March's character has a different dilemma. He is promoted at the bank as a loans officer, because, as the manager puts it, he has the kind of life and image that would look good to the bank -- he's suffered through a lot, and so on. He'd be a good asset in bringing business from ex-soldiers and their families -- yet he is still reminded, of course, to observe the principles of sound banking. It is clear that this tension between observing sound banking and of support his comrades from the war will be played out later on in the film, when he is in a meeting with a veteran who has no collateral but a lot of ambition.
Russell's character has to deal with the strange looks and discomfort from those within his own family. He relates to one of the other characters how his father and others feel self-conscious around him, because they have hands and he doesn't. He also is unable to work on his relationship with his girlfriend -- he feels self-conscious himself for being deformed, even though it soon becomes obvious that the girlfriend would stay with him, if he'd let her.
The movie, naturally, mutates into a soapy love story. I say mutates, but really, it doesn't make for a bad movie. I mean, you can't get people into the theater without a juicy love story, can you? During a drunken bender at a bar, that includes all three major characters, as well as the wife and daughter of the March character, Andrews' character flirts with the daughter, who, unlike Andrews' wife, is a solid, down-to-earth personality. Andrews stays for the night at March's place, to sleep off the liquor, and has a nightmare about the war -- the woman is able to calm him down, which is something his own wife wouldn't be so goodhearted to do. The two fall in love, but are impeded by both the fact that Andrews is still married, and March's knowledge of this potential affair -- he tells Andrews that he'd do everything in his power to ensure that his daughter doesn't get hurt, and, because Andrews has too much respect for March's character, he reluctantly agrees to stop seeing the woman. But of course that's not the end of that story.........
The acting is pretty good, but I should single out a few players. Fredric March gives a very interesting performance, most notably during the sequence where he takes his wife and daughter on an impromptu drunken bender around all the bars in town. He does so because he figures that he has to loosen up after all these years in the military, and all those years before, working at the bank. All I can say is that March plays a very funny drunk, and I don't mean that as derision. I just think that he was quite funny, simply as that. At the very least, we get some good comic relief.
