Based on a novel by MacKinlay Kantor (whose later work Glory for Me would be filmed as The Best Years of Our Lives), and released during the height of World War II, Happy Land is a consideration of "why we fight," and a beautifully gentle, heartfelt film. Living and breathing in its scenes are home, family and freedom.

“As long as kids can play Indian in the corn...”

From the wall of Marsh's Drugstore smiles the photograph of a young sailor, Rusty Marsh (Richard Crane). Few customers come into the store without asking, "Anything from Rusty?" His last letter arrived from the Pacific front three weeks ago. Today there will come a telegram from the War Department: "...killed in action..."

Bitterly grieving the loss of his son, Lew Marsh (Don Ameche) can't endure the consolement of his wife Agnes (Frances), his minister or his friends. Lew can only retrace his thoughts of the brevity of Rusty's life. Having witnessed his despair, the spirit of Gramp (Harry Carey) appears to Lew, to take him on a tour through their Iowa hometown and the years Rusty spent growing up there, to see the richness of the boy's small-town American life.

Happy Land's tour through the past encompasses not only Rusty's life, but also the first meeting and the marriage of his parents. Lew and Agnes' courtship included a picnic sequence, which required Frances to execute the difficult business of creeping through a barbed wire fence "without disturbing the equanimity of the censors."¹ An item carried in Florida's St. Petersburg Times noted that Director Irving Pichel, after viewing three sets of rushes, again called for retakes, saying, "I may have to use a double." But a double was, apparently, unnecessary, for in the finished film it's clearly Frances, making her own way modestly through the barbed wire.

The tour moves on, finding the young Rusty playing Indian in the cornfields (and Frances comes out, joining in the make-believe for a moment by placing a cornstalk in her hair to be a "squaw" calling the "Big Chief" in for his nap). Growing up, Rusty assists his father at the drugstore; gives his own hard-earned money to help a man in need. Lew and Gramp see Rusty competing in high-school sports, going on picnics in Brigg's woods, falling in love. At last, Lew comes to realize his son's happiness: "Rusty did lead a rich life." When the freedom to live a life like his was threatened, Rusty enlisted; because that kind of life, so worth the living, is worth fighting for, and dying for. "As long as American kids can join the boy scouts," says Gramp, "do a good deed every day; eat ice cream, go to high-school, play football....it will be worthwhile."

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FOOTNOTES