When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, Americans were left conflicted. Some were morally opposed to the fighting, failing to see justification for the violence, death, and destruction. Others questioned the United States' decision to get involved in a foreign civil conflict in the first place. Sadly, service members returning home after the war often faced scorn and ridicule for having participated in such an unpopular and divisive struggle abroad, and many felt abandoned by their own country. Hollywood was quick to take up the cause of the forgotten soldier's plight with weighty films like 1978's Coming Home and The Deer Hunter, 1979's Apocalypse Now, and 1989's Born on the Fourth of July, all of which bluntly explored the horrors of Vietnam and its shattering effect on those who served.

It was a different story when the U.S. entered World War II. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor rallied Americans against a clear enemy, and citizens made great sacrifices to bolster the war effort. Hollywood became the primary flag waver, releasing glossy films with patriotic themes intended to further boost support for our mission and our troops, including 1943's Guadalcanal Diary and 1944's Thirty Seconds over Tokyo. When the war ended in 1945 and soldiers came home, Hollywood continued to crank out films celebrating America's participation, promoting the heroism of our troops with movies like 1945's The Story of G.I. Joe and 1949's Sands of Iwo Jima. Films about the misery of war, re-entry into civilian life, and the resulting psychological and physical trauma were virtually non-existent, with few exceptions. In 1946, two movies dealing with these darker themes were released: William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives and Edward Dmytryk's Till the End of Time. Although it debuted three months before Wyler's exceptional Academy Award winner, Till the End of Time failed to attract a large audience. Maybe it's because it didn't have the same star power, maybe it's because its director wasn't as celebrated, maybe it's because it wasn't released closer to Oscar consideration time, or maybe it's because it was a frank depiction of the war's aftermath audiences weren't yet ready to see. But whatever the case, Till the End of Time remains an extraordinary exploration of what happened when the boys came home...and when they didn't. In many ways, it's a landmark film.

tilltheendoftime1946
Image via RKO Pictures

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While both films explore similar themes, The Best Years of Our Lives deals to a great extent with the impact of the war on the loved ones of the returning soldiers. Till the End of Time is focused more on the emotional and physical struggles of the soldiers themselves and their feelings of being left behind. This is evident from the movie's opening scene, as the camera pans across a room full of service members being processed like numbers rather than human beings. They get handed insurance and pension documents, their discharge pins, an envelope of cash, and they're on their own. Two of those soldiers being thrust back into the real world are Bill Tabeshaw, a Purple Heart recipient with a metal plate in his head played by Robert Mitchum, and his buddy Cliff Harper, the stunningly handsome Guy Madison in his first leading role. Madison has been criticized for his somewhat wooden performance in the film, but his inexperience as an actor actually works here. Madison's low-key performance enhances his believability as a young man barely out of adolescence who enlisted, spent nearly four years in the trenches, and who now finds himself lost in a world that looks the same, but feels so different.

Mitchum's Bill heads off to Arizona with dreams of buying a ranch, while Madison's Cliff returns to his family's home in Los Angeles. From the start, there's tension in the Harper home. Cliff wants to talk about what he's been through, but his parents want to avoid any dark conversations, preferring to pretend everything's okay. His mother (Ruth Nelson) has even kept Cliff's room looking exactly as it did before he headed to war, as if she wants to deny the last few years even happened. At a barbecue Cliff's family hosts for the neighbors, the folks from the block also walk on eggshells around Cliff, and Cliff later tells a fellow service member, "Half of them were afraid if they said anything, it would upset me, and the other half were afraid if I said something, it would upset them." Only Cliff's fellow war veterans can understand what he's going through at this point, and the film sensitively explores this feeling of isolation shared exclusively among comrades in arms. It also serves as an indictment of post-war America's need to bury the bad stuff and return to "normal" as quickly as possible. Cliff's inner turmoil even spills over into his work life as he tries to assimilate in his new job as a radio builder for the Packard Bell company. Cliff is resentful that he's lost time fighting overseas while others have been learning new skills and advancing, and he takes his anger out on his foreman. Look for a cameo by a very young Blake Edwards (yes, the director Blake Edwards) as the sympathetic boss who understands Cliff's frustration and tries to talk him down, telling him, "If fighting would help any, I'd take you on."

