The Best Years of Our Lives ***** (1946, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, Cathy O’Donnell, Hoagy Carmichael, Harold Russell, Gladys George) – Classic Movie Review 2437

Director William Wyler’s 1946 triumph The Best Years of Our Lives won seven Oscars including Best Picture. It also won the 1947 Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture and the 1948 BAFTA Film Award for Best Film from any Source. Fredric March, Dana Andrews and Harold Russell star as three soldiers, a sergeant, a captain and a sailor, who find it difficult to resume their small-town lives after the war.

Robert E Sherwood’s literate, incisive screenplay, taken from MacKinlay Kantor’s novel Glory for Me, cuts to the chase. It affectingly conjures up the characters, feelings and situations of that special moment of America’s readjustment after World War Two in 1946, so that, like Brief Encounter, the film is disconcertingly both dated and sharp.

March won a Best Actor Oscar as Al Stephenson, the sergeant who has to adapt to home life with his wife Milly (Myrna Loy) and daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright) as he returns to an influential banking job, but finds it hard to reconcile his loyalties to ex-servicemen with his new commercial realities.

Andrews plays officer Fred Derry who finds that his wife Marie (Virginia Mayo), whom he has married in haste during the war, hasn’t been faithful, so it is difficult for him pick up the threads of his marriage or to hold down a job.

There was also a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for World War Two veteran Harold Russell who lost his hands in the war, and plays Homer Parrish who has had both his hands burnt off during the war and is now uncertain if his fiancée’s feelings are those of love or of pity. Russell was not a professional actor.

Russell also won an Honorary Award ‘For bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance in The Best Years of Our Lives.’, making him the only actor to receive two Academy Awards for the same performance. It is his only film till Inside Moves in 1980 and Dogtown in 1997. In 1992, Russell sold his Best Supporting Actor statuette at auction for $60,500 to pay his wife’s medical bills. He died on January 29 2002, aged 88.

The seven Oscars included Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), Best Actor (Fredric March), Best Supporting Actor (Harold Russell), Best Film Editing (Daniel Mandell), Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert E Sherwood), and Best Original Score (Hugo Friedhofer).

It also stars Cathy O’Donnell as Wilma Cameron, Hoagy Carmichael as Homer’s uncle Butch Engle, Gladys George as Hortense Derry, Steve Cochran as Cliff and Ray Collins as Mr Milton.

Also in the cast are Minna Gombell as Mrs. Parrish, Roman Bohnen as Pat Derry, Walter Baldwin as Mr. Parrish, Dorothy Adams as Mrs. Cameron, Don Beddoe as Mr. Cameron, Marlene Aames as Luella Parrish, Charles Halton as Prew, Ray Teal as Mr. Mollett, Howland Chamberlain as Thorpe, Dean White as Novak, Erskine Sanford as Bullard, Michael Hall as Rob Stephenson and Pat Flaherty.

The Best Years of Our Lives runs 172 minutes, is made by Samuel Goldwyn Productions, is released by RKO Radio Pictures, is written by Robert E Sherwood, based on the 1945 novella Glory for Me by MacKinlay Kantor, is shot in black and white by Gregg Toland, is produced by Samuel Goldwyn, is scored by Hugo Friedhofer and edited by Daniel Mandell.

With all the Oscars and huge box office ($44 million), and profit (it cost $2,100,000), The Best Years of Our Lives overshadowed RKO’s similar release Till the End of Time (1946). Even so, RKO recorded a loss of $660,000 on The Best Years of Our Lives.

It was the highest-grossing film in the US and the UK since Gone with the Wind, and is the sixth most attended film of all time in the UK, with more than 20 million tickets sold.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2437

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