The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

"I don't care if it doesn't make a nickel," Samuel Goldwyn reportedly declared in a famous Goldwynism regarding this classic film, "I just want every man, woman, and child in America to see it." The colorful producer got the idea for The Best Years of Our Lives after reading a Life magazine article about returning World War II veterans and their difficulties in adjusting to civilian life. He hired MacKinlay Kantor to write the script, but the author wrote a blank-verse novella that was then converted by Robert E. Sherwood into one of the greatest screenplays of all time.

The film focuses on three servicemen as they return to their home town of Boone City: Al Stephenson (Fredric March), Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), and Homer Parrish (Harold Russell), all plagued by the awful memories of war and doubts about their future in a country they find difficult to remember. After sharing space on board the bomber that flies them home, the three servicemen take a cab to their separate addresses. Sailor Russell is dropped off at a bungalow where his startled parents greet him, apprehensive at the sight of his empty sleeves and the hooks that have replaced his hands. (Russell, a former paratrooper and the only non-professional actor in the cast, actually lost his hands during the war.) At a family gathering, he embarrassingly spills a cold drink and flees to the confines of the saloon run by his Uncle Butch (Hoagy Carmichael).

Meanwhile, March, a middle-aged sergeant (who'd been a banker before going off to war), enters his expensive apartment, startling his children, whom he motions to keep quiet. In the kitchen, his wife, Milly (Myrna Loy), suddenly stops her work, looks up intuitively, then steps into the long hall to see her husband standing at the end of it. The scene is electrifying as they silently, gratefully, move into each other's arms. That evening, however, March is unsteady talking to a family that has changed. His daughter, Peggy (Teresa Wright), has grown into a young lady; his son, Rob (Michael Hall), is a college student who insists they all go out on the town.

March, Loy, and Wright end up in Carmichael's lounge, where they meet Russell and Andrews, the latter a heavily decorated pilot who has come home to find his blonde, brassy wife, Marie (Virginia Mayo), gone. Andrews drinks heavily, then is taken home by Loy and Wright when he cannot get into his wife's apartment. Put to sleep in Wright's bedroom, he has nightmares of his bombing runs over Germany, but Wright quiets him. In the morning, half remembering the party, he apologizes and returns to his wife's apartment, but Wright is smitten with him.

Mayo's only delight in having Andrews home is his service pay and his dashing uniform, which she insists he wear everywhere. Andrews wants nothing more to do with the service, however; the war is over and he desperately wants to get a job and get on with his life. In many ways, he is the most tragic of the lot, since no doors are open to him, only the lowly soda-jerking and counter sales job he had in a large drugstore before the war. He takes it to survive.

March, on the other hand, goes back to his bank and begins making loans to servicemen without collateral. Mr. Milton (Ray Collins), the bank president, subtly calls him on the carpet and, at a banquet that night, March gets drunk. Before the stuffy bankers he rises and relates a wartime parable about how he was asked by a superior officer to order his men to take a hill. But the officer had no collateral, March points out. "No collateral_no hill. So we didn't take the hill and we lost the war," he says, drawing the battle lines, making clear that he will continue to make loans to servicemen on faith.

Russell's crisis is dealing with Wilma (Cathy O'Donnell), the girl next door he was to marry before the war. Although he has avoided her, she comes to him one evening pleading that they wed. He attempts to shock her into rejecting him, taking her to his bedroom, where he asks that she perform the duties assumed by his father every night before he goes to sleep. He has her remove his robe, then the halter to which the mechanical hooks are attached. "Now I'm completely helpless," he tells her, explaining that he cannot even open the bedroom door in case of an emergency. O'Donnell smiles, covers him, and kisses him goodnight. He lies there alone after she leaves, staring at the ceiling, tears streaming from his eyes.

Andrews's marriage quickly goes downhill when he loses his job after punching a radical for starting a brawl with Russell. Mayo begins running around with Cliff (Steve Cochran), and Wright begins seeing Andrews, which upsets her father. Certain the former bomber pilot is the wrong man for his daughter, March breaks up the relationship, and Andrews decides to leave town. He packs his bags in the broken-down apartment occupied by his boozy, aged father (Roman Bohnen) and his stepmother (Gladys George), then heads for points unknown. After he leaves, his father, in a bittersweet scene, reads the military citations he has left behind, swelling with pride over the heroic exploits of his son. Andrews books a flight out of Boone City then wanders through a massive graveyard of World War II bombers and fighter planes, crawling into one of the relics and going to the bombardier's position. The camera closes in on him, moves to the front of the bomber as the score simulates the roar of engines, then dollies forward so that the motorless plane appears to be taking off. As Andrews sits transfixed inside the plane, reliving the horrors of war, his head slowly lowering over the bombsight, the camera creeps up on him from behind. Finally, the spell is broken by the voice of a construction foreman who orders him from the plane.

Realizing that the planes are being converted into prefabricated housing, Andrews asks for and gets a job. He stays in Boone City and attends Russell's marriage to O'Donnell, where he again meets March, Loy, and Wright. After the ceremonies, Andrews goes to Wright and kisses her, and it is implicit that they will be together. "You know what it'll be, don't you, Peggy," he tells her. "It may take us years to get anywhere. We'll have no money, no decent place to live. We'll have to work -- get kicked around."

There was much apprehension in the making of this film. According to Loy, everyone told producer Goldwyn that it was too serious and would flop. Loy herself was apprehensive of director Wyler, who had a reputation for demanding that stars undergo endless takes, but she gave him one of her finest efforts. So warm, poignant, and realistic that it touched upon the lives of all Americans in that more innocent and optimistic era, The Best Years of Our Lives reflects the best Hollywood could do. Goldwyn was right. Every man, woman, and child should see this film, from one generation to the next. Ironically, this film was regarded as un-American by anti-communist conservatives, and Wyler once remarked that it could not have been made two years later after the onset of the Cold War.

The Best Years of Our Lives won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1946, and Wyler was honored as Best Director. Sherwood's compelling script, Hugo Friedhofer's excellent score, and the superb editing by Daniel Mandell all were honored with Oscars, as were March and Russell for their performances. Russell was presented with an additional honorary Award for his performance.

Production Credits

Producer: Samuel Goldwyn

Director: William Wyler

Screenwriter: Robert E. Sherwood, based on the blank-verse novella Glory for Me by MacKinlay Kantor

Cinematographer: Gregg Toland

Cast

Myrna Loy: Milly Stephenson

Fredric March: Al Stephenson

Dana Andrews: Fred Derry

Teresa Wright: Peggy Stephenson

Virginia Mayo: Marie Derry

Cathy O'Donnell: Wilma Cameron

Hoagy Carmichael: Butch Engle

Harold Russell: Homer Parrish

Gladys George: Hortense Derry

Roman Bohnen: Pat Derry

Ray Collins: Mr. Milton

Steve Cochran: Cliff Minna

Gombell: Mrs. Parrish

Walter Baldwin: Mr. Parrish

Dorothy Adams: Mrs. Cameron

Don Beddoe: Mr. Cameron

Erskine Sanford: Bullard

Marlene Aames: Luella Parrish

Michael Hall: Rob Stephenson