There is no point in trying to see this movie as anything other than what it is: a feature-length fantasy. Nothing in it could have happened, been said, been lived in or around, etc., but in the film's terms that doesn't matter. Everything, including the dog and the maid, looks like it still has the price tag on. That doesn't matter either. Even the stupid script doesn't matter:
Big Sister. It's Communism, that's what it is.
Baby Sister. Oh, pooh!
It is easy to see what mattered: in 1944 there were a lot of home-front wives to sell tickets to. What is harder to understand is why a film set in Anytown, USA got made in the Gothic-romantic style of REBECCA. Maybe Selznick was ahead of everyone else (again) in grasping that, in 1944, this glossy banality really was the audience's dream rather than its nightmare. The movie made money.
A characteristic moment: that dazzling smile and sisterly kiss the wife (Colbert) lays on her bachelor admirer (Cotten) as he ships out for danger without his reward. The humane alternative, of course, would have been to make herself unattractive to him-- and then explain why after the armistice. The film being what it is-- a talking issue of a women's magazine-- this was clearly impossible, and the dramatic instincts of both Colbert and Cotton in this scene feel right: "If that chump's got to die for our country," you can almost hear the wife thinking, "at least he'll do it with me on his mind!"
Big Sister. It's Communism, that's what it is.
Baby Sister. Oh, pooh!
It is easy to see what mattered: in 1944 there were a lot of home-front wives to sell tickets to. What is harder to understand is why a film set in Anytown, USA got made in the Gothic-romantic style of REBECCA. Maybe Selznick was ahead of everyone else (again) in grasping that, in 1944, this glossy banality really was the audience's dream rather than its nightmare. The movie made money.
A characteristic moment: that dazzling smile and sisterly kiss the wife (Colbert) lays on her bachelor admirer (Cotten) as he ships out for danger without his reward. The humane alternative, of course, would have been to make herself unattractive to him-- and then explain why after the armistice. The film being what it is-- a talking issue of a women's magazine-- this was clearly impossible, and the dramatic instincts of both Colbert and Cotton in this scene feel right: "If that chump's got to die for our country," you can almost hear the wife thinking, "at least he'll do it with me on his mind!"