Reminds me more of Pride of the Marines than Best Years of Their Lives. Blinded returning vet has to readjust. Arthur Kennedy never was better than in this movie. The ending in this cynical age seems too upbeat, but such endings DID happen. See: The Men with Brando for another crippled returning vet film.

Bright Victory was one of a trio of films that came out roughly around the same time dealing with rehabilitation of wounded armed service personnel, the other films being The Men and Home From the Brave. This one however dealt with those men blinded in combat.

It was also something of a surprise to the studio that produced it. This is clearly a product of Universal's B picture unit, no marquee names head the cast. But Arthur Kennedy's portrayal of Larry Nevins was so well received that he got an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in 1951 losing to Humphrey Bogart.

Kennedy is a southern kid, wounded in North Africa and left blinded by the war. He along with many others go to a special army rehabilitation unit for the blind. Along the way he meets Peggy Dow and the two of them hit it off. But Kennedy's got a girl waiting for him back home.

The film is about Kennedy's rehabilitation in adjusting to a dark world. He readjusts a few other things as well. Kennedy has the usual southern attitudes about race and rebuffs James Edwards's proffered friendship when he finds out he's black. It's quite a revelation to him to find out that blindness gives the two of them a lot more in common than race had previously divided them.

This is the high point of Arthur Kennedy's career. A fine character actor, this film should have put him into leading man ranks. It didn't however, but Kennedy surely never lacked for work throughout his career.

Peggy Dow had made her debut in Harvey where she scored well as the empathetic nurse and followed that portrayal with a well received one here. She left the screen after this. Too bad, she was a pretty girl with real talent.

Sharp eyes will spot Rock Hudson in a bit part. In another year Rock might have been the lead here and this would have been an A product from Universal. But then Arthur Kennedy would not have gotten his greatest career part.

Arthur Kennedy is Larry, a man blinded in WW II battle in "Bright Victory," a 1951 film that also stars Peggy Dow, Julia Adams, James Edwards, Will Geer, Jim Backus, and Larry Keating. Kennedy plays a southern racist whose life plan of marrying his high school sweetheart (Adams) and joining her wealthy father's business comes into doubt when he is shot and his optic nerve shattered during combat.

The film takes the viewer through Larry's training with other blind soldiers as he learns to adjust to a sightless life. One of the men, Joe (Edwards) is black and is his best buddy until Larry makes a bigoted remark (and uses the n word for extra emphasis). A fellow soldier points out to him that from now on, he probably won't want to ask someone's race and religion before deciding if they pass muster. This sets Larry thinking. He meets a sympathetic young woman, Judy (Dow), who falls for him but has to let him go home to the life he has there. But when Larry returns to his family, he finds that because he's changed, the world around him has changed, too.

This looks to be a B movie but Kennedy received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, and the acting in the film is A quality, as is the script and direction. Kennedy is excellent and does one thing, I believe intentionally, that is remarkable. At least to these ears, he has no southern accent in the beginning of the film. When he returns home, you start to hear a southern accent in his voice. Now, some might say that Kennedy's southern accent was in and out - I don't believe that was the case. He did what a lot of people with an 'acute ear' do - he picked up the accent of those around him. As a blind man, of course, his ear would even be more acute, and in several scenes, he is shown to have a unique "radar" ability for "feeling" when he is near a building, which is considered by the Army to be a unique gift not shared by many. It would then be in character for him to easily fall in and speak with the same intonation as the accents around him. Kennedy, of course, went on to have a strong career as a character actor (and receive more Oscar nominations) while one of the bit players in the film, Rock Hudson, who is fairly bad even with a couple of lines, hit the superstardom jackpot. Fortunately, Hudson improved greatly before being handed leads.

Julia Adams is lovely (and strongly resembles actress Connie Selleca) as Larry's frustrated girlfriend, and Dow is sympathetic as the girl left behind. After a few more movies, the very pretty Dow quit her film career to marry and subsequently raised five children. Will Geer, Larry Keating, and Jim Backus, three strong character actors, appear in this film as well.

"Bright Victory" is an excellent movie and well worth watching, particularly for the complicated personality created by Arthur Kennedy.