The Oscar Project #19: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

by Chris Marshall:

In some sense, The Best Years of Our Lives is a war film, but it tells a much different story than the ones we are used to. It is concerned with a different type of battle, specifically the struggles faced by soldiers returning from World War II. The three main protagonists were no longer fighting for life and death; instead, they were struggling to regain a sense of normalcy that had been lost in their years overseas.

The three leads—Homer, Fred, and Al—begin the film attempting to get back to their home town, the fictional Boone City. It’s located somewhere in the Midwest, and it appears to be a suburb. The details are never explicitly discussed, but it’s small enough so that the three men, who were complete strangers until the trip back home, find their lives to be completely intertwined over the following weeks.

All three came from very different walks of life. Dale grew up in poverty and married a woman he barely knew days before he shipped out. Al is older, married for 20 years with a teenage daughter, and is a banker; he even has a promotion waiting for him upon his return. But he’s also an alcoholic, which being home only serves to exacerbate. Homer comes from a middle class family and has a fiancée, but his struggle is the most difficult of all. He lost both of his hands in the navy and has hooks as replacements.

Problems await all three. Some are the inevitable result of being away for so long; some are completely their own creations. Either way, being off the battlefield does yield the respite they may have been hoping for. Dale is forced to return to the drugstore job he longed to escape. Al is chewed out by his boss for giving out loans to soldiers without proper collateral. Homer is convinced that he is viewed as a freak because of his hooks.

One of the great strengths of this movie is that, while there is plenty of drama and melancholy, it’s never overplayed. It feels realistic, like these really would be the types of problems returning soldiers would face. And even with a running time of nearly three hours, it never felt overly long. Every scene seemed essential to telling the overall story.

Homer plays piano with his hooks.

For me, though, the best part of the movie was Harold Russell’s performance as Homer, the double amputee. He was not a professional actor and had only previously appeared in a WWII propaganda film. In fact, he would hardly ever act again for the rest of his life. But for these three hours, he was amazing. Homer’s backstory may have been different from Harold Russell’s, but the end result was the same. Every problem that Homer faced Russell had dealt with as well. In the scenes that deal with his disability, his performance was likely just as much reenacting as it was acting. He knew what Homer was feeling.

The acting was great across the board, really. Fredric March won Best Actor for his role as Al (he had also won 14 years earlier for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), and Myrna Loy, who also appeared in, yes, The GreatZiegfeld, considered this to be her finest work. Mississippi’s own Dana Andrews was also convincing as Fred, though he was my least favorite of the three main characters.

The Best Years of Our Lives has a way of drawing you in and making you care about these guys’ lives. And I have to wonder how close these experiences are to real life even today. Wars are fought very differently than they were 66 years ago, but don’t the people returning from combat still go through the same things? The struggles to cope with civilian life after literally fighting for your own existence? Surely things haven’t changed that much, which is too bad. The battles should end when the war is over.