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Homer proposes that they might want to visit his Uncle Butch’s saloon for a drink before they get home. “You’re home now kid,” the older man Al says to Homer. Three army veterans have just come back to Boone City, a town in the Midwest and every one of them is reluctant toward his impending reunion in some unique fashion. Al’s dialogue closes out the tense opening scene of “The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946) by William Wyler. It is the story that has won eight Academy Awards, one honorary, and was, at that time, second to ‘Gone With The Wind’ in the US box office – now it is “Gone With The Wind” and “The Best Years of Our Lives”. It has been over 60 years and is still surprisingly modern: skilled, straightforward, truthful about matters that Hollywood would have casually skirted around. This was the reality check on the issue veterans had when they returned home after serving their country.
The central focus of the movie is the life stories of three men. In his 40s, Al Stephenson (Fredric March) served as an infantryman and is now returning home to his family, as well as the bank where he was employed. Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) worked as a crewmember in a bomber, while Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) was a Navy man who tragically lost both his hands and now has to make do with steel hooks for hands. “You gotta hand it to the Navy,” Fred tells Al while looking at Homer who is walking rather slowly from the taxi to his front door, “they sure trained that kid how to use those hooks.” Al retorts: “They could not train him how to embrace his girl, or caress her hair.”
That’s the reason Homer wished to stop off for the drink. He had a standing understanding with Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell) who was his girlfriend before he left for war, and now, he is worried about how she would feel towards his hook hands. The other men aren’t without their own fears. Fred, for example, who grew up in a shack bordering a railroad track, was working as a soda jerk when he enlisted. He had also married a hot married woman, Marie (Virginia Mayo) who has since stopped sending him letters.
Al and Milly(Myra Loy) married two decades ago and have a son named Rob(Michael Hall) and a daughter named Peggy(Teresa Wright). The two children seem different to him and when Al thinks about his son Rob after he goes to bed, he decides to reorder his life and order his wife and daughter to join him in a celebration. They greet him with warmth, but something does not seem right.
Butch also starts turning up to the bar. Homer sensed his parents’ fake kindness and grief towards him, so he did not want to stay at home. Fred did not find anyone at Marie’s apartment. The three middle-aged men get drunk together and Al’s wife seems to overlook them with parental understanding. It was that night when Fred and Peggy conversed for the first time over their mutual feelings of love.
This is a calm film, lacking the frantic energy of a docudrama. Robert Sherwood’s screenplay flows seamlessly between the three men’s struggles, which is rather lowkey. Marie is quite clear to Fred to be nothing more than a party girl who wouldn’t care to stir her life around on a $32.50 drugstore paycheck. Homer behaves coldly towards Wilma, but only so that he doesn’t have to accept her pity. Al is now in charge of issuing loans under the G.I. Bill at the bank and has gotten himself a promotion. It was unfortunate that Al had to be so severely tested. His character’s integrity was demanding more trust than the man’s collateral. Al begins to drink and turns into a half-heroic, half-sloshed figure as he reluctantly shares his true thoughts during a company dinner with his boss.
The film makes no attempt to portray these men as anything out of the ordinary or remarkable. Wyler does not inject excessive drama into their lives, characters, or prospects – which is why he is often regarded as less effective, yet more considerate. However, much of his cinematographic points had to be achieved visually which makes shooting with the famous Gregg Toland, a filmmaker famous for his use of deep-focus in “Citizen Cane” especially “Whiler” movies where deep-focus is preferred to be cutting, very intriguing. In many of Toland’s films, the meaning of a scene is captured without beating the audience over the head with close-up shots. Instead, the audience is encouraged to use their imagination to deduce the meaning of a scene. Take for example the Butch’s diner scene, where Homer shows off how Butch (Hoagy Carmichael) has taught him to play the piano with hooks instead of hands, while Al and Fred watch. Fred then walks towards a phone booth in the distant background to place an important call. The camera remains still, however, with the movement, Fred and the audience are brought to a decision.
One of the most memorable moments from the film is when Fred chooses to leave town to find a job, which leads him to the airport. In the airport, he waits for his military transport flight and stumbles upon a large graveyard filled with mothballed warplanes. This moment is incredibly tragic. Fred used to fly these planes but now, they, along with their pilots, have become unnecessary. The irony in this scene is deep.
Also, take into consideration the film’s last scene where Homer and Wilma get married and Fred, Peggy, and many others are guests at the wedding. At the beginning of the film, they were fighting with each other and claiming to be in love. In the end, Peggy promised her parents that she would do everything in her power to help Fred out of his miserable, mistaken marriage. As Al warned Fred away from his daughter, he was forced out of town because, even with his tawdry divorce filing, Marie is still his wife.
Wyler demonstrates the full marriage ceremony starting with Carmichael playing the wedding march, followed by the lovers swapping vows. Wyler combines two parallel lines of suspense in the marriage itself, and whether Homer’s hooks will be able to slip a ring on Wilma’s finger. In another, Fred and Peggy are on either side of the room, staring at each other as the vows are recited. Thanks to deep focus, Wyler shows both of them at the same time and his framing leads us to the back of the shot where Teresa Wright, looks most beautiful and exposed, not a single part of her body moves.
In “The Best Years of Our Lives” a story from America’s World War II era, a lack of dialogue or advanced cinematics is present. It only aims to succeed because of its storyline. One of the stronger parts of the movie is Harold Russell, an actor who served in the military and doesn’t have hands. He was attended to by a producer with the name of Samuel Goldwyn. At that time, it was thought that Samuel was using Russell for his “outdated tastes” when utilizing his character’s representation, but just take a look at the impactful scene where Homer invites Wilma up to his bedroom — not for romance, but so he could explain to her why setting the bed for a couple is not so simple. He hopes she will know by then why he doesn’t believe that they can get married.
But alas, Homer Russell didn’t have any acting skills training but was completely honest. He states: “This is when I know I’m helpless. My hands are down there on the bed. I can’t put them on again without calling somebody for help. If that door should blow shut, I can’t open it and get out of this room. I’m as dependent as a baby that doesn’t know how to get anything except to cry for it.” The head-splitting emotion of helplessness is something we already know Russell speaks of. O’Donnell’s response, however, is utterly speechless.
Russell was awarded an honorary Oscar, “for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his mere appearance.” Instead of Best Supporting Actor, the Academy board gave a special award because they believed him to have no chance at winning. They were mistaken. He won the Oscar, the one time he was an actor was given two Oscars for the same role. The film also won for best picture, actor (March), director, screenplay, editing, and score.
“The Best Years of Our Lives” will remain relevant as long as veteran soldiers are wounded in war. There’s a DVD available, but it’s not special in any way; it really needs a special edition, or even better, a Criterion release. I side with Noel Megahey at DVDTalk.com when he says, “Some other studios might regard a film that won eight Oscars as a major back-catalog release but not MGM.” In short, the DVD version of this film is pitiful. “The DVD presentation of the film is barely even adequate as a barebones release, with…not a single feature to support the film’s historical and cinematic importance,” as Megahey put it.
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