The Best Picture Countdown #19: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Note: this post is modified from a previously published post

Director: William Wyler
Starring: Frederic March, Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright

The Best Years of Our Lives is one of the few films that can be accurately described as timeless. It is a film that’s as powerful today as it was when it was released in 1946, when it was both a critical and commercial success and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. This is a film about coming home from war and finding it changed, returning to a life that fits like clothing you’ve outgrown. At once heartbreaking and uplifting, joyous and sad, it is above all a powerful statement about the cultural narratives and myths surrounding the idea of war.

The story centers on three ex-servicemen: Al (Frederic March), Fred (Dana Andrews), and Homer (Harold Russell), who meet, discover that they’re from the same home town, and travel back to it together. Homer is the first to arrive home and his reunion with his family is marked by a mixture of happiness and uncertainty. He’s lost both hands and he and his loved ones are tentative as they approach each other. No amount of training could prepare him or the other men for the human element of returning home, for the way people will treat them and the ways that they’re almost strangers to people they’ve known all their lives.

Al is the next to go home, and his return is one of the great moments in cinema as he walks in the door and puts his finger to his lips so that his children won’t announce his presence. His wife, Milly (Myrna Loy), calls from the kitchen to ask who was at the door and slowly realizes that it must be Al. She goes into the hallway, looks at him for a moment, and then runs into his arms. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Fred has a less welcoming homecoming when he finds that the woman he married before going overseas is nowhere to be found.

Soon after returning home, the intensity of these domestic scenes becomes too much for all three men and they find themselves at the bar owned by Homer’s uncle. After Homer leaves, Fred and Al, along with Milly and their daughter, Peggy, (Teresa Wright), spread the party over the rest of the town until Milly and Peggy can finally convince the two men that enough’s enough and bring them home to get some sleep. Fred ends up at Al and Milly’s house after being unable to gain entry to his own (his wife is still MIA), and when he’s awakened the next morning by Peggy, it’s the beginning of a love affair, though neither knows it yet.

The lives of the three men have been irrevocably altered during the war and each struggles to be relevant in a changed world. Al was a banker before and returns to his job now charged with the task of granting or refusing loans to men returned from overseas. A conflict arises in him because the banker in him knows that his first client is a bad risk, but the serviceman in him wants to give him a chance. He grants the loan and is forced to explain himself: “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.” This is one of many instances where the film is critical of the treatment of veterans, expressing that anyone who risks their life for their country has the right to return to it and be repaid. Another moment comes when Fred returns to his former workplace, seeking a better job than the one he had before. The manager tells him that since he has no applicable training, he can’t be promoted to a higher position. Fred points out that he was fighting in a war during the time he might have had training, but the manager is unmoved. Fred walks out but is eventually forced to return and accept his old job working as a soda jerk in order to support himself and his wife, Marie (Virginia Mayo). The scene where the film is most critical of public reception of veterans comes when a stranger expresses to Homer that he lost his hands for nothing, that the war was pointless and driven by corrupt governmental powers. This is a striking moment, especially when seen today, and one of many which keeps the film seeming so fresh.

Director William Wyler brilliantly guides the film towards the right notes and never allows the material to become heavy handed or preachy. When Fred reconnects with his wife, we sense immediately that both were so caught up in the romantic idea of Fred going to war and coming home to Marie that neither really bothered getting to know the other. Marie likes Fred’s uniform, which he of course no longer has a reason to wear, while Fred wants a down-to-earth wife, which Marie, who likes to party, certainly is not. What Fred wants, he later discovers, is to be with Peggy. She wants the same and announces to her parents one night that she intends to break up Fred’s marriage. Her parents are understandably unhappy about this but receive the news calmly and the scene leads to a great speech by Loy about the struggle to maintain a relationship. Loy and March are the steady, solid force that grounds the story and both get a number of scenes in which to demonstrate their considerable talents. One of my favourite moments from March comes after Peggy’s announcement, when Al goes to meet Fred. They sit across the table from each other and have a clipped conversation in which a couple of things are established: 1. Al doesn’t like the idea of Peggy running around with a married man; 2. Al wants to remain friends with Fred, but not if he puts Peggy in a compromising position; and 3. Al ultimately recognizes that Peggy has become an adult in his absence and understands that he has to let her make her own mistakes. It’s a terrific scene that exposes the complexities of the relationship between the two friends as well as the relationship between father and daughter.

This is a wonderful and moving film with too many fantastic moments to name. If forced to choose the most powerful, I would have to say it’s the scene where Homer shows his fiancée Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell) just what his night time ritual entails, when he must remove his hooks and be “helpless as a baby” until someone can put them back on for him again in the morning. This scene transcends mere fiction because it was a fact of Harold Russell’s life. I dare you to try to watch it without getting misty.

