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71 years ago...
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Director: William Wyler
Country: United States
Length: 172 minutes
Type: Drama
'The Best Years of Our Lives' is an early post-war movie examining the return of three Iowa soldiers from the conflict and their struggles to re-integrate into society. Fred (Dana Andrews) is a decorated Airforce Captain from a broken-home and the bad side of town, trying to be something more. Al (Fredric March) is an Army sergeant who returns to his respectable up-town middle-class family and job at the Bank but begins to rely on drink to get through it all. Homer (Harold Russell) served in the Navy and comes from one of those idyllic, picture-box 1940s American suburbs. He has had his hands replaced by mechanical hooks and has to learn to deal with how others see his disability and how he sees himself.
Harold Russell was a non-professional actor who had actually lost his hands in the war but he gives one of the best performances in the film. The scene where he finally sums up the courage to share the hard truths of his reality with his sweetheart is tender and emotional. The Academy gave him a special Oscar but then he ended winning the Best Actor trophy anyway, making him the only person to win two Oscars for the same performance! It was interesting to see a scene where two of the Veterans encounter a right-wing nut (and Nazi apologist) who is wearing one of those little flag-pins that a certain type of US Politician still hide behind today (things never change). Homer rips it off his lapel and then Fred kicks his ass . The scene of Fred wondering among already rusting and abandoned B-17s stretching as far as the eye can see, is a powerful visual metaphor. 'The Best Years of Our Lives' was a huge box-office hit, probably because it gave a nation the chance to unpack what just happened.
The first film in the list from David Lean next.
By the way... I hadn't realised until the line was spoken, that the title of the Manic Street Preachers song 'Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky' is from this movie and is a darkly comic reference to a photo of a B-17 surrounded by flak explosions.
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Director: William Wyler
Country: United States
Length: 172 minutes
Type: Drama
'The Best Years of Our Lives' is an early post-war movie examining the return of three Iowa soldiers from the conflict and their struggles to re-integrate into society. Fred (Dana Andrews) is a decorated Airforce Captain from a broken-home and the bad side of town, trying to be something more. Al (Fredric March) is an Army sergeant who returns to his respectable up-town middle-class family and job at the Bank but begins to rely on drink to get through it all. Homer (Harold Russell) served in the Navy and comes from one of those idyllic, picture-box 1940s American suburbs. He has had his hands replaced by mechanical hooks and has to learn to deal with how others see his disability and how he sees himself.
Harold Russell was a non-professional actor who had actually lost his hands in the war but he gives one of the best performances in the film. The scene where he finally sums up the courage to share the hard truths of his reality with his sweetheart is tender and emotional. The Academy gave him a special Oscar but then he ended winning the Best Actor trophy anyway, making him the only person to win two Oscars for the same performance! It was interesting to see a scene where two of the Veterans encounter a right-wing nut (and Nazi apologist) who is wearing one of those little flag-pins that a certain type of US Politician still hide behind today (things never change). Homer rips it off his lapel and then Fred kicks his ass . The scene of Fred wondering among already rusting and abandoned B-17s stretching as far as the eye can see, is a powerful visual metaphor. 'The Best Years of Our Lives' was a huge box-office hit, probably because it gave a nation the chance to unpack what just happened.
The first film in the list from David Lean next.
By the way... I hadn't realised until the line was spoken, that the title of the Manic Street Preachers song 'Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky' is from this movie and is a darkly comic reference to a photo of a B-17 surrounded by flak explosions.