The portrayal of women in this movie was also groundbreaking and deserves mention. While the men were away serving their country during World War II, women took jobs, raised their families as single mothers, and experienced a sense of independence they hadn't known before. When the men came home, they encountered a different kind of American woman; a woman with a new sense of individuality, autonomy, and sexual freedom. When Cliff returns to his parents' house, Helen Ingersoll, the 17-year-old bobbysoxer next door (Jean Porter) wastes no time letting the strapping young man in uniform know what's on her mind. When Cliff asks her if she has any ideas of her own, she teasingly tells him, "For a return marine, I've got some super ideas," leaving Cliff flummoxed and more than a bit shocked. When Cliff goes to his local watering hole to see old friends, he meets a slightly older woman, Pat Ruscomb (in a complex and emotional turn by Dorothy McGuire), and immediately falls for her. He asks her if she came to the bar with anyone, to which she bluntly replies, "I drove over by myself, but I'm driving you home." And drive him she does - to her place. This was a different kind of leading woman that was rarely seen on movie screens in the Hays Code era. Till the End of Time also examines the plight of the war widow, something other war movies of the time rarely touched on. Pat's husband was a casualty, and like Cliff, she, too, has lost her way in the aftermath of his death and the war's end. It seems natural that Pat and Cliff would be drawn to each other, since they're both longing for connection and direction. In a touching scene where Pat describes how her plans and dreams were ripped away upon her husband's death, she tells Cliff, "The war is over, John isn't coming home, and I'm stuck with myself." Cliff tells Pat, "They oughta give Purple Hearts for war widows." While society was intent on picking up where it left off before the war, the movie spotlights how easily people like Pat and Cliff were left behind to battle their demons alone.

Amid the themes of loneliness, separation, and the inability to connect, Till the End of Time was one of the first Hollywood war-themed films to tackle the subject of post-traumatic stress disorder decades before it had a name. There's a scene in the movie where Cliff and Pat go to the aid of a soldier in distress at the counter of a coffee shop. The soldier (in a brief, but gut-wrenching performance by Richard Benedict), sweating profusely and shaking uncontrollably, is worried the people around him are looking. "Go ahead. Shake," Cliff consoles, while both he and Pat hold onto the soldier. The young man tells them he's afraid to return home to Idaho for fear of how his parents will react to his condition. It's a strikingly realistic and heartbreaking scene that puts the war's horror, and the unnecessary shame that suffering soldiers carried with them, on full display. It's also a beautifully tender moment among these three characters that underscores the sense of community only the war's disaffected could understand.

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Image via RKO Pictures

Till the End of Time also didn't flinch when it came to the impact of physical injury on returning war veterans. Bill Williams (father to Carrie's William Katt) plays Perry Kincheloe, a former boxing champ who lost his legs while serving. Perry sits at home, a recluse from the world outside his bedroom door, humiliated that he must rely on his mother to do everything for him, from bathing to dressing. Bill and Cliff are unable to break through to Perry, who refuses to wear his prosthetic legs, claiming they cause him too much pain. In reality, Perry can't face a world where he feels he no longer has a place. "After I've got 'em on, what have I got?" he asks Bill. While The Best Years of Our Lives is remembered for the spectacular Oscar winning performance of real life amputee Harold Russell, in that film, Russell's character had largely adjusted to his disability. In Till the End of Time, Perry can't come to terms with his loss and can't allow himself to participate in society because of it. He is the ultimate outsider - a veteran who can't find himself emotionally or physically. Similarly, Bill begins experiencing excruciating headaches from the silver that's in his head, but refuses to seek treatment, fearful of being vulnerable to his wounds. If he pretends everything is okay, maybe people won't notice.

The film's characters ultimately find their purpose when they come together against an alliance of shady men offering soldiers membership in a group called the American War Patriots. "American War Patriots" is obvious code for the Ku Klux Klan, another taboo subject this film is unafraid to confront. The movie's main characters found solidarity and commitment when fighting a foreign enemy, but after America's overseas triumph, they lost what was driving them and began fighting within their own hearts and minds. When they encounter a domestic adversary, our soldiers once again find their resolve. More importantly, they're able to conquer the loneliness and isolation they've been feeling since their return, and this becomes one of the film's strongest messages of the power of camaraderie. While the movie's ending may be a bit too "tidy" for some viewers' liking, it could be that studio executives at the time insisted on a "Hollywood" ending for a film that otherwise so starkly depicted the darkest parts of the post-war experience.

Seen in the context of the time, and now from a distance of over seven decades later, Till the End of Time still holds up as one of the earliest and most authentic representations of war's human collateral damage. It no doubt inspired more films that would deal candidly with this theme in the years to come, and fortunately for us, the movie can currently be streamed on Amazon Prime. It's a strong, sobering history lesson worth watching.