Oscarstravaganza: Ben-Hur

* * * *

Winner: Best Picture, 1959
Director: William Wyler
Starring: Charlton Heston

Go big or go home. It seems like that's often AMPAS' motto when it comes to deciding their Best Picture winners and few films have been as big, as extravagant, as William Wyler's version of Ben-Hur. A larger than life story with larger than life performances and production values, you just sit back in awe of its staggering ambition.

The film opens with a brief prologue centered on the birth of Jesus Christ, who occupies the very periphery of the story for much of the film and finally takes centre stage in the final act. From those opening scenes the film transitions to the story of Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston), a noble Jew living in Jerusalem who will come into contact with Jesus at several key instances. When Judah's childhood friend Messala (Stephen Boyd) returns as a commanding officer of the Roman Empire, Judah is thrilled because he believes that they can work together to quell tensions between the Romans and Jews. However, he quickly learns that Messala’s aspirations in the Empire have changed him and a wedge is driven permanently between them. This break is further solidified by Messala’s actions following an accident in which Judah’s sister Tirzah (Cathy O’Donnell) injures the new Roman governor, and Messala orders that Tirzah and her mother be imprisoned and that Judah be sent to a certain death as a galley slave as punishment.

Years later Judah is still alive and after he saves the life of the Roman Consul Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins), he’s granted his freedom. He returns to his desolated home and former slaves Simonides (Sam Jaffe) and Esther (Haya Harareet) and is informed that his mother and sister have died, sending him into a tailspin of grief. In truth they are alive but Esther has promised to keep it a secret because the years living in filth in the prison have rendered them lepers and they can’t bear to have Judah see them as they now are. Full of rage and wanting revenge on Messala, Judah enters into a chariot race against him, knowing that often “accidents” happen in the coliseum. With a bit of skill and a bit of luck he wins, but finds that his revenge is empty and discovers the truth about his mother and sister, sending him into a deep despair that only a certain messiah can cure.

From its first moments Ben-Hur carries itself like a “film of great importance,” which would seem pretentious if it didn’t also seem so damned sincere. It cannot be accused of subtlety in any respect – the screenplay begs for scenery chewing and the actors happily oblige and the plot is punctuated at every turn by pomp and circumstance – but it invests itself fully in this story and approaches it in a very serious, straight forward way that is completely disarming. Ultimately it’s the bigness of the film that makes it work because it wins you over with its sheer audacity, its joyful excess, it’s barely concealed homoeroticism. Seriously, if Brokeback Mountain had won in 2005, it wouldn’t even have been the gayest Best Picture winner.

Directed by the great William Wyler, the film is a superbly constructed piece of work. It is of a length befitting an epic tale but it is so well edited that it never drags, finding the perfect balance between action set pieces and the quieter sequences that connect them. The chariot race is one of the most celebrated action scenes in film history and it’s one of those things that everyone who considers themselves a movie lover should see. It’s an exciting, intensely filmed scene that definitely lives up to its reputation. For all the technological advances that have been made in the 50 years since the film was made, a large part of its charm comes from the fact that what you’re seeing is real, not computer generated. The level of effort, resources and passion that would have been necessary to make this film is just amazing and it absolutely pays off. Ben-Hur is a film in a class all its own.

A Closer Look At Jezebel (1938) Part II

Director: William Wyler
Starring: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda

Picking up where I left off yesterday, I’m continuing with my look at William Wyler’s Jezebel. With its focus on the fall and redemption of its protagonist Julie (Bette Davis), the element that stands out is its treatment of gender. However, its treatment of race and slavery is equally interesting and directly linked to its representation of women.

Golden Age Hollywood isn’t exactly known for its sensitive and positive representations of people of color, but there are things here that particularly stand out. There are four slave characters who get to play prominent roles: Uncle Cato (Lew Payton), Zette (Theresa Harris), Gros Bat (Eddie Anderson), and Ti Bat (Matthew Beard). Each of these depictions is problematic on one level or another, especially for the way that they work to underscore the innate “badness” of Julie. The treatment and use of Zette, Julie’s maid, is particularly troubling because it links so directly to the establishment of Julie as corrupt. Julie’s red dress is the visual manifestation of her wickedness and the characters around her, including her Aunt Belle (Fay Bainter) and Preston (Henry Fonda), recognize it as such. Zette, however, does not and gushes to Julie about its beauty and then agrees to help Julie in an attempt to manipulate Preston in exchange for Julie’s promise to give her the dress after the Olympus Ball. Zette’s enthusiasm for the dress is a sign of how inappropriate it is and how negative Julie’s subversion really is. In choosing the dress, Julie isn’t simply setting herself apart from other women, she’s also setting herself apart from her class and race. Julie’s dealings with Gros Bat have similar consequences. It’s Gros Bat who shows her how to sneak across the fever lines so that she can return to New Orleans, thus undermining the white, male authorities. In a world ordered according to black and white, where black is equated with bad and white is equal to good, Julie’s behaviour, which ties her so closely to the black characters, is a mark of her immorality.

