Hollywood Masterpiece: THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES [by Michael Lally]

(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 great american film. One of the few times the oscars got it right. amazing that loy wasn't nominated for an oscar or andrews both who to me gave the best supporting performances of the year. Yes Harold Russell was fine, his special oscar was enough. The score is great also as is toland's amazing cinematography. Many memorable scenes March's home coming and that hallway, the three of them in the plane, andrews sad homecoming, his shock in the abandoned plane.

 

Michael Lally well put ira...totally agree...the score is fantastic as well as the cinematography...the movie almost seems to me to be the gateway, or hinge, to so much of what followed as opposed to what preceded it...

 

Joel Lewis I, too, love this movie —from what I read of it, had an enormous impact on audiences of that era — that sequence where a guy at the pharmacy tells the vets they were “suckers “ for fighting in the war (which enrages Harold Russell) seems prescient in relation to current alt-right.

  

Michael Lally totally

 

Avo Kubar well said

 

Nathan Kernan The great William Wyler.

 

Michael Lally amen

Terence Winch "I've decided it's my favorite movie of all"---wow. That's quite a statement. Doug Lang, Susan Campbell, and I each did a list of our top 10 favorite movies at lunch a few weeks ago. "Best Years" didn't appear anywhere, but now your mini-essay on it convinces me to watch it again. I say again, but I'm not sure I've seen it, or if I have, it was long ago & now forgotten. (BTW: they stole that title from a song of mine, as you may recall.)

 

Michael Lally ha

 

David Lehman One of my favorites, The tears always fall when, at the wedding, Dana Andrews sidles over to Teresa Wright,

 

Michael Lally that scene is so well directed and shot

Jed Rasula Yes, terrific film. Curiously, the source text by MacKinlay Kantor is a verse novel, not prose.

 

Michael Lally wow, had no idea

 

Jed Rasula Kantor's was one of the very last examples of a phenomenon beginning in the 20s, with Pulitzers for poetry going to a couple by E.A. Robinson, MacLeish's Conquistador, and Benet's John Brown's Body. I know of about a hundred verse novels from those decades.

 

Ira Joel Haber andrews was to me a very underrated actor, he had major alcohol problems and there is reason also to consider that many say he was closeted. The bio that I read not too long ago,(not very good) by the way alludes to his disappearing for days with sailors to drink, he was married which doesn't mean anything, and he was very unhappy.

  

Michael Lally yeah, i read some of those things too, and agree he was underrated, his edginess and intensity balanced his movie star looks

 

Ira Joel Haber he was also hung according to hung sources.

Ira Joel Haber

 

Mark Jickling I caught the ending on TCM the other day...they don't film kisses like that anymore

 

Robert Mattaliano The year of the release some of the cast, including Teresa Wright and Harold Russell, visited students at my parents' high school, Trenton Central. Was a big deal. For many years afterwards, the theme of the school yearbook was "The Best Years of Our Lives." Cornball, maybe, but also very sweet.

 

Michael Lally very sweet indeed

 

Stephanie Mansfield Just saw it again for millionth time and it's my all time favorite movie

 

Michael Lally ditto

 

Bob Freitas Watching this film as a youngster was my first recollection of a person (Homer) with a disability acting like he didn't have one. Normally, post WW2 films do not depict adjustment to normal life with such hardship. Yet, they will always remain America's greatest generation...

 

Michael Lally plus PTSD (though that term wasn't used yet) in the nightmares of dana andrews' character///so much in the film is predictive of much that we now deal with more openly, including corporations taking over small businesses a la the drugstore...

 

Ira Joel Haber we are living through the worst years of our lives.

 

Jane DeLynn I love it too.

 

Manny Perez Hollywood Studio film at it's Golden finest.

 

Bob Schulenberg And didn’t it win an unprecedented amount of awards?

 

Michael Lally I believe so

Ira Joel Haber oscars for picture, director, actor, supporting actor , screenplay, film editing, music, and a special oscar for harold russell.

Comments

[The Best American Poetry]

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