‘Since You Went Away’ turns 80: Celebrating the WWII classic

Producer David O. Selznick was always looking for the next big thing.  He had scored an enormous hit — it was a cultural phenom — with his 1939 Civil War drama “Gone with the Wind,’ which won eight Oscars including best picture, director, actress and supporting actress (after adjustment due to inflation, is still the highest grossing film ever made). And for those fashion-minded, “GWTW” also caused an uptick in sales of the women’s headgear called the snood.

The following year, Selznick produced the best picture winner, Alfred Hitchcock’s romantic mystery “Rebecca.”  Four years after ‘Rebecca” on July 20, 1944, Selznick released the sentimental, home-fires-burning drama “Since You Went Away,” which he hoped would the next “GWTW” in terms of box office and Oscar love.

The world was war weary in 1944. In fact, World War II seemed never ending. The Allied troops launched its invasion of Europe on the beaches of Normandy on June 6th. But even with the success of D-day, the war wouldn’t end in Europe until May 1945; the Japanese surrendered three months later. Wives and families were dealing with their husbands and sons away at war, worrying every day they would receive a telegram informing them of an injury or a death.

Though “Since You Went Away” didn’t rival the success of “GWTW,” audiences embraced the near three-hour drama focusing on a family adjusting to life during World War II. Selznick wrote the script based on a novel by Margaret Buell Wilder which consisted of letters a wife sent to her husband who was off fighting. He brought Wilder to Hollywood to write the script; he ultimately sent her packing deciding to pen the screenplay himself.

He also thought of directing the drama but was talked out of the idea. John Cromwell, whom Selznick had worked with in 1937’s “The Prisoner of Zenda” and 1939’s “In Name Only,” was brought on as director. According to TCM.com, “for the first-time, he insisted no scene be shot until he had seen it rehearsed.”

Famed stage actress Katharine Cornell wanted to play the matriarch of the family, but Selznick told her that “the day-to-day details may be too mundane for an actress of her stature.” It certainly wasn’t for Claudette Colbert. Though she was best known for her comedic work, winning her only best actress Oscar for 1934’s “It Happened One Night,” she had shown her dramatic chops in several films including 1935’s “Private Worlds,” for which she earned her second Oscar nomination. She initially turned own the role not wanting to play the mother of two teenagers. According to IMDb.com, Selznick told her that it would help morale and the $150,000 salary helped her morale.

Jennifer Jones, Selznick’s protégé who would become his wife in 1949, was cast as the oldest daughter who loses her first love in the war. Former child star Shirley Temple, who was now a teenager and had been off the screen for two years, played the youngest daughter. Monty Woolley, the former Yale professor who had become a star thanks to “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” was the family boarder;  Hattie McDaniel, who was the first black performer to win an Oscar for “GWTW,” was yet again cast as the family maid;  Joseph Cotton was a good family friend who harbored an affection for Colbert; ; and Robert Walker, who was married to Jones, was her first love who dies in the conflict.

Jones and Walker, who had two young sons, have palpable chemistry in “Since You Went Away,” but off-screen their marriage was falling apart. According to IMDB.com, cast and crew members noted the “love scenes were agonizing for them both. Jennifer Jones was reported as running, sobbing, to her portable dressing room between takes.” Walker would move out of their house. They didn’t announce their separation until Jones won the Oscar for best actress for 1943’s religious drama “The Song of Bernadette.” The couple divorced in 1945.

The film also featured the legendary actress Nazimova in her final film; the feature debuts of Guy Madison and John Derek; and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-appearance at the train station of legendary Dorothy Dandridge.

The New York Times wasn’t thrilled with “Since You Went Away” noting that “its humors are frequent and cheerful; its spirit is hopeful and brave. But it does come off, altogether, as a rather large dose of choking sentiment” and accused Selznick as the writer and producer for letting himself “go in an excess of exhausting emotional detail…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.”

Variety was far kinder: “Since You Went Away” is a heart-warming panorama of human emotions, reflecting the usual wartime frailties of the thoughtless and the chiseler, the confusion and young love, all its projected against a background of utterly captivating home love and life in the wholesome American manner. “

Even 80 years after its release, “Since You Went Away” is a strong, lovely emotional journey one family and their friends striving to keep the home fires burning. It’s a four-hankie weepie the best sense. “Since You Went Away” was the third biggest film at the box office in 1944 after ‘Going My Way,” which won seven Oscars including best film, and the beloved Technicolor Judy Garland musical “Meet Me in St. Louis.” And just as “Since You Went Away,” those films revolved around sentimental and family.

“Since You Went Away” would earn eight Oscar nominations including best film, actress for Colbert, supporting actress for Jones, supporting actor for Woolley winning for Max Steiner’s haunting poignant score.

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