Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

mark.waltz A well meaning war drama is on the emotional scale of "Mrs. Miniver", "The Fighting Sullivans" and "Since You Went Away" tells the story of how a son's death in the service of his country takes an affect on his father. Heaven couldn't wait for the practically perfect son of pharmacist Don Ameche and Frances Dee, not giving much detail to the mother (basically she seems to just go on with her life) while having Ameche's long dead grandfather (Harry Carey) come back to aide Ameche in his hour of need. Through Carey, Ameche relives the upbringing of his son where great grandpa to be Carey literally died of pneumonia to get to the hospital to see him being born. Three actors play the son from adolescent to pre-teen to young man facing a war he believed strongly in fighting to end. Ameche goes from dour grieving dad to, through flashbacks, returning World War I vet, to young dad, reluctantly disciplining and later standing by every move his growing son makes.Larry Olsen, James West and Richard Crane bring the son to life with his short span on earth, and Ann Rutherford gives more of a home spun feel as one of Crane's girlfriends. Some audiences might find this too goody goody as the Marsh's are quite untroubled and completely supporting of each other, but for me, this represents what grieving families needed to see in 1943. Carey is excellent, and a cameo by the young Harry Morgan as the late son Rusty's navy pal is spectacular. I saw this as a young man facing my own young demons, a relationship with a father that was practically nonexistent, and my own ideals of patriotism I learned by watching movies like this as a kid. It's certainly more a fantasy, but for me, it's a perfect representation of what American life would be like if Hunan beings could just learn to be kind to each other and if families could learn more to relate.

xerses13 We saw this film sometime in the late 1980's on the old AMC. You remember AMC, the station that didn't like colorized or edited movies. That showed films how they were meant to. Well enough of that.The HAPPY LAND was one (1) of those fine WWII films that gave you a peek of what the home front was like and the effects the war had upon it. This was effectively and economically done. Not as long as SINCE YOU WENT AWAY or the HUMAN COMEDY more in line with the FIGHTING SULLIVANS another seldom seen home front film. Or at least seldom seen since AMC went to seed.The importance of these films is to give a glimpse into the lives of our parents or grandparents and not just the war, but the effects of rationing, personal loss and the fear that we could lose. Many young people have no concept what a close run thing WWII was. Not that we would have been conquered. But that Asia and Europe would have been dominated by two (2) powers both with a race superiority agendas. The NAZI Germans who wanted to create a master race and Imperial Japan who thought they WERE the master race.The film as far as we know is unavailable on any video format. Seems like a shame when so much bad material is rushed to DVD. 20th Century Fox should do something about this. After all they have released A YANK IN THE R.A.F which main claim to fame is Betty Grable and Tyrone Power.

RJC-4 Finding this oddity on cable recently, I was quickly seduced by its opening sequence, a Welles-like plunge down main street into a small everytown's heart, Marsh's pharmacy. Here, as some clever camera work reveals, solid citizen Lew Marsh (Don Ameche) tends to the blisses of early 40's Hollywood America; everyone's prescription is filled, sundaes topped off with a cherry, local oddballs humored, etc.What most recommends the film is its frame narrative. Quickly the idyll is broken when Marsh learns his son has been killed in the war. He sinks into a lengthy depression. Enter the ghost of Gramp to conduct psychotherapy: he spirits Marsh back into the past where we relive the childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood of the now-dead Rusty. While the mid-section unfolds linearly, Marsh and Gramp function offscreen as a Greek chorus (their melancholy dialogue often a grim counterpoint to the generally cheerful scenes). Then it's back to the present where an exorcized Marsh learns to stop questioning the wisdom of sacrificing young men in war. "Rusty died a good death," Gramp's ghost counsels, and we know it's only a matter of time before Marsh will agree.Three years before "It's A Wonderful Life" (1946), "Happy Land" was already hijacking the "Christmas Carol" device of reliving the past on a therapeutic sightseeing tour. Unlike the Stewart film, though, the tone is more darkly somber, lingeringly mournful. The theme of sorrow outweighs the theme of recovery. Ameche looks and sounds wracked, bitter.In fact, the film's heart is scarcely in its chief enterprise, which is to steel its audience for more wartime sacrifice. It seems at times almost to be working against its own message that war deaths are "good deaths." I imagine it may have helped salve some broken hearts, but the crime of this type of film is that, if it succeeds, it only helps to break more.

nstobert I thought this was a wonderfully nostalgic movie. The acting is well done, and the end is just a real tear-jerker. It brings back the feelings that I believe really did exist in WWII, right down to the fateful trip the girl from Western Union had to make to deliver the telegram that said his son died. Excitement, no. A few laughs, yes. Great nostelgic drama with a good story line.