Warner Brothers assembled a fine cast for this World War II homefront melodrama. Holywood and British Cinema made a number of films about the homefront during World War II. Mostly, those showed the home work force, families and businesses doing their part for the war effort. Many dealt with sweethearts, husbands, sons and daughters gone for the war.
"The Very Thought of You" is in a very small sub-genre of war and drama films. It looks at the emotional side of the dread by some for the war's toll. That sometimes translated to dislike or even disdain for servicemen. Beulah Bondi's Mrs. Harriet Wheeler plays such a role here. She doesn't want daughter Janet to take up with Dennis Morgan's Sgt. David Stewart. Her reasoning is because there's no future in it, where he will just go back to the war and be killed or maimed for life.
Her daughter, and Janet's sister, Molly (played very well by Andrea King), is already married to a sailor. Molly has developed a similar bleak outlook and assumed that her sailor, Fred (William Prince) probably won't come home. She had quit writing him two years ago, and now goes out on dates. A brother, Cal (John Alvin) was rated 4-F and couldn't go into the service. But, his melancholy and bitterness about GIs and his sister, Molly, further hardens the family.
This family is close to drowning in its own pathos, and the film could become a depressing washout but for the several upbeat characters who counter the hopeless lot. Henry Travers as Pop Wheeler stands up to his wife, and sister, Ellie (Georgia Lee Settle), is full of excitement for Janet when she invites Sgt. Stewart to dinner. Janet herself, and Sgt. Stewart, his friend, Sgt. "Fixit" Gilman, and Janet's friend Cora Colton (Faye Emerson) are realistic but hopeful and upbeat.
The film came out in October 1944 when the war was far from over. Combat soldiers didn't get leaves to go home during the war, but David and Fixit were demolition experts assigned to a special unit. They had been on the front lines, but now had a leave before being assigned elsewhere. Janet and Cora worked at a parachute packing plant in or near Pasadena, CA. One wonders if that plant was actually there during that time. If so, they likely were packing the chutes that were used to drop equipment, material, food and medical supplies in battle torn areas across the South Pacific.
While the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment on Feb. 16, 1945, jumped onto Corregidor to take it from the Japanese, most of the airborne combat operations and jumps were in the European and African theaters. This is a fine movie about life among the people working and worrying on the homefront. And, about those hoping and praying. And, it's a good love story as well.
Here are some favorite lines from the film.
Sgt. Fixit Gilman, "How come they made you a demolition expert?" Sgt. David Stewart, "You can build 'em, you can knock 'em down."
Sgt. David Stewart, to Janet, "It takes more gizzard to be a soldier's wife than it does to fight. You've got to be braver than I'll ever be."
Sgt. David Stewart, "Goodbye, sweetheart. All my love, all my life."
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