William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives was the big winner at the 19th annual Academy Awards, taking home seven of the eight Oscars for which it was nominated: Best Picture, Director (Wyler), Actor (Fredric March), Supporting Actor (Harold Russell), Screenplay (Robert E. Sherwood), Editing (Daniel Mandell), and Best Score (Hugo Friedhofer).
A film that shines a spotlight on the difficulties World War II veterans faced when returning home, The Best Years of Our Lives is a dramatic, deeply moving motion picture, not to mention one of the best Hollywood movies produced in the 1940s.
Three veterans return to their home town of Boone City (a fictional midwestern community). Air Force Bombardier Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) is anxious to reunite with his wife Marie (Virginia Mayo), who he met and married only a few weeks before shipping out. Army Sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March) worked as a banker before the war, and resides in a posh hotel suite with wife Milly (Myrna Loy), adult daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright), and teenage son Rob (Michael Hall). Naval Petty Officer Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) lost both of his hands during the war. Though he’s become an expert with his new prosthetic hooks, Homer worries that his fiancé Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell) will be turned off by his handicap.
Soon after his return. Fred accepts the only job he cn get, a counter clerk at the local pharmacy, much to the chagrin of Marie, whose habit of going out every night is more than Fred can afford. To complicate matters, Fred is falling in love with Al’s daughter Peggy, who also develops feelings for him. Al accepts a promotion at the bank, though he drinks heavily as a way of coping with his wartime experiences, while Homer withdraws emotionally, and loses his temper at the drop of a hat whenever someone treats him like a cripple.
Though the three do get together occasionally at a local bar owned by Homer’s uncle Butch (Hoagy Carmichael), each feels alone in this “new world”, and struggles to keep up with a society that seems to have left them behind.
The Best Years of Our Lives sets the dramatic bar very high in the opening 20 minutes, when the vets reunite with their loved ones. Each is hesitant to return home, with Al going so far as to say seeing his family again was as nerve racking as “going in to hit a beach”. All three actors do an amazing job in these early scenes, especially Harold Russell, who prior to this film had no acting experience (he was chosen for the role because he actually lost his hands during the war). The supporting cast is equally wonderful, especially Teresa Wright as the lovestruck Peggy and Virginia Mayo as the selfish Marie (when Fred first returns home, his father, played by Roman Bohnen, informs him that Marie moved out a year earlier, and took a job at a night club. An entire day passes before Fred can even track her down).
Where The Best Years of Our Lives really works its magic, however, is in its depiction of the hardships faced by veterans when they made their way home, and how difficult it was for them to leave their wartime experiences behind. Though a successful banker, Al is dissatisfied with his career, which just doesn’t seem important anymore. Despite the support of his loving wife (played superbly by Myrna Loy), Al deals with his disappointment by drinking… a lot! His first night back, he drags Milly and Peggy from one club to another, finally landing at Butch’s bar, where he reunites with Homer and Fred, both of whom also needed a drink to unwind.
Along with the actors, credit must go to director Wyler and screenwriter Robert E. Sherwood, who did their part to make each and every character in The Best Years of Our Lives feel 100% genuine.
In addition to its success at the Oscars, The Best Years of Our Lives won both the Golden Globe and BAFTA awards for Best Picture, with the National Board of Review choosing Wyler as the year’s Best Director. The film was also one of the first selected for preservation by the National Film Society, and in 2007 the AFI ranked it the 37th Greatest American film ever made.
Watch The Best Years of Our Lives and I’m sure you’ll agree it deserved every damn one of these honors!
Rating: 10 out of 10
