Without Reservations

Most of these reviewers are pretty spot-on, so I can just add my observations: It was a complete surprise to see a John Wayne character deliver a book critique. I was off my pins for a while until he went into his "Why don't you just stop thinking." Movie was like a collision between Ayn Rand and Frank Capra. Still, very breezy, and we enjoyed the contemporary stock location footage of Chicago... with the cute cameo by Jack Benny (taking train back up to Waukegan, no doubt). Also, it presented an interesting peek, though filtered through Hollywood's cockeyed optimism, of a question that was surely on many people's minds. We've saved the world, now how shall we remake it in our image. Surely there were many Kit Masterson writing about what we should do, My theory has long been that the postwar world was most shaped by the GI Bill of Rights, which put a college education and new home within reach of millions of veterans, and created the American middle class, for good or bad. Having lived through the crises of our new century, it's interesting to see people who realized they were standing at other crossroads in history.