I'll Be Seeing You (1944)

Mrs. Marshall: You must have been looking forward to it, Mary.
Mary Marshall: I was looking forward to seeing you, Aunt Sarah.
Mrs. Marshall: Oh, that's sweet of you, dear.
Mary Marshall: As a matter of fact, selfish. I've been doing a lot of thinking in the past three years, Aunt Sarah, and...
Mrs. Marshall: What sort of things were you thinking, Mary?
Mary Marshall: Coming out into the world and... Even coming here, I had a feeling that ...
Mrs. Marshall: Honey, you've got to stop being afraid. You've got to stop feeling that you're branded like people were in the old days. You've done something. You're paying your debt to society. Most people are willing to let it go at that.
Mary Marshall: I know, Aunt Sarah, but coming out into the world and seeing everybody in uniform, everybody doing something... I just don't belong. I don't fit in. And dreams that I've had for the future are just impossible.
Mrs. Marshall: Well, most dreams are, Mary. It's just the dreaming that counts. Nobody gets exactly what he wants out of life. One of the first things you learn is to make compromises with your dreams.
Mary Marshall: But I'm not talking about palaces and rainbows, Aunt Sarah. I'm talking about a home. A home like this with a kitchen and a stove and an icebox, and a husband, and a child.
Mrs. Marshall: Yes, I have all that. Yet I used to dream about palaces and rainbows.
Mary Marshall: But you're happy.
Mrs. Marshall: Of course. Because I didn't hold out for too much. I accepted what I thought was second best and made that do. Oh, it's something that everybody learns sooner or later. You have to get used to accepting what you think is second best, and then you find out it's first best after all.

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Mr. Marshall: [after they sing a Christmas carol together] Well, it feels pretty comfortable to have another man's voice around at Christmastime.
Mrs. Marshall: I'm sure Barbara's doing her best to arrange that for you, Henry.
Barbara Marshall: Oh, mother.
Mrs. Marshall: Oh, darling. Maybe family jokes are in bad taste. They make the guest feel out of place.
Zachary Morgan: No, ma'am. I haven't felt so easy in a long time. This is the best Christmas dinner I ever had. Yesterday, I was a stranger here. I mean, I felt like a prisoner inside myself. Now, just to be in a home like this, with people like you, maybe someplace I can come back to next month, or next year...

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Mary Marshall: [after Barbara had partitioned all their stuff] Barbara, what I'm in prison for isn't catching.
Barbara Marshall: I'm sorry, Mary, I... I keep hurting you, and... I really don't want to.
Mary Marshall: I guess it is uncomfortable for you to meet somebody who's been in prison. Maybe when you get to know me, you'll feel differently.
Barbara Marshall: I want to know you, Mary. Really, I do.
Mary Marshall: How much do you know about me?
Barbara Marshall: Not much. Mother and Dad still treat me like a child. Everything's a big secret.
Mary Marshall: I don't think it would hurt for you to know. As a matter of fact, I think it might help. When I was your age, my mother died.
Barbara Marshall: Oh, I remember her. Way back when I was young. She used to make clothes for my favorite doll.
Mary Marshall: Yes, she was wonderful with her hands. And some time after that, my father went north on business. And then, when he died, I was on my own. I got a very good job as a secretary, and my job brought me in contact with a lot of very nice men, one of whom, might have turned out, I thought, to be the one who would give me all the things that you dream about when you're twenty and lonely. One day, when I was called into my boss's office, he invited me to a party in his apartment. He was single, and I started dreaming. Bosses do marry their secretaries. I took what money I'd saved and I bought an evening dress. I thought it was very fancy. I wanted to look good in front of his high class friends. He had sent me an orchid, a white orchid, the first one I'd ever had. I was wearing it. When the door opened, I walked into the biggest apartment I'd ever seen. I thought it was rich and elegant. I'd wanted to impress him, so I got there a little late. I'd wanted to make an entrance all by myself, but nobody else was there. I should have had sense enough then to get out, but I didn't. He'd been drinking a long time before I got there, I guess, and he kept right on. He told me that he hadn't invited anyone else, and that the white orchid, and all that was just his way of getting me up there. I - I tried to talk my way out, and then when that didn't work, I made a break for it. I didn't scream. I was too frightened, I guess. I tried to get away from him, but I couldn't. He seemed to be everywhere. Oh, it was all mixed up like some terrible kind of a dream. Once, I almost got away, when he f

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"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie onDecember 24, 1945 with Joseph Cotten reprising his film role.
American Film Institute Catalog of Feature Films, 1941-1950, erroneously gives the release date as 5 January 1944 instead of 5 January 1945.
Joan Fontaine, who was to play the female lead, was forced to withdraw due to previous commitments.
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