The Best Years of Our Lives

Media:	DVD
Directed by:	William Wyler
Starring:	Fredric March, Dana Andrews
Release date:	18 December, 2001
List price:	~~$14.95~~
Our price:	$11.54 that is 23% off!

The Best Years of Our Lives

Average rating: Stars

My new favorite old film

This is an absolutely tremendous motion picture about guys returning from WWII, focusing on the scars they carry both inside and out. Fredric March earned a Best Actor Oscar in the role of a banker who served as a sergeant in the infantry and has a drinking problem; his boss and his family are incredibly supportive, yet he just can't stop fighting the war in some ways. True war casualty Harold Russell, who lost his hands in a training accident, was not a professional actor, yet he creditably portrayed a sailor who can deal with having hooks but can't deal with the way other people treat him as a man with no fingers; he was, after all, essentially portraying himself. (Mr. Russell is now one of my heroes; he went on after his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this film to form the AMVETS organization.)

Dana Andrews portrays the other returning soldier and, while he was the odd man out at award time, his part as the captain flyboy from a poor background is equally well drawn and played. Turning his whirlwind wartime wedding into a happy marriage to a beautiful blonde (Virgnia Mayo) is just one of the challenges he must face; the others include returning to his humble drugstore job after the glamour of piloting, and the fierce temptation of the attraction he feels to the banker's daughter (Teresa Wright).

Seldom does a film from this era (1946) have this kind of depth of characterization and fully fleshed-out situations. This is no pretty-boy movie star vehicle; this is as close to "Band Of Brothers" type reality as the studios could get in those days of the Hays code. Add in the terrific camera work by the man who photographed "Citizen Kane" and you've got a tremendous film with an awesome cast. If you haven't seen it, you've missed out on a very special piece of Hollywood history and American history all at the same time.

The Best Years of Our Lives - Fredric March, Dana Andrews

Still the greatest movie about The Greatest Generation.

Much has been made recently about "The Greatest Generation," the generation that came of age during the deprivation of the Great Depression and the horrors of World War II. (Having parents who were both born in 1920, and who both served their country during WWII, I believe the title of "The Greatest Generation" is utterly appropriate.) It may have been "Saving Private Ryan" that brought that generation's struggles to the forefront of their children's and grandchildren's minds; but, for my money, the best film about those who fought WWII came out only one year after the war's end. "The Best Years of Our Lives"--directed by William Wyler, that sanest and most humane of directors--is the deeply moving story of an infantry sergeant, an Air Force pilot and a sailor returning to their Midwestern home town from the war, and how the war changed them for better and for worse. Al (Fredric March), the sergeant, is a well-to-do bank executive who finds that his Army experience has greatly changed his perception of the people who come to his bank for a loan. Fred (Dana Andrews) finds life at home stultifying after service in a combat squadron, stuck in his old dead-end job as a soda jerk with a wife who has grown away from him. Most poignant of all is Homer, a young sailor who lost his hands in combat. Homer is played by Harold Russell, a real-life double amputee, who gives Homer's feelings of loss and displacement a you-are-there immediacy that is truly heartrending. Giving performances of equal excellence to the three male leads are Myrna Loy and Teresa Wright as March's wife and daughter; Virginia Mayo as Andrews' faithless wife; and Cathy O'Donnell as the girl Russell left behind. (The look on Loy's face when she first sees her husband home safely makes for one of the most moving scenes in all American cinema.) Literate and character-driven, "The Best Years of Our Lives" never tries to dazzle us; it just brings home the reality of these characters and their predicaments with quietly devastating force. This film won seven Oscars and deserved every last one of them, including Best Picture, Best Director for Wyler, Best Actor for March and Best Supporting Actor for Russell. It is amazing that so measured and insightful a film about the plight of returning GIs could have been filmed so soon after the war; but "The Best Years of Our Lives" is an enduring and fitting monument to America's servicemen and servicewomen, the sacrifices they make for their country, and the debt their country owes them.

Fredric March, Dana Andrews - The Best Years of Our Lives

Everyone at their best

This is a truely memorable film. What makes it even better is that it was a WWII film but could be about the aftermath of soldiers returning home after any subsequent war.

William Wyler was a master at his craft. And he had the ability to get a great cast together. These are A actors past their stardom and B actors that never got a chance to show what they had. This film showcases them all.

Fredric March won his second Oscar as a vetran returning home. He adds depth and passion to his charachter.

Myrna Loy once again showed us why every actor wanted her to play his spouse. She creates her own character while adding dimensions to her husband.

Four years after her first Wyler film, Mrs. Miniver, Teresa Wright showed she was no flash in the pan. Her performace as the daughter, had a fine line to walk and she did it to perfection.

B actors Dana Andrews and Virginia Mayo play the marry in haste couple. Neither actor had a better chance to show they could handle more difficult roles.

Of course the find was newcomer, Harold Russell. This first time actor without any formal training played his role of the truest victim of war. The soldier who came back with the loss of his arms. He truely deserved his Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

In the end, you will be moved by this portrait of soldiers returning home after The Great War.