This movie is a combo of all you can want in a good old-fashioned story, and all you can hope for when hope is apparently gone. It's a Hollywood love story, minus the happy ending. Or is it?
There's a lot more to the story than just the romantic couple, Art and Ruth (Van Johnson and Jane Wyman, two of my favs) who meet be chance in a rainstorm in New York City during WWII and soon fall in love and make plans for a future that isn't meant to be. The story also involves Ruth's mother, Agnes (Josephine Hutchinson) whose emotional state has been precarious, since her musician husband Harry (William Gargan) left her. Ruth has been looking out for her ever since and has put her own life on hold. There's also Ruth's friend and coworker, Grace (Eileen Heckert), who seems to look at life from a glass half empty point of view, their boss, Stephen (Fred Clark), a married man who's having an affair with his secretary, Millie (Peggy Castle). Their stories all become linked together through the chance meeting of Art and Ruth.
Art wants a career as a reporter, but he also has talent as a composer. And it's this fact that brings Harry back into the picture, a man who was no less miserable than the wife he regretted leaving but couldn't bring himself to ask for a second chance.
Art has an influence on them all, with his optimistic outlook on life, his good heart and cheerful attitude. Soon everyone seems to be making an effort to improve themselves: Agnes becomes stronger, Harry forgives himself enough to ask for forgiveness from his family, Grace starts to see the glass as half full, Millie decides she wants more from life than backstreet mistress and leaves to start over, and Stephen realizes the error of his ways. (It's significant that in a scene toward the end of the film, he calls his pretty new secretary into his office - as he had done with Millie many times - but now it's strictly to take dictation.)
The war comes between the happy couple, and a heartbroken Ruth loses her will to live, and suffers from a bad bout of pneumonia, but a special old Roman coin plays a part in her fate, which implies a happy ending despite the sadness.
There's a lot more to the story than just the romantic couple, Art and Ruth (Van Johnson and Jane Wyman, two of my favs) who meet be chance in a rainstorm in New York City during WWII and soon fall in love and make plans for a future that isn't meant to be. The story also involves Ruth's mother, Agnes (Josephine Hutchinson) whose emotional state has been precarious, since her musician husband Harry (William Gargan) left her. Ruth has been looking out for her ever since and has put her own life on hold. There's also Ruth's friend and coworker, Grace (Eileen Heckert), who seems to look at life from a glass half empty point of view, their boss, Stephen (Fred Clark), a married man who's having an affair with his secretary, Millie (Peggy Castle). Their stories all become linked together through the chance meeting of Art and Ruth.
Art wants a career as a reporter, but he also has talent as a composer. And it's this fact that brings Harry back into the picture, a man who was no less miserable than the wife he regretted leaving but couldn't bring himself to ask for a second chance.
Art has an influence on them all, with his optimistic outlook on life, his good heart and cheerful attitude. Soon everyone seems to be making an effort to improve themselves: Agnes becomes stronger, Harry forgives himself enough to ask for forgiveness from his family, Grace starts to see the glass as half full, Millie decides she wants more from life than backstreet mistress and leaves to start over, and Stephen realizes the error of his ways. (It's significant that in a scene toward the end of the film, he calls his pretty new secretary into his office - as he had done with Millie many times - but now it's strictly to take dictation.)
The war comes between the happy couple, and a heartbroken Ruth loses her will to live, and suffers from a bad bout of pneumonia, but a special old Roman coin plays a part in her fate, which implies a happy ending despite the sadness.