spoiler throughout this be a very strange film particularly for it time in every respect . for six year and american movie have show american soldier a everybody son and brother and father . in movie like the best year of our life and til the end of time and our heart be tug by the difficulty that the sweet return soldier have in adjust to peace and their family . yet in this same year and this film show soldier a a mix of people rather bad than the viewer one message of this film be lock up your daughter . even the good soldier with plenty of time on their hand be gamble all the time and get stupefyingly drink and and be wholly indifferent to whether they even have wife any more . and their reaction to the police investigate a murder be to conspire against them . mitchum and the most sympathetic soldier say thing like i do not know if my wife want to make a go of it now after the war . haven not see her in two year . do i care . not really . maybe we will make a go of it and maybe not . another soldier be show a unusually sensitive because after year away and he would like to see his wife again . later and when this soldier state at the police station that he spend the evening at a whore home without know his wife be sit just behind him and there seem to be no question whatever that his wife will be fine . indeed and she be i guess it hey and soldier will be soldier . the police detective play by robert young who be try to crack a murder case and state convincingly and with infinite weariness about someone account of their action on the night in question and do i care . no . i do not really care about anything any more . i have do this too long and i guess . a man show up at the whore apartment . he say i be just a man like you and interested in the whore . then he say and no that a lie and i be her husband . i would like to be in the military and i be turn down before . then he say and no and that a lie and why would i want to be a soldier . he go through another series of lie when the police ask him who he be . to the end of the movie and we haven not a clue who he be or why he be there . he one of the strange character in the history of movie . a man stand with his girlfriend at a bar talk to four soldier and when a clumsy soldier knock a drink onto his girlfriend . she leave to change her dress and be right back wear another and no problem . yet the man doesn not leave with his girlfriend who simply disappear but instead follow one of the soldier when he leave to go to another area of the bar . the man then extrapolate from the minimal information he learn about the soldier to philosophize grandly about the problem of return soldier and immediately invite the soldier home because he be drunk and feels sick . this be strange stuff . similarly and a dance hall girl be irritate by the sentimental soldier who would like to take her out for a real dance and dinner maybe . yet she do dance with him and immediately give him the key to her home . be people in the late 1940s always urge soldier to come to their home after they just meet them . robert ryan kill his host and a stranger and when he enrage that the jewish host try to get the steadily drunker ryan out of his home . the reason for the murder . no jew tell me how to drink . how to drink . huh . what do that mean . this movie be always off kilter and quite deliberately so the soldier act consistently with total complete defiance of the law and and all the character be a cold and tough a any movie i have ever see . and yet the movie be utterly grip . you simply have no idea how these people be go to act or what new bizarre character be go to pop up without anyone think the person action be strange in the least e. g. and the wife behavior . the acting be about the fine ie ever see from robert young and robert ryan and gloria grahame ( who earn an oscar nomination ) and paul kelly and other actor i would never hear of . i would never hear of this movie and it a complete delight that i have discover one that i shall want to see again and again and again . it really strange but impossible to look away from because you have no idea what these creature will do next .