There's something sentimental about the years of World War II, a war where world peace was at stake and 90 percent of the world gathered together to fight against three tyrants who wanted to take over and destroy civilization altogether. Motion picture footage, popular music and still photography document the romantic side of this horrible war which killed possibly billions of innocent young men and civilians on both sides. It's probably the one war in history that young men went in eager, even if reluctantly, to wipe out fascism and restore order to a world gone wild.
In 1944 alone, movie goers got an abundance of touching stories of how war affects the home, from the lengthy but outstanding "Since You Went Away", the tear-jerker romance "I'll Be Seeing You" and the tragic "The Sullivans", as well as all-star musicals like "Hollywood Canteen" and "Four Jills in a Jeep" which showed how celebrities were getting involved to "entertain the boys both over there and at home". The majority of the world played cheerleader to the millions of soldiers fighting for home, the girl (or boy) they loved, giving them encouragement that they would have something to return to when the war was finally over.
"Sunday Dinner For a Soldier" documents how a struggling poor family on the coast of Florida went out of their way to make an effort to participate in the tradition of inviting visiting military personnel over for dinner to help remind them of what remained back at home while they were on active duty. Anne Baxter is the struggling older sister of four children, and living with them is their irascible grandfather (a wonderful Charles Winninger) who is trying to avoid unwanted attentions by the much married town matriarch (Anne Revere). After Revere maliciously rips up Winninger's request for soldiers to attend Sunday dinner as their guests, she has second thoughts when she comes across two of the children selling berries in an effort to raise money for the dinner.
Chill Wills is delightful as the local bus driver who escorts visiting soldiers all around the town and provides kindly words of wisdom to his riders. Jane Darwell plays the head of the committee arranging these dinners and is bombarded with late night phone calls by Revere inquiring if she's found at least one soldier to attend. By the time Sunday shows up, it appears that nobody will appear, leaving Baxter, Winninger and the three spunky children all depressed. But miracles happen, and in this case, it's in the form of handsome John Hodiak who happens along the beach near the houseboat where the family resides.
There's a ton of luscious subplots galore, including one corny but adorable storyline involving the kid's pet hen whom Winninger hates and presumably plucks and beheads in preparation for that Sunday dinner with the unknown soldier. Baxter plays a hard character on the surface but obviously dreams of romance as evidenced in a scene where she dances in the abandoned facade of a long destroyed building which resembles ancient Greek or Roman ruins. Later, she repeats the dance with Hodiak who is so kind and a perfect representation of the type of young man any family would love to have as a visitor during a time of war, or even peace. Like the other romantic war films I mention above, this has a bit of a tear-jerking finale that shows off the American propaganda machine at its best. Yet, it is filled with hope, which is all America could ask for as the war reached its last year.
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