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Best movie of this year hands down!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Blistering performances.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Few movies have shown the nitty-gritty of the field hospital and medical corps in war. "Homecoming" is one that does, with much realism and intensity. We are spared the gore of viewing the bloody and torn bodies ourselves. But the manners, expressions and actions of the cast convey the ugly effects of war. And the long days of 16-hour stretches of operating, the fatigue of the doctors and nurses, and the intense working conditions – often with bombs and shells exploding around them – show us another side of war. We see these dedicated noncombatants struggle and sacrifice to repair and save lives. For this alone, "Homecoming" is an outstanding movie. But throw in a romance, and the film stands out as even more extraordinary. But, not just any, typical war-time romance of soldier meets girl. That would have cheapened this film. Rather, "Homecoming" has a complex and complicated romance. It's one that probably happened in real life many times during the war, but that few films have tried to tackle. It's a love that developed slowly between the chief surgeon and his nurse. Unlike the typical fare of today, two people don't jump into the sack together. This romance is a deeper, sincere and much more meaningful love. It's a love that emotes respect and caring. And it's a love of forbidden passion that can't go any further because the doctor already has a beautiful wife whom he loves back home. Clark Gable and Lana Turner give their all to their roles in conveying the struggle they have in their growing love. They give tremendous performances in their roles as war-time surgeon and Army nurse. And, Anne Baxter, as the wife back home, also gives an exceptional performance. This may be Gable's finest acting role. He moves adroitly through his changing character. He starts out as a highly confident, self-assured and mostly self-centered elitist physician. By film's end, he has become less self-assured – as he states himself, but more aware of his patients and the needs of people. He has become a caring, dedicated doctor. Turner's character is out of her usual glamor role. Instead, she's an Army nurse who has a six-year-old son by a husband who was killed in China as a pilot in the Flying Tigers. She is a serious, hard-working and dedicated professional who starts out disliking the rich-kid doctor. And Anne Baxter is the loving wife of the doctor who becomes jealous of the nurse, then understanding, then resolute and willing to fight to keep her man. As I said, the film is about complex relationships. It's about learning to live (a reference in the film), and about growing and maturing and loving. All of this is set in the midst of World War II in Europe and on the home front. It's a truly exceptional movie and one that belongs in every film library. This movie came out just three years after the end of the war. While most veterans for years didn't like to talk about the war or their experiences, films such as this probably did a lot to help in post-war adjustments. They helped the people who were on the home front get a sense of what it was like for loved ones who went off to war. Indeed, this idea of understanding is a nice thought in the closing scene.

I generally love WWII movies from the 40's, but this one disappointed me as it comes across more as a soap opera than a War film. It doesn't appear that many have seen this film, according to the low number of user comments. I find this surprising for a film that has 2 of the biggest box office names of that era. But perhaps that's attributed to the fact that its not that great of a movie.Lana is not very glamorous in this role and in fact looks a little dowdy. Perhaps they were trying to help her get taken more seriously as a dramatic actress.For the most part, I found the movie a little too sterile for a war movie. Its not anything like the realistic portrayals of modern war movies. All the scenes in their Operating tent looks like everyone is in slow motion - there is no stress or panic or chaos like you would find in a real war O/R tent. Even when their medical base is being bombed, people can be seen just strolling by the entrance of the tent. Who does this in the middle of a bombing?I found the cinematography a little lacking as well. There were some extremely fake process shots and unrealistic studio sets for some of the outdoor scenes. There were some realistic war scenes after the invasion that looked like actual stock war footage. I did like the first kiss between Gable & Turner and how it was shot in the shadows with the white snow falling behind them outside.I think the movie was probably timely during its original release in helping address the problem of how hard it is to return home after war. So, on that front, it was worthwhile.

