SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (1944) *1/2 Back in the days before rich guys figured out that they didn't have to go to war... The plot is not overblown, I have no doubt that hundreds of such stories existed in every town, even if every house was not big enough to take in an entire cast worth of boarders. The self-congratulatory tone of the film is deserved, but the film's not entirely worthy as the salutation through time for a generation who sacrificed and took chances that served as their legacy. It isn't convincing and it isn't much fun to watch. John Cromwell doesn't get anything out of his big guns: Claudette Colbert's character is never even a cartoon of anything believable, it would be an insult to the breadth of internal unity to say that Jennifer Jones is one dimensional; Shirley Temple is still trying to act like a cute 5 year old as a teenager, and Joseph Cotten couldn't have been the best looking guy in any half-filled construction worker watering hole in the country. Fortunately there's some life on the periphery. Lionel Barrymore gives a nice sermon about lawyers from Maryland, Hattie McDaniel is always good as Mammy, and Agnes Moorehead demonstrates that there was a wicked witch enemy within-and one that only benefitted from the war though that isn't the point they were trying to make. It's sad that a film dealing with material of this importance, and with such dramatic potential, comes across with all the fire and pathos of a substitute civics teacher stammering through a text on county water deregulation.
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