective movies (especially Boys Don't Cry (1999) and The Cooler (2003)) an initial NC-17 rating.

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Goofs

Bruce Dern plays a Marine Captain. Even in the late 1960s early 70s he wouldn't have had hair and a mustache that long.

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Quotes

Sally Hyde: [In a crowded bar in Hong Kong] Bob, let's just be alone for a few minutes.
Capt. Bob Hyde: We are alone.
Sally Hyde: There's something wrong, Bob.
Capt. Bob Hyde: It's not you - it's, it's 'em, it's f*cked up, it's all this bull sh*t about Nam, it's in my head, I can't get it out.
Sally Hyde: Well, why don't you talk to me about it? I want to know what it's like.
Capt. Bob Hyde: I don't know what it's - I don't know what it is? The TV shows what it's like. It sure as hell don't show - what it is.

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Crazy Credits

Four members of the film crew are designated as "Friends who did everything".

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Connections

Featured in American Masters: Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey (1990)

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Soundtracks

Time Has Come Today
(1967)
Written by Joseph Chambers (uncredited) and Willie Chambers (uncredited)
Performed by The Chambers Brothers (as Chambers Brothers)
Columbia Records

User Reviews

strong without forcing it

Without a single scene of combat footage, this story manages to convey, in realistically painful terms, how much Vietnam scarred the landscape of America. And this is only a fictional viewpoint. The true life accounts must be gut wrenching. No one returned from the war the same person. To suggest a film be made showing an unaffected soldier would be incredibley unbelievable. When attitudes change and characters grow from harsh realities, you can't help but be caught up in their struggle. People you would never expect to protest a US -involved conflict, or even question it, did so with Vietnam. The Jane Fonda Sally character is such a person. She begins the picture somewhat naive, easily trusting, and sort of tied to her straight laced military existence as the wife of an enlisted man. But then she sees an entirely different world when he's gone, and over months, falls for his total opposite, symbolizing how much she can never go back to the woman she was at the beginning. It's very subtle and deeply felt acting that can achieve this and both Fonda and Voight deserved their Oscars for their moving and expert performances. Bruce Dern is the hardest to sympathsize with on the surface, but you realize he's been scarred by what he's seen too, and what has happened to him in his absence, so his world becomes more bitter as everything he once knew shatters around him. The 3 experiences, his, Voight's and Fonda's merge together at the end, in a series of heartbreaking realizations, until you're left as broken as the country was after the war. You can't NOT be affected by what happened in Nam. It's impossible. And this film clearly shows why. It's the most personal and touching of Hollywood's Vietnam treatments. And certainly the deepest acted. Buy a copy and judge for yourself...