Generally speaking, the film is guilty of infantalizing the slave characters. Cato, for example, is given a title of ironic deference in being called “Uncle,” but he’s also shown to be child-like in his fear of ghosts, which amuses Julie and her circle, who are themselves beyond such superstitions. Prior to this, there’s a scene in which Cato and Ti Bat are on the lookout for arrivals at the plantation in the country. The film can’t really be accused of infantalizing Ti Bat, as he is in fact a young boy, but the behaviour of Cato is indistinguishable from that of Ti Bat in this scene, implying that intellectual development amongst slaves is arrested at childhood.

Later, in what is perhaps the most egregious moment of racial insensitivity, the plantation’s slaves are gathered together to sing for the entertainment of Julie and her guests. In this depiction of slaves as jolly and carefree, the film supports anti-abolitionist justifications for slavery which hinge on the idea that not only are slaves far from mistreated but they are in fact being “protected” by their white owners. This attitude that one segment of the population is incapable of caring for itself and therefore needs to be taken under the protective wing of a stronger, more able group that will guide it with a firm hand, is an attitude applied as much to women during this era as to people of color.

In the grand scheme of the film, race and slavery play a very small role but one which is important for the way that it informs how Julie as a character is coded. In linking Julie so closely to characters that are consistently characterized as child-like, the film suggests that what Julie is ultimately lacking is maturity. Her defiance, her petulant outbursts, her scheming and plotting are not part of a genuine battle for autonomy, but an indication that she needs the guardianship she so desperately fights against. Her narrative arc, then, is not just one of redemption, but of coming-of-age. To achieve this goal she must break away from the child-like manners associated with the slave characters and align herself with the more mature minds of men like Preston without actually seeking to become the equal of men like Preston.

A Closer Look At Jezebel (1938) Part I

Director: William Wyler
Starring: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda

Maybe I’m weird, but I’ve never been inclined to see Bette Davis as the villain of Jezebel. I don’t know that I’d go so far as to call her a hero, but at the very least she’s a victim of rigid societal rules and expectations which guarantee that no matter what she does, she’s bound to lose in some way. William Wyler’s film is interesting on a number of levels, but particularly in its exploration of the fuzzy morality which makes the oppression of entire sections of the population feasible. The picture it paints of a woman’s place in the world is bleak, but it deftly illuminates the often fraught relationship between women and “society.”

The film begins on a theme which will inform the rest of the story: Antebellum Southern chivalry. When Julie’s name is brought up in a bar as a way of teasing Buck Cantrell (George Brent), Buck takes offense to it, deeming it disrespectful. Buck challenges his rival to a duel in order to defend Julie’s honour, though he later admits that as far as he’s concerned the duel has nothing to do with Julie and everything to do with the fact that he just generally dislikes his rival. This is the first glimpse we get of “chivalry” as a means of healing wounded male pride disguised as protecting the delicate sensibilities of women, but it won’t be the last. This first scene also establishes the general opinion that Preston Dillard (Henry Fonda) will need to keep “a tight rein” on Julie, his intended bride. When we first meet Julie, she’s riding a colt that hasn’t yet been broken. The implication of this is pretty clear: like the colt, Julie is wild and must be broken before she can be of any proper use.

Preston and Julie are an on-again, off-again couple who are currently on and engaged. Julie’s headstrong ways, however, are a constant stumbling block and their battle of wills comes to a head the night of the annual Olympus Ball. It is customary for all unmarried women to wear white to the ball, but Julie decides that she will wear red. Preston reluctantly escorts her to the ball and, as expected, her dress creates a scandal. People literally shrink away from her as if she has a contagious disease. There’s an interesting shot in this sequence, as Preston and Julie dance, where Davis, who is wearing a low-cut dress which leaves her shoulders bare, is framed in such a way that it appears as if she’s wearing nothing at all. She might as well be naked, she’s so indecent to the people around her. Mortified, Julie wants to leave but Preston insists that they stay, thus prolonging Julie’s humiliation. Afterward he leaves her and goes to New York to attend to business. A year later he returns to find a chastened Julie, who declares herself ready to submit to his will and judgment. There’s just one problem: he’s returned married to Amy (Margaret Lindsay), a New Yorker. Julie, however, isn’t deterred and is convinced that his marriage is only a small obstacle impeding their reunion, which she believes to be inevitable.

