“The Best Years of our Lives”

 

The Best Years of Our Lives is one of those very important films. One of those films that was perfect for the audience of its time and perfect for us 70 years later. This film really encapsulates the post WWII experience in America. Yet, it also transcends the era it was representing and has the correct ingredients to still teach us about loss, life, compassion, war, and love in the world that we exist in today. This film is refreshing and smart, complicated but simple. It is just one of those films.

The Film

In The Best Years Of Our Lives we follow three very different veterans coming home to a quintessential American city (Boone Town), after the conclusion of World War II. We have men from various branches of the military, various ranks, various war records or injuries, different socio-economic backgrounds, and various relationship situations. This is not an “every man story”, but it is a large smattering of a lot of different experiences that a solider could have come from, and could be returning too.  The film starts off with these three ex-servicemen attempting to return to Boonetown and the trip they take in a military B-17 plane to get there. On this B-17 ride, they all bond and become fast friends.

First, we have Al Stephenson, played wonderfully by Fredric March who won as Oscar for this role, as the older and more established returning Sergeant. Al is coming home to his amazing wife of 20 years Milly and his two Children. Al’s oldest daughter Peggy works as a nurse and helped a great deal in the war effort on the home-front. Al also has a young son who just started college. Al worked as banker before the war and his family is rather well off. He doesn’t want to be “taken care of”, but he is obviously still shaken by the war and has not “returned to normalcy” in the way his fellow Bankers would appreciate. He deals with his problems with drinking and the stead rock nature of his amazing wife and daughter.

Secondly, we have the heavily decorated and very good looking Captain Fred. Fred is a younger guy who came from meager circumstances, but excelled as a bomber pilot. Fred, portrayed by Dana Andrews, met a young beautiful gal at basic training and was married only a short while before he shipped out. Fred became heavily decorated in the war and received many prestigious medals and rose through the ranks… but those experiences have not transferred to a successful home front job opportunity. His wife and her superficial lifestyle are unenthusiastic about his small salary and his disdain for glorifying his service for perks. Once he meets Al’s daughter Peggy, things are further complicated.

Thirdly, we have the sweet and well natured young Homer Parrish, played by Harold Russel. Homer has lost both his hands in a Navy ship explosion. After his hands were taken off because they were so badly burned, he was given hooks for hands. Homer was given extensive training on how to use them and how to be a self-sufficient person with his new “hands”. For the very hard and trying new situation Homer is in, he is quite the good sport about it. It is the reaction from his family, neighbors, and strangers that bring him into a depression. He just wants to be treated like everyone else, but he also doesn’t want to make his fiancé’, literally the girl next door, marry someone she would have to be a caretaker for.

We get to see these servicemen grapple with the new roles they are forced into, wither they want to or not. All of these gentlemen are far different then the men they were when they left Boonetown. The men have to find a new path and identity post-war, without forgetting the war. The ladies, families, and other support systems these various men have are invaluable to them. Without them they would not understand the current world they live in and would not now how to deal with this new America.

The Women

All the ladies portrayed in this film show are such interesting and strong steadfast individuals that help, but also hold accountable, the men who are returning to them. We have Al’s wife and mother of his children of twenty years, Milly portrayed by Myra Loy. Milly’s daughter Peggy who is a great support to her father and to her father’s new friend Fred, played by Teresa Wright. Fred’s wife is a blonde bombshell who is unimpressed with this new version of her handsome husband, her name is Marie and she is played by Virginia Mayo. And the sweet, supportive, and patient girl next door who is Homer’s fiancée Wilma, is presented by Cathy O’Donnell. All of these women should be applauded for their performances and the tricky situations they were all put into by the war and the men that are returned to them. I will be highlighting my favorite relationship portrayed simply for brevity’s sake.

Al and Milly a love for the ages

Al and Milly are the true heart and soul of this film. They showcase a very real and complicated marriage and relationship. Their marriage that is not perfect, but it is one that is obviously entrenched in love and commitment by two real and flawed people.

Milly is sweet, funny, and madly in love with her husband and is thrilled to have him back state side. Al is less than overjoyed about returning to the bank after his time in the war. He does not like the treatment the bank gives to its customers, where they look at people like numbers and not the complex individuals they are. Yet, they offer him a promotion and the chance to help veterans with loans so he feels he must do his part. Milly is also acutely aware that her husband is drinking too much, primarily to help him cope with civilian life. She tries to help and limit his drinking, but at the same time knows she cannot control him. The ebb and flow of this long relationship in how they communicate and joke around with each other is so enduring and powerful. They are candid with their daughter about the un-perfect reality of their relationship and the numerous hardships they have gotten through together, yet you can tell the adversity they have overcome has cemented and grown their love.

