The Best Years of Our Lives

The Best Years of Our Lives (aka Glory for Me and Home Again) is a 1946 American drama film directed by William Wyler, and starring Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, and Harold Russell. The film is about three United States servicemen re-adjusting to civilian life after coming home from World War II.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The film presents an accurate representation of much people's --even soldier's -- lives have changed in the aftermath of World War II. The film shows the war for what it really was instead of romanticizing it like most films and books do. Plus the film was literally released during the actual aftermath, adding even more impact to the actors.
 * 2) *The film's based on a free verse story by MacKinlay Kantor titled Glory for Me in which three soldiers of different backgrounds meet when coming home to Boone City. (Fred Derry was a former soda jerk and newlywed when he left for the war; Alton Stephenson, an assistant vice president at a bank, was coming back to a wife and two children; and Homer Wermels (renamed Homer Parrish in the film), once engaged to his sweetheart, was now a hopeless spastic.
 * 3) Grade-A acting all around; especially from the three central actors. Russell and March both got Academy Awards for their performances.
 * 4) Harold Russell gets a special mention since he actually lost his hands during war training, and his character, Homer Parrish was purposely written to have the same disability. Not only does this make his performance even more believable, he wasn't even a professional actor and that was his debut, yet he still manages to pull off a decent performance.
 * 5) Fredric March played Al Stephenson who was the oldest of the three war veterans and a banker with a very loving family and two kids who grew up while he was gone during the war.
 * 6) Relatable and complex characters throughout the whole cast. The three veterans are especially sympathetic and tragic, in multiple different ways as previously mentioned above.
 * 7) The changes for the film work out very well and don't detract from the film's message or story.
 * 8) * For the film adaptation, Fred Derry's story was altered and a part for Peggy (Stephenson's daughter) was fleshed out and the two of them have excellent chemistry with each other.
 * 9) * Homer's role in the story was rewritten to fit his actor Harold Russell, who as previously mentioned, lost his hands in an accidental explosion.
 * 10) Numerous powerful, and symbolic scenes such as Fred walking in a graveyard of broken airplanes from the war or Homer's lack of self-confidence after feeling like his family would be unable to deal was his hook-hands.
 * 11) The film's realistic setting and tone immediately transports the audience back to right after the World War, and gets us to actually feel the characters' pain.
 * 12) Gregg Toland would have the film use deep-focus instead of diffused backgrounds or glamourous close-ups. The cinematography is memorable for emotionally evocative long dolly shots, and not having to cut back between individual cuts of the characters.
 * 13) Hugo Friedhofer's score also sets in the film's overwhelmenly bitter mood.

The Only Bad Quality

 * 1) Al's son, Rob Stephenson ends up disappearing midway without an explanation.

Trivia

 * The film started with producer Samuel Goldwyn’s wife Frances reading a 1944 magazine article called “The Way Home,” which laid out the difficulties faced by some soldiers returning from World War II. Frances suggested that the men’s story would be a good basis for a film.
 * According to author Mark Harris, when director William Wyler returned from the service, he was nearly deaf, so cameraman Gregg Toland rigged a special system for Wyler to hear the actors.
 * Samuel Goldwyn contacted MacKinlay Kantor to write a treatment of the soldier’s story. Kantor turned in more than 100 pages – written as a poem – and was given the go-ahead to continue writing. He turned it into a 400-page novel titled “Glory for Me” – which was published in 1945 and became the basis for the film.
 * When screenwriter Robert E. Sherwood was adapting “Glory for Me” into a screenplay, he made significant changes including changing the title to The Best Years of Our Lives.
 * Homer Parrish's part was not played by a professional actor. Harold Russell was a soldier who had lost both hands in a military training mishap in 1944. Wyler saw Russell in a short Army instructional video demonstrating the ease of using the metal prosthetics that replaced his hands – and Wyler was convinced that Russell could play the role.
 * The film was a hit with audiences and critics alike. The Best Years of Our Lives was a mainstream success across America, and Bosley Crowther’s review for The New York Times seemed to encapsulate a critical consensus: “It is seldom that there comes a motion picture which can be wholly and enthusiastically endorsed not only as superlative entertainment but as food for thought. Yet such a one is The Best Years of Our Lives.”
 * Harold Russell won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his feature film debut – one of only a few roles he ever played. His was one of the seven competitive Oscars – including Best Picture – that the film won at the 1947 Academy Award ceremony.
 * A special Academy Award was also given to Harold Russell “for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance” in the film? This was the second Oscar of the evening that Russell received, becoming the only person to ever receive two Oscars for the same role.