(Editors' note: When Michael Lally wrote about this film on facebook, he touched off a lively discussion among other fans. It's worth reproducing here. If you've never seen this movie, you have a wonderful experience to look forward to; if you haven't seen in it a long time, watch it again. It's terrific for all the reasons that Michael expresses so well. What do you think?)
THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES came out when I was four. I saw it at our local movie theater with my older sisters, who were forced to drag me along with them on Sunday afternoons after we had "the big dinner" and my father took his weekly nap and us three youngest were sent to the flickers.
I have seen it many many times since, and though I don't make many lists since the brain operation ended that lifelong compulsion, this movie was always one of my top ten and in recent years' viewings I've decided it's my favorite movie of all.
Watching it each year, on its annual screening on TCM around Veterans Day, despite some dated bits in some scenes, this story of three World War Two veterans returning home after the war has only grown more relevant and prescient and fulfilling.
The female leads especially impress. Myrna Loy's performance should be the template for anyone ever wanting to act in a movie. She can play poignancy, romance, wisdom, comedy, and more with only the turn of a shoulder, or pause in a step, or slight upturn of an eye. For me Loy is the quintessence of screen acting skill.
And Teresa Wright, from my home town but graduated and gone before I was born, is always a delight to watch on screen, her emotional range vast as well. Virginia Mayo, playing the bad girl, as she often did, gives maybe her best performance, too. And the male leads keep up with them and anchor the story with their postwar inner demons.
I could go on, but suffice it to say THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES is a classic Hollywood masterpiece that still lives up to its original worthiness.
Comments from facebook:

Ira Joel Haber oscars for picture, director, actor, supporting actor , screenplay, film editing, music, and a special oscar for harold russell.
It was a pleasure to participate in this stimulating conversation, and I am hoping that people will want to extend it here.
The film was March's greatest performance -- the two vastly different drunk scenes, for example: the merry one with Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, and Teresa Wright on the the guys' first night back, and the night the erstwhile sergeant has had one too many but manages nevertheless to hit just the right tone when giving a speech before his banker boss (the great Ray Collins, who shone, too, as Kane's gubernatorial opponent in Welles's film ans as Lieutenant Tragg on TV).
I have seen the movie many times since 1996 when by accident I turned on the TV and there it was without commercial interruption. I realized that evening that I have always identified myself on some level with the Dana Andrews character, "one of the fallen angels of the air force," and "The Best Years of Our Lives" triggered my poem of the day, "March 30," in "The Daily Mirror." -- DL
Posted by: The Best American Poetry | November 20, 2017 at 04:01 PM