 The Best Picture Our Columnists Reflect on Oscar's Best Films |
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of Our Lives (1946) |
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No other film so perfectly captures the joy, pain of returning from war
By JOHN STANLEY
of TheColumnists.com
WILLIAM WYLER knew about coming home from war, and he fully understood the difficulties of adjusting to civilian life. He had done it himself, just before signing with Samuel Goldwyn in late 1944 to direct "The Best Years of Our Lives," a major study of servicemen returning from the battlefields of World War II.
Wyler had already made two of the best aviation documentaries of the war--"Memphis Belle," about the B-17 raids on Germany and the successfully completed final flight of a bomber crew, and "Thunderbolt," a tautly edited account of the fighter planes and pilots that ultimately broke the German stranglehold on the long-stalemated Italian Campaign. Wyler had lived through the horrors of what the pilots and crew had experienced by making several bomb runs over Germany with a camera crew, and he had paid a personal price: the loss of hearing in one ear, caused by too much high-altitude flying. This adversity would be an important element in helping him to understand his theme to the max and to win the 1946 Academy Award as best director.
There are two classic sequences in "The Best Years of Our Lives" that Wyler could not have shaped without his combat experiences. The first, the "Homecoming" sequence (I call it that because composer Hugo Friedhofer used that title for his music), is still one of the most evocative pieces of story-telling, capturing a deep sense of the camaraderie of soldiers returning from the war. Wyler's scenes bristle with Americana symbolism and convey the deep anguish and sense of loss that comes even when you are the victor and have won the war. The message is clear: For each man returning, there is another who will not return.
Fredric March (who would win the Oscar for best actor) and Dana Andrews--both well-established actors cast for their strong box-office appeal--played familiar types to 1946 audiences: March as a Marine returning from island fighting in the Pacific, Andrews as a B-17 bombardier. This latter element Wyler had requested of screenwriter Robert Sherwood, who was adapting a novella by MacKinlay Kantor (Sherwood also would win an Oscar).
The third returning serviceman, played by Harold Russell, was a jolt to audiences, for movies of the time rarely dealt with disabled men, preferring to emphasize virile heroism in the John Wayne mold. Russell was a fledgling newcomer to acting, a sailor who had paid the price of war by losing his hands during a fire on an aircraft carrier. Now, in their place, were hooks that enabled him to still carry out some normal functions, such as lighting a cigarette. Although Russell had never acted before, he was to win the Oscar for his performance as Homer Parrish by listening to Wyler's advice that he should not try to act but just be himself.
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The three men meet in the nose of a bomber that will take them across country to Boone City (the name suggests the pioneering spirit that forged America), and they strike up an immediate friendship, their bond the fact they have survived the war to enjoy this brief moment of triumph. (Russell, in an ironic moment, even lights their cigarettes.) But there is a tension between them, for each harbors thoughts of the difficulties that could await them at home. In Russell's case, it is all the more poignant. For the moment he fears most is when his parents and girlfriend will see his hooks for the first time.
On the approach to Boone City, the three men watch the terrain of America slipping away beneath them through the plane's nose, and are awed by a field of bombers and other war planes being scrapped. "Boy, could we have used those in '43," muses Andrews. The planes below serve as a symbol--the aircraft are being scrapped and so are these three mustered-out men, as unneeded as bombers and fighters. (The airfield is also being set up by Sherwood to play a major part later in the film.)
Driving through the streets in a taxi, the men see the symbols of what they have fought for and saved: a bustling avenue of businesses that includes a hot dog stand and a five-and-dime store. A young mother pushes a baby buggy. Teenage boys pass in a souped-up hot rod. A "Used Car" sign helps to reinforce Wyler's theme that the men also are "used."
