1h 48min | Drama, Romance, War | 4 November 1943
Director: Lewis Milestone
Stars: Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan, Jane Withers, Farley Granger, Erich Von Stroheim.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036217/
watched on AmazonPrime, also on a megapack; poor print quality.
First film credit for Farley Granger (b. 1925); he definitely looks young, more like 16 than 18. But his voice is already there.
Tommy Rall is supposed to be among the dancers (they do that strenuous squat-kicking), but I didn't even try to spot him once I saw how fuzzy the print was. He'll still be a teen (b. 1929).
I would give this a recommended rating if I'd seen a good print. But it's gruesome. Nazis bombing and strafing civilians, using children for forced blood transfusions until they die. Half the characters we meet are killed or badly wounded. They destroy their own homes, crops, livestock so the Nazis can't benefit from it.
But showing the US citizens some of the horrors of war is good motivation for us to support our efforts to fight and end the war, to feel positively toward the USSR as our ally, and to enlist in some branch of the service, volunteerism, or war production job.
The cast list that I've included indicates we're in good hands, and indeed the acting is good. Despite the dark and blurry print, Jane Withers' fear and courage were palpable. I suspect the Aaron Copland music helped, but I didn't notice it, which can be a good sign (it wasn't intrusive.)
It's a good film, but I hope I never want to watch it again. It's easier reading about atrocities than watching them, even when you know "it's only a movie."
Goldwyn, distr. RKO, dir. Milestone; 6+
