When Hollywood got it right.

One very dreary Sunday afternoon recently, I curled up in my living room to watch the 1944 film Since You Went Away. Starring Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple, Monty Woolley, Robert Walker, Joseph Gotten and Hattie McDaniel, this was David O. Selznick's answer to Mrs. Miniver, that inspirational British tribute to the homefront during World War II.

The film opens with the words: "This is the story of the Unconquerable Fortress, the American home, 1943." Cut to Colbert (as housewife Anne Hilton) coming home on a rainy afternoon in January 1943 after seeing her husband Tim off to war. She confronts his empty leather chair and then greets their two daughters Jane and Bridget (Jones and Temple) who abruptly dissolve into tears. What will they do without Pop? And how will they make ends meet?

Over the next three hours, the three women love, sacrifice, suffer and grow along with their neighbours: the local bread man who loses his only son in a military crash; the retired army colonel (Woolley) who rents a room in the Hilton house to help with the mortgage payments; the Colonel's grandson (Walker) whose failure at West Point results in his estrangement from his grandfather; Tim's best friend Tony (Gotten), a real charmer and a slight cad kept on the straight and narrow by his relationship with the Hiltons; and Cornelia the housekeeper (McDaniel), who helps the family cope.

Slow moving and undramatic, this film has immense power--mainly because of its enduring message. As romantic illusions give way to sobering reality, the family becomes stronger and their home becomes a fortress of hope and a haven of comfort. "For home sweet home, that's why I fight," says Tony as he departs for the Pacific.

Sentimental eyewash, you're thinking? Not a bit. In context, it makes perfect sense.

The months rolls by. Then word comes in August 1943 that Tim Hilton is missing in action; Anne collapses momentarily but soon the camera cuts to the three women - wife and two daughters--praying separately to God that their husband and father will return home. Over the next few months, with no further word on Tim, life goes on with the Hilton household providing support and strength to everyone who enters it.

Then it's Christmas. Under the tree, there are gifts to Tim from Anne, Jane and Bridget ("How I wish I had faith like that," says Cornelia, who doubts he'll ever come home). There are also gifts to Anne, Jane and Bridget from Tim (left with Cornelia on his departure). Anne's gift is a music-powder box which she opens alone after the family has gone to bed. It plays their song.

"This powder box is not too gay but the melody has told you already why I couldn't resist it," the note says. "With it goes something I need no Christmas to send you-- my eternal love. Tim."

That's how Jesus loves us, was the thought that instantly crossed my mind. Intimately. Just like that, nudged right up against that most secret part of our souls. The phone rings. It's well past midnight. It's the war department. Tim is safe and on his way home. Prayers have been answered and faith has been rewarded.

"Be of good courage and He will strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord," the screen proclaims as the camera pulls away from mother and daughters hugging each other in total joy. The End.

Hard to imagine a film like that being made today. In a world far more cynical than it was sixty years ago, the lines delineating good and evil now seem hopelessly (and purposefully) blurred. Yet, in the dark days of World War II, in virtually all Western countries fighting the Axis powers, good and evil were not relative concepts; nor was common faith in a 'higher power'. In those days, the faith and the hope required to carry on was in Jesus Christ who strengthened them. It was this that made such a film possible. It is also what makes it as relevant today as it was then.

Jesus said: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. He didn't say: I am a Way, a Truth, a Life. Without Him, we are left defenceless against the World and all its destructive, cacophonous, unloving ways.

All western civilization (once known as Christendom)--its beauty, its art, its orderliness, its law, its central building block-the family, and its cornerstone, Our Lord Jesus Christ-- is based on this profound reality. None more so than the United States of America, as epitomised by the Statue of Liberty. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free; the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

On this ideal, a superpower was built, however damaged and threatened it is nowadays by zealous forces -- both within and without -- whose goal it is to utterly destroy that Christian faith which still leavens that land and to prevent the knowledge and experience of Christ from reaching the ears and hearts of His beloved creatures.

Paula Adamick is our London, England, columnist. Her column appears five times a year.