This relationship is one of the most sincere and seemingly realistic portrayals of marriage and love I have ever seen in film. I think the love they have influences every other relationship in the film. I finished the film wanting a relationship with that kind of staying power and warmth, even though it is obviously not perfect. How refreshing to see something that is not simple, but is still inspiring in a marriage when we are now bombarded with fairy tale endings and beyond dysfunctional  reality show ideals of life with another person.

The Reception in 1946   

 

                The Best Years Of Our Lives had enormous praise from all its critics at the time of its release and it made people actually come to the movie theater! The box office numbers it created were very impressive for the time and have continued to hold clout has time has continued. Check out these STATS:

The Best Years of Our Lives was a massive commercial success, earning an estimated $11.5 million at the North American box office during its initial theatrical run.When box office prices are adjusted for inflation, it remains one of the top 100 grossing films in U.S. history.

Among films released before 1950, only Gone With the Wind, The Bells of St. Mary’s, and four Disney titles have done more total business, in part due to later re-releases. (Reliable box office figures for certain early films such as Birth of a Nation and Charlie Chaplin‘s comedies are unavailable.)^[21]

Especially in the film reality that we are currently in, where most large box office draws are super hero films and sequels how refreshing and surprising that a  dialogue driven film that talked about real people facing real problems in a confusing post-war WWII America made people want to go to the movies and think and feel feelings. What a novel idea!

Shout out to Harold Russel

              

The actor who played Homer Parrish made his major motion picture debut in The Best Years of Our Lives. Harold Russel was an active serviceman and he was :

Training paratroopers at Camp MacKall NC on June 6, 1944 when some TNT he was using exploded in his hands. He lost both hands. After receiving hooks, and training on them, he was chosen to make an Army training film called “Diary Of A Sergeant”. William Wyler saw the film and decided to cast him in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).

The director of The Best Years of Our Lives William Wyler altered the original script of the character Homer. In the earlier drafts of the film Homer suffered from incredibly severe PTSD, Wyler thought that Harold Russel with his more visible disability would be a stronger choice especially with the other characters who deal with some aspects of PTSD. Wyler loved how salt-of-the earth Russel was and how natural his acting was, when Samuel Goldsmith attempted to send Wyler to acting lessons Wyler stepped in and stopped it. Wyler was right to do so, the honest and genuine quality that we see from Russel is perfect just as it is.

For Harold Russel’s performance in The Best Years of Our Lives he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. The bulk of the Academy thought that he was a long shot to win the award. He was up against some very tough competition with well-seasoned actors. So the Academy created a special Oscar specifically for his performance, a special Honorary Oscar for being an inspiration to all returning veterans. Then a surprise happened… he also won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award! So Harold Russel is the only person in  Academy Award history to win two Oscars for the same role. After Russell’s performance in The Best Years of Our Lives he went back to school and continued to further many Veteran causes. He  didn’t return to acting till 1980 in the film Inside Moves and Dogtown in 1997, thus making him one of the least prolific actors to ever when an acting Academy Award. I am so happy that he was a part of this film and brought veterans with disabilities to the forefront and created a conversation for the whole country to join in on.

The Gist/My Love For This Film

 

This film is not a huge production, it is not a sweeping love epic, it is not a musical, and it wasn’t based on a bestselling novel.  It was loosely conceived “from a Time Magazine pictorial article (August 7, 1944) that was then re-fashioned into a novel titled Glory for Me by author MacKinlay Kantor. Kantor’s blank-verse novel was the basis for an adapted screenplay by distinguished Pulitzer winning scriptwriter Robert E. Sherwood”. Sherwood took a blank verse novel and transformed it into one of the smartest screenplays I have ever seen; it is concise but aware of its applicability. It is specific in its characterization, but brilliant in its relatability. These afflicted men seemed like people you knew or people you were surrounded by. They are middle class people wanting simple things; this film was a picture that was for everyone and could touch anyone depending on where they were on the socio-political spectrum without being an overly sentimental melodrama… what I am trying to say is this movie was small in size but large in influence and everyone who saw it realized that.

What It Won

The Best Years of Our Lives was nominated for 8 Academy Awards and won technically 7 of them… but 8 if you count the Honorary Academy Award that was awarded to Harold Russell. What it won:

• Best Picture
• Best Actor in a Leading Role- Fredrich March
• Best Actor in a Supporting Role- Harold Russel
• Best Director- William Wylar
• Best Writing, Screenplay- Robert E. Sherwood
• Best Film Editing- Daniel Mandell
• Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture- Hugo Friedhofer
• Honorary Award: For bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance in The Best Years Of Our Lives– Harold Russel

Good Quotes

 

Milly Stephenson: “We never had any trouble.” How many times have I told you I hated you and believed it in my heart? How many times have you said you were sick and tired of me; that we were all washed up? How many times have we had to fall in love all over again?

