I think rating this picture a '4' is about right... it shows a slice of wholesome American life in reprise as Don Ameche reviews the life of his son who has just been killed in WW2. The story starts off with everyone upbeat and happy - then a telegram comes with the bad news. Rusty has been killed in action.
Ameche is too immersed in his sorrow to go back to work at the family drugstore; then to his disbelief, his long-dead grandfather reappears from the past to help him work through his memories of Rusty's life, and see how rich and full it was despite being cut so short. At the end of the movie, Harry Morgan arrives; he's a good friend of Rusty's and comes to meet his late friend's parents, and tell them how nobly their son died.
It's all nice enough, I guess, a very prim and proper movie showing life in a simpler, more patriotic time. Now... maybe I over-analyze things, but I'm wondering this: if Ameche's grandfather (who is also Rusty's great-grandfather) could appear from the dead, why couldn't Rusty himself have done so? The old man seems as real and 'visible' as anything to Ameche (once he accepts that he's not imagining it all) as the old guy pays him a visit to help him through his grief; he talks about Rusty being 'gone' now, but hey, he's no more gone than you are, old timer! Why didn't you bring him with?
I think Henry Morgan's short role in this movie is one of the best I've ever seen him in; he's still very young here, younger than you've probably ever seen him, and his part has some emotion to it which he handles very well. I think in his short part he out-acted everyone else in the whole film. And, I think if we'd have had just one glimpse at the very end of Rusty appearing before his dad to say 'Don't be sad, pop, I'm okay where I am. We'll all be together again someday', it would have made the earlier part with the old guy a lot more credible and it would have given a good feeling to the ending of the story, reminding people that maybe this isn't all there is to our existence.
It's a nice movie, flawed in that major regard for me - just that one change of having Rusty make one appearance from 'beyond' would have turned the whole thing around for me. So, I'll give it a five as an artifact of the days of WW2 and an earlier version of America now gone. And I might add, it's an America in which I wish I had lived.
Ameche is too immersed in his sorrow to go back to work at the family drugstore; then to his disbelief, his long-dead grandfather reappears from the past to help him work through his memories of Rusty's life, and see how rich and full it was despite being cut so short. At the end of the movie, Harry Morgan arrives; he's a good friend of Rusty's and comes to meet his late friend's parents, and tell them how nobly their son died.
It's all nice enough, I guess, a very prim and proper movie showing life in a simpler, more patriotic time. Now... maybe I over-analyze things, but I'm wondering this: if Ameche's grandfather (who is also Rusty's great-grandfather) could appear from the dead, why couldn't Rusty himself have done so? The old man seems as real and 'visible' as anything to Ameche (once he accepts that he's not imagining it all) as the old guy pays him a visit to help him through his grief; he talks about Rusty being 'gone' now, but hey, he's no more gone than you are, old timer! Why didn't you bring him with?
I think Henry Morgan's short role in this movie is one of the best I've ever seen him in; he's still very young here, younger than you've probably ever seen him, and his part has some emotion to it which he handles very well. I think in his short part he out-acted everyone else in the whole film. And, I think if we'd have had just one glimpse at the very end of Rusty appearing before his dad to say 'Don't be sad, pop, I'm okay where I am. We'll all be together again someday', it would have made the earlier part with the old guy a lot more credible and it would have given a good feeling to the ending of the story, reminding people that maybe this isn't all there is to our existence.
It's a nice movie, flawed in that major regard for me - just that one change of having Rusty make one appearance from 'beyond' would have turned the whole thing around for me. So, I'll give it a five as an artifact of the days of WW2 and an earlier version of America now gone. And I might add, it's an America in which I wish I had lived.