Since You Went Away – 1944
This was a great big WWII propaganda film. My biggest beef with it was its forced wholesomeness. It was so forced as to be incredibly fake. Where else would you have to listen to a grown man saying things like “golly gee whiz!” or “I sure had a swell time!” I’m sure that there were people that really talked like this, but when these lines are spoken as dialogue, it felt unnatural and forced.
Then there was the score. It was written by Max Steiner, and he won the movie’s only Oscar for his efforts. But again, I don’t understand why. The category for which it won was Best Original Score Comedy, though I’m not sure I’d call the film a comedy. The music, while lush and dramatic, was sometimes like a bull in a china shop. There was very little subtlety, and I knew what I was in for after the first few minutes. The movie opens as the camera pans across a room, focusing on a few objects that tell of a married couple with children. When we see a wedding photo, the music throws out a few bars of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. Then it pans over a pair of bronzed baby shoes and we are treated to a few measures of Brahms’ Lullaby. I don’t want to call that lazy writing, but it wasn’t as clever as Steiner thought it was. It was just a bit heavy handed.
The movie starred Claudette Colbert as Anne Hilton, a woman whose husband, Tim, has just gone off to fight in WWII. Of course, being a propaganda film, it is revealed that Tim went off to fight with a heart full of pride and civic duty. He and every other man was eager to enlist and excited at the prospect of fighting and dying for his country. Anne has two daughters, Jane and Bridget, played by Jennifer Jones and Shirley Temple. Of course when Pop goes off to war, money gets tight so they have to let the maid go. Fidelia, played by Hattie McDaniel loved the family so much that she nearly begs Anne to work for them for free.
The best man at Anne and Tim’s wedding was a naval officer named Tony Willett, played by Joseph Cotton. He is a bit of a playboy who is secretly a perfect gentleman. To earn some extra cash while Pop is away, the Hiltons take on a lodger, Colonel William Smollett, played by Monty Woolley. He is a stern, crotchety man who treats all the women in the house like his personal servants, though he is really an old softy. His estranged grandson, Bill, is played by Robert Walker. In order to prove himself to his grandfather, he happily joins the army. Then to round out the cast, Agnes Moorhead played Mrs. Hawkins, the mean old hoity-toity who is too aristocratic to help in the war effort, and who nobody likes anyway. And don’t be fooled by the film’s poster. Sure Lionel Barry was in the movie as a preacher… for all of 1 minute and twenty seconds of the three hour movie..
The movie is all about how civilians deal with the absence of their loved ones because of the war. There are a lot of tears and even a few deaths to give the drama some depth. And you can be sure that Max Steiner’s schmaltzy score did its best to emphasize it all. The movie wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t as good as it thought it was. It went on about an hour too long. So much could have been taken out.
The actors all did just fine, but it seemed that some were better than others. For example, when it came to the three Hilton women, their acting skills seemed to be a direct reflection of their ages. Shirley Temple was alright. This is the only time I have seen her on the silver screen during her teenage years, and she seemed to be struggling to break away from her baby doll roles. Jennifer Jones was better, but some of her dialogue felt too forced. And Claudette Colbert was, as always, very good. She had an ease in front of the camera that made her character feel natural. Most other characters in the movie were passable, but it wasn’t their faults. They were written as caricatures, not characters.
And it wouldn’t be a true 1940s Hollywood movie if it didn’t have those predictable romances. Young Jane loves Uncle Tony. Tony is constantly hitting on Anne. Anne can only think of her husband. Tony is shipped off to war and Jane falls for Bill. Bill gets killed in action, and Jane, who has become a nurse’s aide, falls in love with a wounded soldier. And in the end, Anne gets a telegram saying that her husband, Tim, after having been missing in action for some time, is safe and is returning home just in time for Christmas. Happy ending!
But I have to make special mention of one wonderful scene that made me fall out of my seat laughing, and not because it was in any way funny. The 1980 movie, Airplane! is one of the funniest movies ever made. In it, there was a scene in which a young girl is saying goodbye to an army soldier as the airplane is taking off. The melodramatic music starts playing and the soldier stands in the open door of the Boeing 707 as it starts speeding away for take-off. She runs after the plane, knocking down pylons, and shouting her tearful goodbyes. This hilarious scene was a direct spoof of Jane saying farewell to Bill as his train takes him away from her. Airplane! spoofed the scene perfectly, from the dialogue, right down to the exact clothing Jane was wearing! Priceless!