When his wife isn’t satisfied with their home and wants to move up in the world, Gregory Peck takes a better job to try to assuage her. Their home is quite unusual for Hollywood movies (but fairly average by real life standards)
as it has the normal dings and places where the wallpaper has faded. Funny how a normal seeming home is meant to look so bleak on the screen.

Anyway, he’s been a devoted father and even a war hero, but his wife is determined that they finally “make it.” He begins having flashbacks of the war as the stress on him to increase the family income begins. This is not a war movie, per se, but more about the life of a man who happened to have spent part of his life as a soldier. He has killed many men in hand to hand combat but is not “proud” of it. In fact, there is a definite juxtaposition between his children watching war movies on tv and counting the dead and his own lack of discussion about the true death he himself encountered.

It is split fairly evenly between his domestic life, his soldiering life and his business life. On the domestic front, he washes dishes. His wife even drives the car more often than not. Imagine seeing that in a movie even today! Not your typical “war” move. If you’ve ever seen All Quiet On The Western Front, it has more of that feel. Well, if those guys had made it home alive and had to reintegrate back into society, that is.