Homecoming

1948
A
1h 53m

IMDb RATING

6.8/10

1.1K

YOUR RATING

Clark Gable, Anne Baxter, Lana Turner, and John Hodiak in Homecoming (1948)

At the end of WW2, aboard a repatriation ship, an Army doctor reminisces about his war years while being interviewed by a reporter.

Play trailer2:27

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38 Photos

Drama Mystery Romance War

At the end of WW2, aboard a repatriation ship, an Army doctor reminisces about his war years while being interviewed by a reporter.At the end of WW2, aboard a repatriation ship, an Army doctor reminisces about his war years while being interviewed by a reporter.At the end of WW2, aboard a repatriation ship, an Army doctor reminisces about his war years while being interviewed by a reporter.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.8/10

1.1K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Videos1

Trailer 2:27

Official Trailer

Photos38

+ 31

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Storyline

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Trivia
According to the AFI catalog entry for this film, for the battle scenes in Italy MGM constructed five 35-foot towers, a full-sized evacuation hospital, and more than 100 Army tents at the Lasky-Mesa movie ranch 35 miles outside of Hollywood. The set took three weeks to build and the scenes used hundreds of extras, five cameras and six assistant directors. This was all for a re-creation of the historic capture of the Anzio beachhead in Italy by U.S. and British forces on January 22, 1944.

Goofs
At the end, Penny Johnson says she followed her husband's movements on a map. During World War II, people in the military had it drilled into them that they could not say anything about where they were in letters sent back home, and to make sure they kept that rule, the mail from soldiers was heavily censored. This has been mentioned in numerous histories of World War II. Personal experience backs this up. A relative sailed all over the world during the War and the censors made no attempt to mask the fact that they had opened and read his mail. So, the relative's spouse started sending a stick of gum in letters but always included two sticks --- an extra one for the censor. Most times, that second stick was gone. With Clark Gable being an officer, it's even less likely any information about his movements around Europe would have been available to his wife.

Connections
Edited from Waterloo Bridge (1940)

User reviews37

Review

Featured review

9/10

Home to a new sense of purpose

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 her

younger 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.