Giving these scenes a cohesive texture is the Oscar-winning score by Friedhofer, who had by 1946 become one of Hollywood's most respected composers after a tutelage under Max Steiner at Warner Bros. His "Homecoming" is an unusual blend of joy and sorrow, victory and defeat, with a military motif running throughout the sequence. For each note reminding us of the battles these men have won, there is a note of the tragedy and loss. That Friedhofer could segue in and out suggests his brilliance and power as one of the premium composers of the 1940s. (During post-production many at Goldwyn Studios who had heard parts of the score hadn't liked it because of its underlying theme of tragedy. They felt the music should have been purely uplifting. The popularity of the film and the Oscar to Friedhofer would prove everyone wrong on that score.)
Finally comes the moment Homer has longed for but also secretly dreaded. He arrives at his home, not so eager to leave his two newfound friends behind. Homer goes through the emotional ritual of seeing his girl and his mother and father for the first time, making sure to keep his "hands" down low, behind his back, where they cannot be seen. This is a scene that almost always brings a lump into my throat, no matter how many times I see it.
It's only when the cab pulls away, and Homer unthinkingly raises an arm to wave goodbye to his two buddies, that his mother (Minna Gombell), father (Walter S. Baldwin) and girlfriend (Cathy O'Donnell) see the hook. The mother chokes and lets out a sob, a moment that had been carefully calculated, for Wyler knew that any parent who would ever see his picture would be moved to the extreme. However, the power of the scene ultimately overrides any manipulations on Wyler's part. And after all these years, the scene has lost none of its poignancy or impact.
My second favorite sequence, which links directly to the airfield of scrapped airplanes introduced in "Homecoming," begins in the rundown apartment of Andrews' father, just at the moment when Andrews has bottomed out and is in a deep state of depression. He's lost his wife (Virginia Mayo) to playboy Steve Cochran, he's been fired from his minimal job as a soda jerk, and he has no prospects. He has just left the house when his father (Roman Bohnen) finds a discarded military citation, signed by Lt. General Jimmy Doolittle, which he reads aloud to wife Gladys George. For the first time, right when Wyler has made us feel our deepest anguish for Andrews, we discover that he was awarded the Congressional Metal of Honor for gallantry during a bombing run over Germany. Friedhofer's swelling music brings back the military motif established during "Homecoming" as the picture dissolves to the airfield of scrapped planes, where Andrews is wandering aimlessly, still tormented by his demons of war. One of the scrapped bombers, in homage to Wyler's "Memphis Belle," has the name "Lucy Belle" painted on its fuselage.
Climbing into the nose of "Round Trip?", one of the gutted out B-17s, Andrews begins a psychological bomb run over Germany, lapsing back into the same memories of war that have haunted him in his sleep in earlier scenes. Wyler photographs this sequence with camera movements that simulate a plane warming up its engines and taxiing down a runway for take off. Friedhofer's score enhances this illusion with a musical "roar of engines" and a sense of forward thrust. The music also captures Andrews' chaotic state of mind as Wyler's camera, operated by the award-winning cinematographer Gregg Toland, goes to a close-up of Andrews. The last shot is of Andrews' wracked face through the chipped, cloudy glass of the nose.
These are my two favorite scenes from "The Best Years of Our Lives," for to me they reflect the art of filmmaking at its most emotionally arousing. I cannot pay a higher tribute to William Wyler and his classic film than that.
© 2000 by John Stanley
OTHER NOMINEES THAT YEAR: "Henry V," "It's A Wonderful Life," "The Razor's Edge," "The Yearling."
OSCAR TRIVIA: First-time actor Harold Russell remains the only performer ever to win two Oscars for playing the same role in the same film. Perhaps concerned that the brave and immensely popular double amputee might not win the best supporting actor award against veteran character actors Charles Coburn ("The Green Years"), William Demarest ("The Jolson Story"), Claude Rains ("Notorious") and Clifton Webb ("The Razor's Edge"), the Academy voted him a special Oscar for "bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans." Then he won the acting Oscar anyway.
You can contact John Stanley with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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