Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 12-September-10
Spoiler Rating: Medium

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Stories about soldiers returning home after a war have been popular since the days of Homer, and with good reason. Even if one doesn't get off on the overblown patriotism that accompanies such events, the thought of lives resumed, loves rekindled, and bodies and souls altered by cataclysm is apt to stir some emotion. In fact, coming home after any absence often suffices to tug the heartstrings. So I am not embarrassed to admit that I require a dozen tissues to watch The Best Years of Our Lives, one of Hollywood's finest tellings of the tale. Some of its impact derives from imagining the rivers of tears that must have flowed when it was released, from the eyes of women whose men had survived D-Day and Midway and of the men themselves, who still couldn't believe what they had undergone.

The movie centers on three veterans who become friends while hitching a ride back to the States. Each has something different waiting for him. Fred (Dana Andrews) grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and now faces an unknown future with an unknown wife whom he married in a flush of boot camp enthusiasm. Al (Fredric March*) is an established banker with a posh apartment and a family. Homer (Harold Russell) is a former high school hero and all-around nice guy who lost both hands in a naval battle and doubts whether he can truly go home again. In this respect — the doubt — all three find common ground.

The brilliant homecoming scenes are introduced by a montage of sights to evoke nostalgia: kids at a bus stop, a used car lot, a hot dog joint where the teenagers go. The men soak these up and then turn tremulously to their personal prospects. Homer is welcomed affectionately by Ma and Pa but cannot bear to put his arms around his lifelong sweetheart, the girl next door (Cathy O'Donnell). Al shares a warm embrace with his beloved (an unforgettable moment graced by moviedom's ultimate wife, Myrna Loy) but sidesteps her amorous advances by insisting on going out and getting drunk. Poor Fred, meanwhile, can't find his better half, who has reportedly begun working at a nightclub. He consoles himself by joining in on Al's spree, which allows him to meet Al's lovely and sensitive daughter (Teresa Wright).

Describing what happens to these men as they reenter "normal" life might make The Best Years of Our Lives sound like melodrama, but it does not play that way. The unflinching screenplay by Robert Sherwood, patient direction by William Wyler, and lived-in performances by the cast make it feel entirely real. Even repeated scenes of Homer working the hooks where his hands used to be seem like cogent arguments against writing off the wounded as worthless. (The actor really did lose his hands in the war and won a special Oscar, one of many racked up by this film, "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans.") This is a timeless movie from a specific time when audiences were smarting from an unprecedented war and eager to see their struggles mirrored on the big screen.

*March is billed as "Frederic" in this film.

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