I was wondering if anyone else was going nuts over those EYES! LOLOL You probably nailed it! I was wondering if her eyes would open at all....it was completely bizarre. She shut her eyes, squeezing them crazily in every embrace.
The posters here have the description perfect, as well--"sappy." It was over-the-top, no doubt. But they were trying to achieve that teary-eyed, drippy nose feeling in movie-goers...viewers who must have had several relatives and close friends away from home in the war, where they could die or be injured--if not in combat, or attacks on ships and aircraft, then in accidents, etc.
So, when you watch movies made during WWII, you have to expect them to pull your heart-strings, try to cause tears, evoke super patriotism, "My country right or wrong." In WWII, they wanted you to do without your nylon/silk stockings, coffee, sugar, milk, butter, eggs, meat, makeup, hair care, new clothing, new shoes, new cars, new furniture...conserve on electricity, gas, coal, wood, etc... My mom said all the girls in her nurse's training drew lines down the back of their legs with a pen so it looked like they had stockings on (stockings had seams in those days that went up the middle of the back of your leg)!
The factories that made things that were a luxury were converted to making things for the war effort, like uniforms, rope, canvas backpacks, sleeping bags and pup tents for soldiers, jeeps, boats of every size, ammunition, bombs, guns, what have you--with the men at war, there was a lot less money to spend on luxuries anyway, and business owners still needed an income. Cargo ship crews would have to risk lives to bring many items from Central and South America in the face of German submarines hunting them down, or islands in the South Pacific where Japanese forces were in control. Raw materials were scarce, Europe was producing nothing. Movies were expected to make Americans not want these things, be happy without them, and spend their money on war bonds instead. Perhaps go to work in one of the factories.
The fact is, when someone is going away whom you love, and it's early in your relationship (young love so intense that you hate to be physically separated at all), you do get sappy. These were very young couples, and likely first physical relationships, newlyweds. Add to that these men are flying old farm equipment with propellers off a carrier (which had not been done before) in the middle of the Pacific during a world war, and you will be really really sappy. They know they might think back on this all their lives as their last dance, or their last goodbye. So they say, "I love you." too often...people probably do. Esp young people who are drinking (at a time alcohol was probably very scarce and they had not drank much of it in their young lives.)
My aunts and uncles had marriages from that generation, and they were extremely close. Never said a bad word about each other in 50-60 years of marriage. My parents were that way, but in my mom's family it was 2 out of 3. My uncle died 5 weeks after my aunt...a broken heart. He could not go on without her. That generation had a very sappy thing going in more relationships than not.
I thought it was something else that they sang to each other while dancing...if couples did that in reality, then it's case closed. Over the top. But not unexpected. If anyone had a right to get sappy, it's young newlyweds who are drunk and had little experience with drinking, or pregnant and hormones rushing, their last night together before the men go on a very dangerous mission that had never been tried before...potentially fatal in many ways. The eyes on Mrs. Lawson needed some aircraft glue to hold them open. But the others have excuses that rate pretty high. We only had one relationship's story in the movie--we were not forced to watch every man say goodbye. He lost a leg, wrote the book the movie is based on. That is not much. People complain less when the lead characters in modern dramas develop relationships with strangers and we watch 10 minutes of sexual goodbyes that have no emotional connection at all.
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