Movie of the Week: Homecoming (1948)

This week, Clark Gable is an accomplished surgeon returning home from World War II, Lana Turner is his nurse love interest and Anne Baxter is his fretful wife in Homecoming (1948).

Gable is Dr. Ulysses “Lee” Johnson, a successful surgeon with a loving and caring wife, Penny (Baxter). When he volunteers for the Army and heads overseas to fight in World War II, he meets a snappy nurse, Jane “Snapshot” McCall (Turner). At first his stuffy, conservative ways and her free-thinking style clash, but soon they are working well together in crisis and become friends. Penny becomes suspicious of their relationship when Lee mentions her frequently in his letters home. Her suspicions ring true, as Lee and Snapshot fall in love. But what can he tell his wife, upon returning home after three long years?

Clark is mighty impressive on paper–four years at Harvard medical school, internship at Johns Hopkins, Mayo Clinic surgical residency, now Chief of Surgery at a prestigious hospital, with the country club membership, big house full of expensive furniture, and pretty wife draped in furs that comes with it. He scoffs at his old friend (John Hodiak) suggesting he miss his weekly Friday night of dinner and dancing at the club. Over his time in the war dealing with men blown to bits and suffering, he realizes that he treated all his patients just as cases, not as real people. Lana, whose husband died in the Army years before and whose little boy is left behind with her parents, finds Clark stuffy and pretentious at their first meeting, and she’s not wrong. He’s also quite sexist. “When women talk world politics it makes me laugh!” he tells her, and says she should “run along and take care of her child.” How charming.

Of course after this first combative meeting and getting on each other’s nerves a bit–she nicknames him “Useless!–they fall in love. Lana now understands the “new” Clark, while his wife Anne represents the “old” him.

Anne Baxter’s suffering wife is rather ridiculous. She’s still living the life she was before, wandering around her big empty house, draped in furs and the latest hats. She becomes worried about her husband’s relationship with Lana after he keeps mentioning her in his letters, tossing and turning in bed at night thinking of him cheating on her, even dramatically waking up screaming his name. I’ve never had a husband overseas for years in a war, but I’d be more concerned that my husband would die than that he’d cheat on me with a nurse.

SPOILER: At the end, Lana’s character dies, which is supposed to make Clark’s infidelity “okay.” Even his wife looks relieved that she’s dead, like that just erases the fact that he was in love with another woman. She seems happy to have him back in her arms in the last scene of the film, even though he’s different now. Is he going to go back to Friday nights at the country club and worrying over his next social engagement? We don’t know.

He tells her: “It might have been easier if I hadn’t told you, and yet, that would have been impossible. I couldn’t think of anything else coming home and then on the boat I met a man, a perfect stranger who couldn’t have possibly known what was in my mind, yet somehow he seemed to convey my innermost thoughts. He said it’s only fair for the people over here to know that they’ve got to live with us, coming home. He was right. I had to tell you. Because it isn’t just my problem. it’s our problem together and I couldn’t go on living with this inside of me without your sharing it. Penny, bear with me a while, can you?”

This film hit pretty close to home for Clark. In the beginning, as he is on the boat home recalling back to  before he left for the war, a reporter says to him, “Must seem like a long time ago–1941…” Clark sits there stone-faced, thinking back. You can’t tell me he isn’t agreeing with that statement. In 1941, he was married to Carole Lombard and happily romping around his ranch. In 1948, he went home from the set to their ranch house alone. The Clark that came back from war, much like his character here, was unsure about returning to civilian life.

Homecoming really is a great movie; it is definitely on my Top Ten Gable movies. It’s quite underrated; I think it’s one of Clark’s finest performances. He is excellent in this role, as a man struggling with reconciling the man he was before to a man forever changed by war–most definitely a role he could sympathize with. Lana is the best she can be here. She wears no ballgowns, no jewels. Her blonde locks always up off her shiny, powder-free face and her famous figure in fatigues. I particularly enjoy the scene where they go to visit the Roman baths together and Clark is uneasy about sitting with his back to her as she bathes!

This week’s movie would have been a Christmassy one if Clark had ever made one. But he didn’t. In Homecoming there is a beautiful scene of him and Lana in the snow, so that can suffice.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!

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