It's 1947. Zachary Scott has been fighting the war in the Pacific. The conflict having ended, he returns home to his loving wife, Ann Sheridan. For the most part, Sheridan has spent the war years as a volunteer at the USO and in other noble pursuits. However, she has had an affair with a sculptor. She tries to avoid the artist but he stalks her, attacks her, and is killed by Sheridan in self defense. Sheridan then does every possible stupid thing to bring about an accusation of murder. There's an unusually subtle attempt at blackmail. Scenes in a courtroom follow.
So far, a little dull -- and it IS talky. But it's also an interesting examination of the stresses place on an ordinary marriage during periods of separation such as wartime imposes.
Scott understandably has been wrapped up in his own problems overseas and doesn't write as many letters as he might. Meanwhile, Sheridan has had only a week or two with Scott before he shipped out, and now she's lonely and horny. This is not one of those war-time fairy tales in which the delicious wife back home sticks to her main job -- being resigned but cheerfully faithful throughout.
Scott is a generous and forgiving man. No shadow is cast on his character. But he can't stand the idea of his wife, whom he still loves, having been with another man. The jury acquits her, but Scott is distraught. Both he and Sheridan agree that a divorce is in order. He visits a mutual friend, Eve Arden, who gives him a straight-from-the-shoulder analysis of a woman's difficulties at home while her man in uniform is overseas being lauded by the public. Arden tells Scott that he had a two-week fling with her, not a marriage. He "took out an option on her." And he carried with him the fantasy of spousal purity at home. It's a thoroughgoing feminist tract before the formula became formulaic, and it's all the more effective because Scott isn't a bad guy. If he were a brute male, the scene would simply show us his being taken down a proper notch and something of value would have been lost because Scott would have been all bad, while Eve Arden would have been all good. As it stands, it's more sophisticated than that.
The last speech is delivered to the couple by Lew Ayres, their lawyer, who dissuades them from divorcing. I don't know the stats but I would guess that the divorce rate rose dramatically after the men returned. Not just because of unfaithful wives, of course, but because of the disruptive influence of PTSD and the fact that homebound wives found new outlets for their energy in wage work outside the kitchen.
The film doesn't have the reach of a polished Hollywood product like "The Best Years of Our Lives," yet I suppose it found a ready audience while addressing this rather complicated social problem, one which partly emasculated the male and turned the structure of the household, and of society, temporarily upside down. Temporarily, that is, until about 1975 when the whole thing appeared to collapse.
The movie really has a good, clinical dose of ambition and relevance under that cloak of a murder thriller.
So far, a little dull -- and it IS talky. But it's also an interesting examination of the stresses place on an ordinary marriage during periods of separation such as wartime imposes.
Scott understandably has been wrapped up in his own problems overseas and doesn't write as many letters as he might. Meanwhile, Sheridan has had only a week or two with Scott before he shipped out, and now she's lonely and horny. This is not one of those war-time fairy tales in which the delicious wife back home sticks to her main job -- being resigned but cheerfully faithful throughout.
Scott is a generous and forgiving man. No shadow is cast on his character. But he can't stand the idea of his wife, whom he still loves, having been with another man. The jury acquits her, but Scott is distraught. Both he and Sheridan agree that a divorce is in order. He visits a mutual friend, Eve Arden, who gives him a straight-from-the-shoulder analysis of a woman's difficulties at home while her man in uniform is overseas being lauded by the public. Arden tells Scott that he had a two-week fling with her, not a marriage. He "took out an option on her." And he carried with him the fantasy of spousal purity at home. It's a thoroughgoing feminist tract before the formula became formulaic, and it's all the more effective because Scott isn't a bad guy. If he were a brute male, the scene would simply show us his being taken down a proper notch and something of value would have been lost because Scott would have been all bad, while Eve Arden would have been all good. As it stands, it's more sophisticated than that.
The last speech is delivered to the couple by Lew Ayres, their lawyer, who dissuades them from divorcing. I don't know the stats but I would guess that the divorce rate rose dramatically after the men returned. Not just because of unfaithful wives, of course, but because of the disruptive influence of PTSD and the fact that homebound wives found new outlets for their energy in wage work outside the kitchen.
The film doesn't have the reach of a polished Hollywood product like "The Best Years of Our Lives," yet I suppose it found a ready audience while addressing this rather complicated social problem, one which partly emasculated the male and turned the structure of the household, and of society, temporarily upside down. Temporarily, that is, until about 1975 when the whole thing appeared to collapse.
The movie really has a good, clinical dose of ambition and relevance under that cloak of a murder thriller.