In Elia Kazan's debut as a feature director, he tells the tale of a Brooklyn family, the Nolans, struggling to keep ends meet in a post-War setting. While much of the US was booming at the time (indeed shades of this wealth can be seen from the Nolan's rooftop with the Manhattan skyscrapers both a river and a world away), Kazan reminds us that many continued to struggle.

What much of the film deals with is how to cope with this struggle. A father drinks, and struggles to find work. A mother struggles to compensate for her husband's shortcomings and is sure to count every penny. And two young children struggle to hang on to their fading childhood, with the very real possibility that they may be sent to work before even entering high school.

One way that some characters in the film deal with the harsh realities they face is to just simply not face them at all. The father in the film, Johnny Nolan (an Oscar performance by James Dunn) is emblematic of this failure to deal with reality in a proactive manner. He stumbles home late at night or early in the morning with little to show for his night's work. He is also a dreamer, hoping that his opportunity to make it on Broadway is not far off. Johnny's salvation however is that he is a good father. He passes on his hopeful spirit to his daughter, Francie (Peggy Ann Garner), who appears to have the talent to actually realize her dreams someday as a writer.

Johnny's failure see the truth of his reality culminates over the holiday season, just after Katie (Dorothy McGuire) informs him that she is pregnant with their third child. Just prior to this scene Francie is praised for her creative writing skills after her teacher catches her lying about wanting to take a pie to a needy family (in reality, the needy family is her and her family). Her teacher tells her to "tell the truth and write the lies". Knowing that Francie doesn't quite fit into this middle-class school, the teacher is helping provide Francie with an outlet for her struggles. She is to use her imagination in her writing, but not let that imagination carry over into her interactions in the real-world. Sadly, this is a lesson that her father never learned.

Initially exuberant of the knowledge of a third child, Katie informs Johnny that the addition to the family will require Francie to enter the working world. Knowing that Francie thinks the world of her father, Katie pushes Johnny to break the harsh-truth to Francie. Sadly, he cannot do it. He hides the truth from his daughter and instead goes out for a walk on Christmas Eve, never to return. He later turns up dead in Manhattan due to alcoholism and pneumonia. "One leading to the other", the doctor informs Katie. 

There are other examples of characters ignoring the harsh truth in their lives in the film, like Aunt Sissy, married four times and referring to all her hsubands as "Bill" so as to ignore the failures of her past. However the standout character is Katie, so clearly aware of the realities her and her family face, to the point of being frigid. She consistently tells it like it is throughout the film and although her daughter is resentful of her for it, especially after Johnny's funeral, the family is better for it in the long-run.

Somehow Katie manages to keep her family afloat in the months following Johnny's death. Francie and her brother Neely both graduate from middle school, the newest member of the family, a daughter, is safely born and Katie even finds happiness at the films conclusion with friendly Officer McShane. Perhaps one day soon the Nolans/McShanes may even get their little piece of the American dream.

I don't believe the film's message is to abandon all your hopes and dreams when tough times occur. However the failure to see the reality that those dreams might be born into is a downfall that in this film, leads to death. Made in an era full of dreams and success, this film for me stands out as one of the few examples of post-World War II American cinema that doesn't just gloss over the many social inequities that existed at the time. Yes the troops were home and the War was won, but many Americans were forced to quickly temper their celebrations as they had plenty of other issues to worry about. How they would deal with these issues was now the most pressing concern.

Steve D'Alimonte is currently a student at Ryerson University