Best Years of Our Lives -1946
Cats: Set Your Recorders, Drama|| May 26, 2008 | ||
| 5:00 pm | to | 7:00 pm |
This is one of the greatest movies ever made. There are very few people who will argue this point. This is one film that, even though I (and other members of the predominantly male staff at Movie Place) would get misty at several scenes throughout the picture, we would have on in the store on a regular basis. It is that good.
The film was produced by Sam Goldwyn. Goldywn only did a couple of pictures a year while the other studios did a great deal more. The productions at Goldwyn were just a little better produced than the other studios as more attention was paid to them. I am not in any way saying that Goldwyn pictures are always better than everyone else’s, all I am saying is you can see the care put into each movie.
The story goes that his wife saw a story in a magazine about soldiers returning home after World War Two and re-adjusting to civilian life. Typical American men who had been thrown into a most untypical situation now have to put the last few years behind them and move on. They can’t, they and their families have been changed forever during the time apart. She thought it would be a basis for a good movie. Mrs. Goldwyn was right.
A soda jerk, a banker and a high school football star. Three very different people who served in very different places during the war. The soda jerk (Dana Andrews) ends up as a Captain in the U.S. Army Airforce as a bombadier, the banker (Fredric March) ends up as an army Sargent in Europe and the high school football hero (Harold Russell) is in the Navy in the Pacific. These three men are put together on a stripped down B-17 that will make several stops as it flies them to their hometown. During this long flight the three become close, having survived is probably a very strong common bond. The horror of war did not end on the battlefield for these veterans, in particular the high school football star who lost his hands.
All the reuniting with the family scenes are powerful. Our Captain soda jerk comes home to his father and stepmother to find his wife moved out. The football hero has to face his family and his fiance without his hands, a constant reminder for him and for his parents of what he went through. The most emotional reuniting is almost wordless. The front doorbell rings in the home of our Banker and when his wife (Myrna Loy) gets no answer to her “who is at the door?” question, she realizes who it is. The wordless walk towards each other down a hallway and the embrace reminds us how powerful this medium is. It’s beautiful simplicity has rarely been duplicated, Chaplin at the end of City Lights beautiful. This is, by the way one of the points that would always get us.
I am not going to go into all the plots that comprise this picture. there are too many and they are all beautifully laid out for us by screenwriter Robert E. Sherwood and director William Wyler, both of whom won Oscars for their work on this picture. There are too many wonderful moments over it’s 172 minute running time. But most of these moments are things never repeated anywhere else in movie history as well done as they are here. The simplicity of Harold Russell’s acceptance of his finance’s ability to deal with his hooks is another one of those moments that got us. This non actor conveyed such a relief that even though his emotional release is small, it is incredibly believable.
I must stop rambling because a) I am getting misty just thinking about this movie and b) this picture never rambles. As the stories of these three men become intertwined the story moves along more intensly as new love is found, what was thought of as love ends and then ultimately a wedding. This was yet another moment that we would need to take.
RKO released Till The End Of Time earlier in 1946. The story also concerns three service men readjusting to civilian life after the war. This picture stars Dorothy McGuire, Guy Madison and Robert Mitchum so most of you know that I am partial. This movie is what I would call the angry version of Best Years of Our Lives. No one is home for our hero (Guy Madison) at his homecoming. His parents do not want to hear what he has seen and done but we know it was horrific. Parents sent their children / boys away who came back men; men who have killed and lost a huge part of themselves. No one wants to hear their stories, stories of loss and fear. Their joyful homecoming is a lonely one for our service men. In fact, no one calls it a “war” for the first half of the film, they call it “the thing”. One character says “oh, you’re back from the (searches for the word) thing”. Although this film deals with many aspects of readjusting and what it must have been like very realistically, it lacks (I cannot believe I am saying this) the heart that Best Years of Our Lives has.
Both films probably gave service men who where readjusting some hope that they were not alone, that there were people who knew that this was a tough transition. But Best Years of Our Lives does it simply and beautifully. That is why it won Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor Oscars as well as the two previously mentioned. It is also why you will need the box of tissues handy the first or the hundreth viewing.
Monday May 26th at 5:00PM on Turner Classic Movies.