And

Al Stephenson: You see, Mr. Milton, in the Army I’ve had to be with men when they were stripped of everything in the way of property except what they carried around with them and inside them. I saw them being tested. Now some of them stood up to it and some didn’t. But you got so you could tell which ones you could count on. I tell you this man Novak is okay. His ‘collateral’ is in his hands, in his heart and his guts. It’s in his right as a citizen.

And

Woody Merrill: All marriages don’t have to be like that one.

Peggy Stephenson: Which one?

Woody Merrill: Your friends, Fred and Marie.

Peggy Stephenson: What’s wrong with their marriage?

Woody Merrill: Nothing, except one slight detail, they just don’t like each other.

And

Fred Derry: Some barracks you got here. Hey, what are you? A retired bootlegger?

Al Stephenson: Nothing as dignified as that. I’m a banker.

WHAT ARE OTHER SPECIFIC POST WWII ERA FILMS HAVE DEALT WITH “THE GREATEST GENERATION” THE BEST? SHOULD THIS HAVE WON OVER IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE?

“Mrs. Miniver” 1942

This is the “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” of getting the American Public behind fighting in Europe during WWII

 

This post is going to be a bit history heavy… but I think that is a good thing. This post needs to be history heavy otherwise I don’t necessarily think the impact of this film winning Best Picture will make sense.  Before we dig into the film, I want to dig into a picture of the United States of America in 1941 and 1942. America was bombed by Japan on December 7th, 1941 and on December 8th, 1941 the United States of America declared war on Japan. Germany declared war on the USA shortly after because Japan was apart of their super  uncool group which followed the the Tripartite Pact. In response the USA declares war on Germany December 11, 1941. England and France had declared war on Germany on September 3rd, 1939…we showed up VERY late to the party (obviously war is not party but you understand what I mean) .

So by the time the USA does show up to the party England and France are certainly down and out. Winston Churchill had implored  the American pubic earlier that year in February of 1941 in a worldwide broadcast where he stated, “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job”. France was already taken over by Germany and England was getting bombed like there was legitimately no tomorrow and the USA was not yet/or had just declared war in 1940-41 when Mrs. Miniver  was being written/made. Even after the USA was officially in WWII, the American public knew we were legally in a war but did not understand exactly what was happening to citizens in England and why everyone was actually fighting in Europe . Japan had attacked America on American soil, which is historically the best way to piss off the USA , so hatred and understanding toward the Japanese people and Japan as a nation did not need much explanation… things happening in Europe were a tad bit more hazy. 

THIS IS WHERE “MRS.MINIVER” COMES INTO PLAY!

Mrs. Miniver is an enduring and very well crafted film about a family in a small town in England. It starts the film before the war begins on a upper middle class family with the Matriarch played by a stunning Greer Garson as Mrs. Miniver  and the Patriarch played by a dashing Walter Pidgeon as Mr. Miniver.

The beginning of the film feels like a high society piece, a changing times piece, a super British family piece. The towns Flower Competition is coming up and for the first time ever a lowly station agent is going to enter the “Rose Competition”, which has only been entered in and won by the royalty in the town Lady Beldon… who is basically Maggie Smith’s character in Downton Abbey the Dowager Countess… in fact that is a story line in Downton Abbey, so know you know where all that inspiration came from: THIS FILM!

BUT then the war starts and wants of new hats and cars become of little importance. The eldest son of the Miniver’s falls in love for Lady Beldon’s Granddaughter and also joins the Royal Air Force, the husband is enlisted in a civilian military evacuation,  a Nazi solider is discovered hiding in their small town,  air raids happen, a bomb shelter is used and needed, people die, buildings and homes are damaged, we do not see the war or any fighting happen on the screen, but we feel it. We see the life and priorities of this family and community change. The Audience is connected, the ethos is present, the acting is wonderful, the chemistry of Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon is magnetizing. The direction is simple, but profound.  The rousing speech given at the end of the film makes you connected to the war and the necessity of it ending in the Allies favor… I mean it ends with the congregation singing “Onward Christian Soldiers”. If that isn’t a mic drop of getting someone behind a cause what is?

 

The Importance 

 

This film made the American public understand the daily lives of the English that were being very effected in there own communities by this war. It made the need for American troops to go to Europe a priority like it wasn’t before in their minds. Like how “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” helped the North realize that slavery was wrong and needed to be stopped and this film helped the American public get an emotional connection to the hardships that British families were going through for years fighting Germany and the Axis Powers. Winston Churchill himself said that Mrs. Miniver was “more powerful to the war effort than the combined work of six military divisions.”

The isolationist mentality that was so historically continuous throughout American history, since the time of George Washington to be exact, was being challenged and the American public was lapping it up. This film was the  the top-grossing film of 1942 and the second biggest box-office hit of the decade, following “Gone With The Wind”. The effect this movie had was so noticeable that even Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels wrote that Mrs. Miniver (1942) “shows the destiny of a family during the current war, and its refined powerful propagandistic tendency has up to now only been dreamed of. There is not a single angry word spoken against Germany; nevertheless the anti-German tendency is perfectly accomplished.”

