The Very Thought of You

Though filmed while WW2 was still very much in progress, The Very Thought of You has the lighthearted ambience of a postwar picture. After 18 months' duty in the Aleutians, army buddies Dave (Dennis Morgan) and Fixit (Dane Clark) take a long-awaited furlough in Dave's home town of Pasadena. While Fixit is only interested in accumulating as many "dames" as possible, Dave falls deeply and genuinely in love with defense-plant worker Janet (Eleanor Parker). At a Thanksgiving dinner, Dave is given the going-over by Janet's family, some of whom approve of him while others give a thumbs-down. Deciding that they want to spend their lives together no matter the consequences, Dave and Janet opt for a quick marriage and 24-hour honeymoon. When he's called back to active duty, Dave wonders if he'll ever see his bride again?and so does the audience, at least until the very last scenes. Meanwhile, Fixit's casual affair with Janet's coworker Cora (Faye Emerson) likewise becomes a lot more serious than they'd intended. The early scenes of The Very Thought of You are filmed on location at Cal Tech, while other sequences are shot at the San Diego Navy Yards-a harbinger for such future films as On the Town, which also eschewed studio mockups in favor of genuine locales.