Word: valkonen
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Kaarlo Valkonen (Alfred Lunt) is a scientist strongly opposed to war. But when war comes on the terms it does, Valkonen abandons his pacifism, turns down a chance to leave Finland, and goes, like his patriot son, to be killed. His wife (Lynn Fontanne) stays also, prepared to defend her home, but she compels her daughter-in-law, who is expecting a child, to flee the country...
...overoptimistic, Sherwood is militant. His pacifist who, after studying the issues at stake, decides to fight can easily be taken as a symbol: Sherwood might well wish an anti-war U. S. to change its mind as Valkonen did. Although denying Columnist Raymond Clapper's accusation that his play is a plea for intervention, Sherwood admitted that he expected to be called a "warmonger...
...great Finnish scientist, Kaarlo Valkonen, played by Alfred Lunt, can see his home broken up in the war, his son killed, and his country going down in defeat, and still say that the booming of the guns is the death rattle, not of civilization, but of the forces of evil. He is a brain specialist, and he sees that the ultimate defenses of civilization are not the pill-boxes of the Mannerheim and Maginot Lines, but the tissues of the human brain, and he thinks they are still in good order, even though they are taking a terrific battering...
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