 

The Gist

 

This film is a propaganda dream that is well crafted, performed, and executed. The message is indirect, but pointed enough to make it just as profound now as it was when it was originally released. I urge you all to watch it for both its historical importance and it’s great acting and direction. 

 

What It Won

 

This movie was nominated for TWELVE OSCARS and it won six. This was also the very first film to have nominees in all four acting categories. The Oscars it won were the the following: 

• Best Picture
• Best Director- William Wyler 
• Best Actress- Greer Garson
• Best Supporting Actress- Teresa Wright 
• Best Writing, Screenplay
• Best Cinematography, Black and White- Joseph Ruttenberg  

 

Good Quotes

 

Carol Beldon: I know how comfortable it is to curl up with a nice, fat book full of big words and think you’re going to solve all the problems in the universe. But you’re not, you know. A bit of action is required every now and then.

and

Mr. Ballard: What goes to make a rose, ma’am, is breeding… and budding… and horse manure, if you’ll pardon the expression. And that’s where you come in, ma’am.

and

Kay Miniver: Did you know that the 12th Lord Beldon was hanged?

Lady Beldon: He was beheaded! Such things happen in the best families. In fact, usually in the best families.

 

question for this post: what are your favorite films about this time in history that were done later on? do they stack up to the ones released during that time?

 

 

 

“How Green Was My Valley” 1941

This is a lovely story about a Welsh family, the Morgan’s. This story takes place in a wee Welsh mining town at the turn of the 20th century. It is portrayed through the eyes of the youngest Morgan boy, Huw (sounds like Hugh). We get to see his five older brothers and one older sister grow up and become affected by the changing times individually and collectively. The family dynamic is attacked and struggles through issues of inequality, labor and unions, love, coal mining, and education. Also EVERYONE IN THIS WHOLE SMALL TOWN CAN SING BETTER THAN ALMOST ANY CHOIR I HAVE EVER HEARD!!!!!!!!!!!! They (as in the local town folk) sang this song as they were leaving work at the coal mines back to there quaint homes…

STEP ASIDE SEVEN DWARFS FROM SNOW WHITE!!!!!!!

… sorry boys but your shit looks weak compared to these Welsh singers!

This is a beautiful film! This tugs on your heartstrings in all the rights ways, it is not as melodramatic as it easily could have been in less able hands than John Ford. It is a lush and heartfelt film.

…. BUT this film as gotten a lot of flack over the years for winning Best Picture in 1941 for one reason and one reason only… THIS IS THE FILM THAT BEAT “CITIZEN KANE”!!!!

Yes, THE “Citizen Kane”

Which is ranked #1 on American Film Institute’s Best Films list ,check it out if you need some verification.

http://www.afi.com/100years/movies10.aspx

So the question becomes, why did “How Green Was mM Valley”, a film that has been somewhat swept under the rug as time has continued, beat “Citizen Kane”, which is now considered to be THE MASTERPIECE among masterpieces in cinema, for the Best Picture Academy Award in 1941?

As usual the answer lies in the context text of the time. Let’s see what was happening in 1941? Oh WWII was well underway and Europe was struggling. America was not officially in the war yet, but was still helping the Allied Forces monetarily and through other aid. The USA had not declared war on Japan or any other nation. Pearl Harbor had not yet been bombed, yet as a nation we knew war would probably soon be upon us. For example, they wanted to shoot this film on location in Wales, but they were not able to because of the fighting happening around the area. The studio said WWII battles were too close and it would not be safe for a film set. Instead they built an 80-acre set in the Santa Monica Mountains in Southern California.

When the future is uncertain and the world seems to be going to hell in a hand basket, what do people often do? Turn to their families and their loved ones. What do both “How Green Was My Valley” and “Citzen Kane” have in common? The importance of family and being loved. The biggest difference is we get a bit more of the emotional roller coaster and heartstrings being pulled in “How Green Was my Valley”. In “Citizen Kane” we get to dissect and chew on the meaty ups and downs of Kane’s life. We certainly feel a lot, but we also must think and intellectually unpack the rich script and direction. A heart vs.head battle. And I bet in 1941, America and Academy just wanted to relay on the heart while they still could. I am not defending the Academy’s decision, nor am I saying that “How Green was my Valley” is better film than “Citizen Kane”, but I guess I do understand it… in a 1941-ish way.

Quotes

Mr. Gruffydd: But remember, with strength goes responsibility – to others and to yourselves. For you cannot conquer injustice with more injustice – only with justice and the help of God.

and

Ianto Morgan: We are not questioning your authority, sir, but if manners prevent our speaking the truth, we will be without manners.