Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

JohnHowardReid The advantages and disadvantages of television's bill of divorcement from history and chronology are very evident on a recent viewing of Homecoming. It doesn't matter much anymore that the film re-unites Gable and Turner who literally set the screen afire on their previous outing, "Somewhere III Find You", six years earlier. The romance is strong, but much more muted. Turner doesn't come on for at least half-an-hour and it's an equal length of time after that before the first silhouetted embrace. All that doesn't matter any more. Nor is it worth knowing that contemporary critics poured scorn on the movie, whereas the public loved it. What we have now is only the movie itself - divorced from history, from all the cries of studio publicity, from the derision of contemporary reviewers, and even from the word-of-mouth of acquaintances and friends.Actually, the film stands up rather well. True, the story is as artificially ' contrived as they come, but I found it both moving and engrossing - despite the feeling that it is scripted and directed with occasional too-obvious clumsiness and heavy-handedness. Gable is excellent - a strongly charismatic personality, playing with conviction and sincerity. Turner - in what is undoubtedly her least glamorous role - plays with unusual naturalness and professionalism. It is probably the most convincing performance of her career. The character is well-written. By contrast, Baxter seems artificial and too sweet. Hodiak makes the most of his big scene with Gable early in the film (effectively shot all in one take), but thereafter - like most of the support players who exist merely to provide cues and background - has little to do.All in all, "Homecoming" is big-budget screen entertainment - directed and produced with considerable style and expertise - that wears rather well, thanks to the magnetism of its stars, the appositeness of its dialogue and the realities of its plot.

edwagreen This was a wonderful 1948 film. In it, a self-absorbed doctor joins the army at the outbreak of World War 11. An excellent surgeon, he couldn't care less about his patients or their environment.Anne Baxter co-stars as his society wife. Also, self-absorbed, she comes to realize that she is losing him by his letters that he sends her overseas. There, his nurse is Lana Turner, devoted to her duties and patriotic to the core.John Hodiak, who was married to Baxter in real-life, co-stars as a dedicated physician who argues with Gable of his callous attitude.As his mother-in-law, the always wonderful Gladys Cooper is given so little to do here, other than welcoming back Gable when he returns.Turner has the emotion and facial expressions for the part, but her speech is like a young Sunday school girl. It is only in her dying scene, that she comes across the way she stood.This all said, the film is a wonderful one because it shows us the importance of human relations over material well-being in society.

jotix100 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.

Michael O'Keefe Clark Gable plays a self centered, over achieving physician that proves his worthiness as an Army surgeon. Anne Baxter is the dutiful and absorbing wife that finally realizes that her husband is romancing his nurse(Lana Turner)between bombings and marathon mending of WWII. This is not one of Gable's better performances; but Miss Turner is stunning as 'Snapshot' McCall, the nurse every soldier dreams of. Other cast members of note are: Ray Collins, John Hodiak, Marshall Thompson and Cameron Mitchell. Mervyn LeRoy directs this dreary drama. In spite of Gable's lack of effort, Turner more than makes this lengthy film memorable.