Bright Victory [Lights Out] *** (1951, Arthur Kennedy, Peggy Dow, Julie Adams, James Edwards, Will Geer, Minor Watson, Jim Backus, Joan Banks, Nana Bryant) – Classic Movie Review 13,748

The 1951 romantic drama film Bright Victory stars Arthur Kennedy as a GI blinded by a German sniper’s bullet in 1943 who struggles to come to terms with his disability.

‘The great living love story of today’s generation!’

Director Mark Robson’s 1951 Universal-International Pictures American black and white romantic drama film Bright Victory [Lights Out] is written by Robert Buckner, based on the 1945 novel Lights Out by Baynard Kendrick, and stars Arthur Kennedy, Peggy Dow, Julie Adams, James Edwards, Will Geer, and Nana Bryant.

Arthur Kennedy was Oscar nominated as Best Actor in a Leading Role for his fine performance as Larry Nevins, a GI blinded by a German sniper’s bullet in North Africa in 1943 during World War Two, struggling to adjust to Civvy Street and finding love with bank teller and volunteer Judy Greene (Peggy Dow), in this sincere, slightly sentimental but truly affecting emotional tale.

Kennedy fears leaving the safety and comfort of his military hospital – and rightly so it turns out, when his fiancée Chris Paterson (Julie Adams) and his parents (Will Geer, Nana Bryant) are so useless at helping or understanding him.

Rock Hudson has a walkon as as Dudek.

Also in the cast are Minor Watson, Jim Backus, Joan Banks, Marjorie Crossland, Richard Egan, Russell Dennis, Rock Hudson, Murray Hamilton, Donald Miele, Larry Keating, Hugh Reilly, Mary Cooper, and Ken Harvey.

It was retitled  Lights Out in the UK.

Shooting took place at Valley Forge General Army Hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, in downtown Phoenixville, Kimberton, and at Broad Street Station in Philadelphia.

Mark Robson said it was ‘a very good film but it was a disaster financially’.

Peggy Dow (born Peggy Josephine Varnadow; March 18, 1928) retired after only three years in films to marry oil driller Walter Helmerich III in 1951.

Arthur Kennedy was Oscar nominated four other times, all as Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Champion (1950), Trial (1955), Peyton Place (1958) and Some Came Running (1959).

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,748

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