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The former G.I. (John Ericson) whose "occupation is running away," demonstrated as he bolts from an opening scene that moves from a tight close-up of a leech-faced clerk to an equally oppressive long shot of lines at the unemployment office. "All mixed-up as usual," a story remembered in an East Side bedroom or recounted to a sympathetic therapist (Rod Steiger). Mom (Patricia Collinge) is a possessive meddler, the suburban meekness of Dad (Richard Bishop) can hardly compete with the gruff masculinity of a doomed sergeant (Ralph Meeker) during the Italian campaign. Above all, the village sparrow (Pier Angeli) he courts atop a rusting tank and marries to the sounds of howling wind and warbling urchins. Crackup on the battlefield, trauma in the nest. "Save that stuff for the enemy!" The Rossellini influence here is even more pronounced than in The Search, Fred Zinnemann constructs the drama like a lost episode from Paisà, continuously going for a humble, candid, dilapidated image. The nervous delicacy of the honeymoon is followed by the young couple's test in the big city, emotions besieged by the war at home. "We are losing each other every day more." Further developments of The Men, the blocky veteran at a beachfront picnic at night, facing the black ocean while his wife struggles to tell him she's pregnant. The overseas scenes have Bill Mauldin himself at hand for sketched-in veracity, the New York return accumulates domestic chafing until a psychological breakthrough and a reunion at Bellevue Hospital. "Maybe I'm beginning to grow up?" Vidor expands the view the following year with Japanese War Bride. With Peggy Ann Garner, Ave Ninchi, Edward Binns, and Aldo Silvani. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |