Second period: immediately post-World War 2
At this time, films about disability become more rehabilitative. Many have plots revolving around returning veterans, some of whom were disabled. This was part of a wider movement to make films about social issues, which did well at the box office. In the USA and Europe, the generation that had fought the War wanted their aspirations for a more just society reflected in the films they made and saw.
- Pride of the Marines (USA 1945 Dir Delmer Daves) is based on the true story of Al Schmid, who was blinded by a Japanese grenade. He returns to the US embittered, before family and friends convince him to shake off his self-imposed isolation. The film argues that individuals can't make it on their own and addresses issues of discrimination. Al's Jewish friend, Lee Diamond, says:
Sure, there'll be guys who won't hire you even when they know you can handle a job. There's guys that won't hire me because my name is Diamond instead of Jones. 'Cause I celebrate Passover instead of Easter. Do you see what I mean? You and me, we need the same kind of world; we need a country to live in where nobody gets booted around for any reason.
However, Al remains an isolated character, and unrealistically begins to recover his sight in the end.
- Till the End of Time (USA 1946 Dir Edward Dmytryk) is about three ex-marines, two of them disabled, changing their attitudes to themselves.
- In The Best Years of Our Lives (USA 1946 Dir William Wyler), non-professional actor, Harold Russell, who lost both hands in the War, won two Oscars: one for acting and one for bringing hope to ex-servicemen. Through a mixture of subjective and objective shots, director Wyler avoids a pity reaction to Russell's character, Homer Parish, and subtly shows him getting back together with his girlfriend Wilma, not through pity, but through love.
The Men (USA 1950 Dir Fred Zinnemann)
These were followed by Home of the Brave (USA 1949 Dir Mark Robson); The Men (USA 1950 Dir Fred Zinnemann) and Bright Victory (USA 1951 Dir Mark Robson), all in a similar vein. This concern with wider social issues, but still only featuring individual solutions, is reflected in films, such as:
- Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (USA 1945), which uses subjective or 'point-of-view' shots, flashbacks and a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali to portray mental health impairment. The suspense comes from psychoanalyst, Ingrid Bergman, falling for Gregory Peck, who may be a killer, but, being an amnesiac, can't remember. This has strong similarities to the techniques used in The Lost Weekend (USA 1945 Dir Billy Wilder), which tackled the taboo subject of alcoholism.
But the old stereotypes still feature strongly in, for example:
- Dick Tracy's Dilemma (USA 1947 Dir John Rawlins), based on Chester Gould's comic strip. This film contrasts the clean-cut, non-disabled Tracy with 'The Claw', a fur thief who kills people with his prosthetic hook. According to Tracy, The Claw acquired his hook when a coastguard cutter rammed him during illegal operations in the Prohibition. When, eventually, the private eye tracks The Claw down in an electrical substation, The Claw raises his hook to strike the hero and touches the electrical apparatus, electrocuting himself.