Movies like this one are discoveries. Mervyn LeRoy was a director that always knew where to go for a good story and get amazing performances out of his actors. In this film he demonstrates how to create a movie that holds the viewer's attention. It is based on a story by Sidney Kingsley and was adapted by Jan Lustig. The movie shows the American cinema at its best as it combines a look to WWII and a forbidden love, something that probably had a hard time passing the censor's scissors. Mr. LeRoy makes the picture highly engrossing because of the way he presents the story. Men and women, for the first time were in the front lines; the men as combatants, or in this case, a doctor and the women as nurses, or filling in for the jobs the men couldn't do because they did the fighting.Clark Gable was an actor that made this picture the joy it is to watch by making us believe he is this surgeon, Dr. Lee Johnson, a man that awakes to reality when he has to deal first hand with treating the wounded soldiers. Mr. Gable casts such a virile shadow in his best work that we know where he stood all the time. His Dr. Johnson shows the strain of the stress of war, the loyalty to his wife at home and the sudden love he finds for "Snapshot" McCall. He remains throughout the film focused in helping the soldiers, until the passion he feels for his nurse, gets the best of him.Lana Turner is the real surprise of the movie. She is playing a role that probably would not have been offered to her because of the heat and glamour she projected. Her nurse McCall is a woman that life has made a cynic because of the tragedy in her own life and the fact that she is separated from her young son. The magnetism between Ms. Turner and Mr. Gable is what keeps us interested in the movie. Lana Turner shows she had the potential for playing dramatic parts that were not offered to her; she was type-casted as the siren, or the sophisticate in most of her work, but she had the range and the potential that probably only Mr. LeRoy, who discovered Ms. Turner, saw she had. Only a director like Mr. LeRoy could elicit this performance from Ms. Turner.Anne Baxter is the wife that stays home hoping her man will come back alive. Her Penny Johnson makes her appear as insecure because she perceives her husband's affection might lie with the nurse that he complains to her at the beginning of his correspondence. John Hodiak plays the friend, Dr. Sunday, a man who has his feet on the ground and believes he should help the poor people of his area, instead of the society types that Dr. Johnson attracts.The movie is satisfying because is tells a good story with characters one is easily identified with. Mr. LeRoy was the one that got all the elements together and gave us this classic film that is timeless.

As a rule I'm not much into romantic films, but there are exceptions and Homecoming is one of them. Clark Gable and Lana Turner did four films together and this is the third one. It's Turner's show here. It's a great tribute to her charisma and star quality that she looks incredibly sexy in those army fatigues she has to wear as per the plot. Lana Turner in heryounger days had a quality of winsomeness that was never showcased than when she plays Jane "Snapshot" McCall, idealistic army nurse.In this cynical age we would look with incredulity that a widow with a young son would follow her late husband off to war because his ideals became her ideals. Yet Turner makes you believe that in this film.The plot is simply Clark Gable, very successful doctor in a small mid-west city, goes to World War II basically because its expected of him. He's a self centered guy, nice home, loving wife played very well by Anne Baxter, all the material things you could want and not a clue about why we are in World War II. He has a fellow physician friend, John Hodiak who does a lot of pro bono public service work who tries to act as a conscience, but fails. I guess Turner had something to offer Hodiak didn't. At first Dr. Ulysses Johnson (Gable) and Nurse McCall don't hit it off after she's assigned to him as a nurse. But her beauty and idealism get to him he falls for her big time. Because its 1948 Hollywood and Anne Baxter is by no means a bad person there was no way Turner was going to wind up with Gable in the end. She has to die, but Turner is given a death scene that is one of the most moving in the history of film. You have to be made of stone not to be touched by her and Gable at her bedside.John Hodiak, a very talented and almost forgotten figure today is also terrific as Gable's friend Dr. Robert Sunday. Gable will be working with Hodiak at the clinic Hodiak has in a poor neighborhood and he will be doing it because of the social conscience Turner has instilled in him. There are no bad people in this film except the Nazis shooting at Gable Turner and the rest of Eisenhower's army.I believe this is Lana Turner's best film and fans of her's should not miss this one.