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Nostalgia May 2018

Silver Screen, Golden Years

Since You Went Away

By Jacqueline T. Ambord

The film is a tender almanac: Seasons are used to move the story and reflect the mood. It rains when Colbert returns from bringing her husband to the railroad station when he reports for army duty. She comforts herself in an empty house with her photo album of their family history.

“Since You Went Away” (1944) is a much-loved movie among classic film fans, but its heartwarming World War II American home front presents some interesting, and even unsettling questions. What if the character of young Army corporal Bill, played by Robert Walker, had not been killed? What if wife and mother Anne, played by Claudette Colbert, had started work at the war plant at the beginning of the film and not the end? What if her funny flirtation with family friend Tony, played by Joseph Cotten, had led to a serious threat to her marriage? What if her husband, Army captain Tim had died? “Since You Went Away” presents a series of dramatic events that happened since Tim went away, but does not answer these questions. It does not even dare ask them.

Producer David O. Selznick’s tribute to the home front is lovingly detailed in a year in the life of the wife and daughters left behind by Tim, whom we never see except through snapshots. Joseph Cotten’s unrelenting harmless flirtation with Colbert is either jokingly returned or squashed by her sassy replies. There could be a knife edge of sexual tension between them, but the characters do not go that far, and we sense their comfortable camaraderie, even when he becomes their houseguest, is not due to their forbearance, but to the director’s and producer’s wish not to go down that road.

The film is a tender almanac: Seasons are used to move the story and reflect the mood. It rains when Colbert returns from bringing her husband to the railroad station when he reports for army duty. She comforts herself in an empty house with her photo album of their family history.

The gentle spring is a cruelly poignant backdrop to the news they receive of Tim being missing in action. A bright summer sky and a sudden thunderstorm herald the first flush of romance between the elder daughter Jane, played by Jennifer Jones, and visiting soldier Bill, who is dismissed by his overbearing grandfather, their new boarder played by Monty Woolley.

A gray autumn day brings Jones, and younger sister, played by Shirley Temple, home from school to the telegram announcing Bill’s death in battle.

A gentle Christmas Eve snow brings the good news of the missing Tim being found safe.  In a beautiful shot, the camera pans back on the tearfully joyous mother and daughters through the gable window of their neat little suburban home.  Truly, they are safe, and warm, and dry, and with a happy homecoming to look forward to, they have every reason to be deeply thankful. The film reminds us in many ways to consider how lucky we are.

This is Selznick’s earnest attempt at conjuring an American Mrs. Miniver, but the difference is that though these are all likeable actors playing likeable roles, unlike the civilian populations of Europe and Asia, most of the American home front experience on the mainland (beyond a few isolated small attacks) consisted of the anxiety of waiting.

Not to downplay that anxiety, for surely Americans at home suffered a dreadful period during the war; but waiting for someone to return does not always make for dynamic cinema.

If Bill had not died in action, would his romance with daughter Jane pass beyond the puppy love stage?  She’s young and still stinging from her other crush over older man Joseph Cotten. We expect she will recover from her girlhood crushes, no matter how painful. Her father’s death would have brought the reality of war home for this family far more than their demonstrated frustration with ration points and V-mail.

One of the most poignant, devastating, and true scenes of the film is when Anne and her
daughters watch a newsreel in a darkened movie theater. Their grocer, Mr. Mahoney, passes them up the aisle, wearing a black armband for his flyer son who was just killed in a training accident. We see the newsreel’s encouraging war news behind his shoulder as he trudges, heartbroken, towards the camera.

Despite a splendid cast, most of the war experience is conveyed by the minor characters,
including Craig Stevens and Guy Madison as young servicemen passing through their lives; Alla Nazimova as a war refugee; and Adeline De Walt Reynolds, whose granddaughter is a nurse trapped on Corregidor. We know Tim is coming back, because bad things don’t happen nice to people like Anne and her girls.

 

Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star., and several other non-fiction books on history and classic films, as well as novels.  www.JacquelineTLynch.com