Since You Went Away

Since You Went Away
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Cromwell
Produced by	David O. Selznick
Screenplay by	David O. Selznick
Based on	Since You Went Away: Letters to a Soldier from His Wife by Margaret Buell Wilder
Starring	Claudette Colbert Jennifer Jones Shirley Temple Joseph Cotten
Music by	Max Steiner
Cinematography	Stanley Cortez Lee Garmes
Studio	Selznick International Pictures
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	July 20, 1944 (1944-07-20)
Running time	172 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2.4 million

Since You Went Away is a 1944 film distributed by United Artists, a big-budget epic about the American home front during World War II. It was directed by John Cromwell and adapted and produced by David O. Selznick from the novel Since You Went Away: Letters to a Soldier from His Wife by Margaret Buell Wilder. The music score was by Max Steiner and the cinematography by Stanley Cortez, Lee Garmes, George Barnes (uncredited) and Robert Bruce (uncredited).

The movie is set in a mid-sized American town, where people with loved ones in the military try to cope with their changed circumstances and make their own contributions to the war effort. The main characters are a housewife whose husband is away in the service and her two daughters who are just growing into womanhood. The story runs from early January to late December 1943; the film itself was made in late 1943 and early 1944.^{[citation needed]} Though sentimental, Since You Went Away is more somber and realistic about the carnage of war and the pain of separation than some other homefront movies made during World War II.

Cast

• Claudette Colbert as Mrs. Anne Hilton
• Jennifer Jones as Jane Deborah Hilton
• Joseph Cotten as Lieutenant Commander Tony Willett
• Shirley Temple as Bridget 'Brig' Hilton
• Monty Woolley as Colonel William G. Smollett
• Lionel Barrymore as Clergyman
• Robert Walker as Corporal William G. 'Bill' Smollett II
• Hattie McDaniel as Fidelia
• Jane Devlin as Gladys Brown
• Agnes Moorehead as Mrs. Emily Hawkins
• Alla Nazimova as Zofia Koslowska (as Nazimova)
• Albert Bassermann as Dr. Sigmund Gottlieb Golden
• Gordon Oliver as Marine Officer Seeking Room
• Keenan Wynn as Lieutenant Solomon
• Guy Madison as Sailor Harold E. Smith
• Craig Stevens as Danny Williams

Reception

According to Bosley Crowther, Since You Went Away, Selznick's first screen production in four years, features a script with an "excess of exhausting emotional detail"; Crowther was impressed with the performances but had issues with the film as a whole:

"As the mother and center of the family, Claudette Colbert gives an excellent show of gallantly self-contained emotion, and Jennifer Jones is surpassingly sweet as a well-bred American daughter in the first bloom of womanhood and love. Robert Walker is uncommonly appealing as the young soldier whom she tragically adores, and Shirley Temple, now grown to 'teen-age freshness, is pert as the young sister. Monty Woolley makes a full-blown character of the man who comes to lodge; Joseph Cotten is droll as the Navy playboy, and Hattie McDaniel does an Andy-act quite well....No doubt, this would have been a sharper picture if Mr. Selznick had played it in much less time, and it would have been considerably more significant had he kept it somewhat closer to average means. Two hours and fifty-one minutes is a lot of time to harp upon one well-known theme—lonesomeness and anxiety. And that is all this picture really does."

Since You Went Away won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Max Steiner) and was nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role (Claudette Colbert), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jennifer Jones), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Monty Woolley), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Lee Garmes), Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White (Mark-Lee Kirk, Victor A. Gangelin), and Best Effects, Special Effects.

Cultural influence

The farewell scene between Jones and Walker at the railway station is often cited as an example of a Hollywood tearjerker scene. It was parodied in the 1981 film Airplane!. Jones and Walker played young sweethearts in Since You Went Away, but in real life they were married at the time and going through a bitter breakup. They divorced not long after the movie was completed,^{[citation needed]} and Jones later married the film's producer, David O. Selznick.

External links

• Since You Went Away at the TCM Movie Database
• Since You Went Away at the Internet Movie Database
• Since You Went Away at AllRovi