La comedia humana

Author William Saroyan had a special love for America — a special kind of love that seems to be reserved for us fortunate ones who are immigrants to this great country. Or, at least, that's how it was a generation or two ago.

This film displays this love for America in the special way of the home front milieu of the 40s. No doubt, it's a sentimental, even maudlin look at the meaning of "home." Homer McCauley (Mickey Rooney) is a telegraph runner for his boss, the wonderful Frank Morgan, in the small California town of Ithaca, where he must deliver telegrams to the folks who have lost a loved one in the war. The film shows in many touching ways what it was like to be on the sidelines (keep your chin up; do the best you can) while the boys where fighting "over there."

As a small boy growing up in Germany during this time, it was one of the first American films I ever saw. It, more than any other thing, made me understand what it would be like to be somewhere where the little things in life are important, while the 'big stuff' takes care of itself. A place where small, unimportant folks count for as much as, or even more than, the ones hogging the news.

Watch this film if you can (shown on Turner Classic Movies) and see what we have lost and what we must find a way to get back into our lives.