For wives and other tendercomrades, the homefront marches on. Ginger Rogers and three defense-plantcoworkers pool their rent money in a communal household: "We'll run thejoint like a democracy-and if anything comes up, we call a meeting!" It wasnot the ironic title but that "democracy" line that got Dalton Trumboskewered by HUAC, where even Ginger Rogers's mother joined in thetomato-throwing. This revealing film is more protofeminist than pro-Communist,full of sexual innuendo and gender-baiting one-liners: flashbacks to Ginger andRobert Ryan's courtship function as knowing flashforwards to the troubles to comeif/when the "big lug" returns from the trenches. Ace comedienne Rogersin the end is drafted into melodrama (misfortunes of war), a lugubriouspatriotism, and a truly vicious tirade against "hoarders" that showseven this atypical American household primed for a witch-hunt.