People are letting themselves get carried away. Ann Baxter is lovely, the music is lovely, Connie Marshall is a real sweetheart (reminds me a little of Peggy Ann Garner), Anne Revere as usual steals the show, and there are a few touching scenes, particularly the flyovers and in the resort ruins. Unfortunately, Lloyd Bacon's direction is execrable. This was a cheap movie, and Bacon makes it show. The sets are obviously sound stage or back lot, which a couple of location shots don't compensate for at all. And the process shots are terribly phony.
But what's worse is the cloying sentimentality. Bacon has everyone calling Charles Winninger's cartoonish grandfather "Grandfeathers" every other line, just to remind us how cute the movie is. Bobby Driscoll stands on his head while blowing a whistle to show us how cute he is. The hen's noises are so obviously human (was it Mel Blanc?) it's embarrassing, as are the piles of rubber prop chickens.
Next-to-top-billed John Hodiak doesn't make his appearance until near the end, which is a rip-off, given that he gets less screen time than the chicken. The movie could have spent its time developing the Baxter and Hodiak characters, using the Florida shanty, the kids the gramps and other colorful characters as a backdrop, but Bacon front-loads the movie with bathos and the antics of the side characters, while trying to sell the notion of two people falling in love over Sunday dinner in a couple of brief scenes. (Yeah, yeah, they really were an item, but that's certainly not a given in the story. Bacon has The Soldier looking like he's smitten before he's even met the lady! Maybe it was the pheromones.)
I like war morale movies, especially those which capture the era. I even like sentiment. But Lloyd Bacon's clumsy, manipulative and saccharine directing wastes a fine cast and a potentially moving story.
But what's worse is the cloying sentimentality. Bacon has everyone calling Charles Winninger's cartoonish grandfather "Grandfeathers" every other line, just to remind us how cute the movie is. Bobby Driscoll stands on his head while blowing a whistle to show us how cute he is. The hen's noises are so obviously human (was it Mel Blanc?) it's embarrassing, as are the piles of rubber prop chickens.
Next-to-top-billed John Hodiak doesn't make his appearance until near the end, which is a rip-off, given that he gets less screen time than the chicken. The movie could have spent its time developing the Baxter and Hodiak characters, using the Florida shanty, the kids the gramps and other colorful characters as a backdrop, but Bacon front-loads the movie with bathos and the antics of the side characters, while trying to sell the notion of two people falling in love over Sunday dinner in a couple of brief scenes. (Yeah, yeah, they really were an item, but that's certainly not a given in the story. Bacon has The Soldier looking like he's smitten before he's even met the lady! Maybe it was the pheromones.)
I like war morale movies, especially those which capture the era. I even like sentiment. But Lloyd Bacon's clumsy, manipulative and saccharine directing wastes a fine cast and a potentially moving story.