I've just posted a series of movies in this topic, "Movies In History", which has been in part inspired by the fact that we've just gone through the Memorial Day holiday and a few of the movie channels run war pictures during that holiday weekend. I caught more than usual as I've been fighting a cold, and its been rainy, so I didn't get out much.
This film is one that has occasionally been run on such weekends, and which would be very fitting to be run, but wasn't this time. This movie isn't a war picture, however. It's an "after the war picture".
The Best Years of Our Lives was released in 1946, which is stunning if we consider that World War Two ended in 1945 and the topic of the film was the sad adjustment to civilian life by veterans, and even the changed post war world. It's a brilliant picture and is no doubt the best of its type, which is all the more amazing given that the war had just ended and many of the observations in the film should not have been obvious when it was filmed.
The film surrounds the stories of three returning veterans and their families. One is a young returning bomber pilot, another is a middle aged banker who is just out of the infantry. The third, portrayed by an actual veteran, was a young sailor who had lost his lower arms in action. All of them experience difficulties adjusting to civilian life
The film touches on a series of really touchy topics, and does it very well. The pilot, Cpt. Derry (Dana Andrews), is shown to have a failing marriage, with that failure brought about by the fact that he hardly knew his war time bride at the time he married here. Banker Al Stephenson, a discharged infantry NCO, is shown to have come back a heavy drinker. And sailor Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) has a difficult time coming back to his fiance and family after his traumatic injury.
Some of the plot line is nearly shocking, even when currently viewed. That Fred Derry's marriage is in trouble is obvious, but that Al Stephenson's young daughter would determine to break the marriage up is a very much outside of the film norm. Divorce is treated in this film in a manner that's so unusual there's really no easy comparison and certainly no comfortable comparison to the treatment. The flow of booze is a bit of a surprise as well. All of this does in fact depict problems that were common to returning veterans.
In terms of material details, we'd expect this movie to be accurate as it was set in the time in which it was made. So that it does well is no surprise, but what may come as a surprise is how the details come through for 1946. War planes are already being destroyed for salvage in the film, which is worked into the plot but which is an amazing plot detail for something that was practically news at the time the movie was set. The small size of the houses (deliberately filmed undersized) would take a current audience by surprise, but is also accurate for the time.
What may be more interesting, in terms of our analysis, is the cultural details. Here too, the film does really well, only making a few minor errors. Unlike many films, the movie has it right when it has a banker as an enlisted man, but a former soda stand worker as an officer, as the status of officer and enlisted man was based much less on education than it is now. The ages are basically correct for the characters as well, except for that of Al Stephenson, portrayed by Fredric March, who 49 was really too old to be a combat NCO. His wife, played by Myrna Loy, was the best known actor in the film when it was made, is better cast as she would have been about age 41 when the movie was made.
This film is really a bit of an epic, and very well done. Portraying sensitive topics, then and now, it also does very well in material details and reflects well cultural details from its time. It shouldn't be omitted from a library of World War Two films, for those who might have one.
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