The 1946 film, “The Best Years of Our Lives,” has stood the test of time defining American identities and dreams. More than that it remains perhaps the most profound and haunting prophecy of the emotional fulfillment we seek as Americans.
Directed by William Wyler, a heroic war officer himself, with a fine ensemble cast, it catches us at that time just after World War II when we were most vulnerable and battered, seeking answers after the horrid maw of world war and testing whether the country we loved could somehow help, even heal us. Beyond this were the shards of fear and memory still gripping most from the Great Depression which after all lingered into the ‘40s. Each main character in the film played a lasting part in this reality full of shadows while the United States suddenly had more economic and moral power than anyone could have imagined.
Lead character Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), returns with endless nightmares as a bomber specialist and feckless history of failure masking his inferiority complex before the war. He must face a capricious marriage and life with parents in obvious misery from the Depression. He is joined by Al Stephenson (Fredric March), running from his life as a prosperous alcoholic banker, his wife Milly (Myrna Loy) in limbo as to what kind of man was returning to a half-wrecked marriage while their brilliant daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright) negotiates the emotional needs of the young and guarded post-war generation. Even Fred Derry’s ersatz marriage to wife Marie, played so well by Virginia Mayo, shows us a touching fear in her gold-digging escape from years of manipulation and loss.
Then there is Homer Parrish (Harold Russell), classic blue-collar kid just out of high school, back from the Navy with hands lost in the war and little hope, trying with forced optimism as neighbor Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell) is aching to love him again. And overseeing it all as he did so well in numerous films, here appearing as Uncle Butch (Hoagy Carmichael), we have the wise stoic in a hopelessly complex world he takes day to day with his piano and soft smile.
Based on a novella in verse by war correspondent and author MacKinlay Kantor, the Robert E. Sherwood screenplay captures what most Americans wanted, a simple life of peace and understanding to salvage emotional needs, not riches or power as Dana Andrews alludes to during the shared trip home in the B17, wanting only a job and nice little house. “Give me that much and I’m rehabilitated like that.”
Unfortunately it would take more. His love for Teresa Wright’s character Peggy opens wounds and barriers no one could anticipate. Derry’s brutal confrontation scene alone in the airplane scrap yard says it all, one of the most powerful ever filmed. By the film’s end, little of this is resolved — with glimmers of what might save matters then and for future generations, a refuge of love and honesty which retains the continuing power and beauty of this movie.
Whenever I see this film again, I wonder at how these characters and their conflicts still reflect us. And I wonder if we have stayed true to honoring their dilemmas over the years. And where we have failed.
As we approach another election deadline, it seems a valid question in these very troubled times.