The relationship between Preston and Julie is closely tied to and influenced by the traditions of chivalry, which the film shows to be very contradictory in nature. Time and again the concept of a woman’s honour is invoked in order to justify bad behaviour towards women. Preston’s friend, Dr. Livingstone (Donald Crisp) decries the lack of “respect for Southern womanhood” in Preston’s generation by telling him that the only way to deal with a difficult woman is to beat her then buy her some jewellery to put her in her place. Following this conversation, Preston pays Julie a visit, making sure to bring a cane, which he abandons when he sees her. As the scene progresses, she puts him in his place and remarks as he leaves that he “forgot [his] stick.” It’s a scene of emasculation which suggests that a man who can’t “control” his woman isn’t really a man at all. Julie’s desire to think for herself, which means undermining the traditions and conventions of her society, is not just a sign of her “badness,” but also a reflection of Preston’s weakness.

The key scene in the film, the one which solidifies Julie’s badness, is the duel between Buck and Preston’s brother, Ted (Richard Cromwell). With some prodding from Julie, Buck and Preston spend an evening circling around each other, setting the stage for a fight. When Preston is called into the city to tend to business matters, Ted steps in to take his place and he and Buck agree to a duel. Julie, realizing that things have gotten out of hand, tries to talk them both out of it, but both stubbornly insist on following through with it. When all is said and done and Buck ends up dead, Ted rails at Julie, placing the blame firmly at her feet. What is actually a matter of obstinate male pride is chalked up to Julie’s “evil” streak. Buck and Ted are given multiple opportunities to walk away from this fight, both of them know that the reason behind it is fraudulent and contrived, and yet they’re determined to go through with it and this is Julie’s fault. Despite the fact that as a woman in 1852 she has no tangible rights and whatever power and influence she has rests precariously on her ability to live up to societal expectations, she’s held responsible for the actions of two independent men.

Even though the film endorses patriarchal norms by structuring its story around the tried and true formula of an unconventional woman who overreaches and is punished and ultimately redeemed, I think that in the final analysis, the film is on Julie’s side. Yes, she is penalized for her initial refusal to conform and for her later manipulations, but her redemption directly arises from her disobedience. Sneaking across the fever lines, she returns to New Orleans to tend to Preston and then accompanies him to the island where fever victims are being sent, an island populated by lepers. It isn’t simply a moment of redemption, it’s a moment of incredible courage in which her contravention of the rules is presented as admirable.

Since this has run on a bit long and there’s still so much I want to touch on, I’ve decided to split it into two parts. Tomorrow my focus will be on the film’s problematic treatment of race and how it ties in to the film's view of gender relations.

100 Days, 100 Movies: Dodsworth (1936)

Director: William Wyler
Starring: Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Mary Astor

If your only familiarity with Walter Huston is through The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Dodsworth might come as a shock to you. In fact, Dodsworth is a film that is kind of shocking regardless. A thoroughly adult story about a middle-aged couple discovering that they aren’t so compatible, after all, this is a film that approaches its characters with such candour and sincerity that it’s like a breath of fresh air. It isn’t the most technically innovative film, and it’s influence can’t be read in a thousand films that followed it, but as pure character study, I can think of few films that can top it.

It begins with Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston), an automobile tycoon taking his last look around his office before retiring. His employees look upon him with reverence as he says his goodbyes and makes his exit, and we’re already aware that he’s not your typical millionaire. He’s not a faceless money-grubber or a tyrannical despot who will do anything to maintain his power and influence. Instead, he’s the most average of Joes, a regular guy who would fit in easily with his employees, were it not for the fact that he’s worth millions. Following his final day at work, he and his wife, Fran (Ruth Chatterton), leave for Europe and we see more of Dodsworth’s “everyman” qualities in the way that he’s thrilled not by the fact that he’s about to experience the decadence that Europe has to offer, but instead by the mere fact that he’s crossing the ocean and seeing things he’s never seen before.

Dodsworth’s excitement, demonstrated here in his desire to wait up on deck as they approach the land so that he can see it, is undercut by the first signs of distress in his marriage. We see Fran beginning to distance herself from him, embarrassed by what she sees as his provinciality. He may be a millionaire – self-made, no doubt – but she obviously sees herself as coming from a higher social caste then him and makes it clear that she finds his ways unsophisticated as she aligns herself with a fellow passenger, the British Captain Lockert (David Niven), who embodies the type of person – charming, refined, and most certainly above being excited by the fact of seeing a light that is the first sign of land – she wants to be associated with. She and Lockert flirt and seem on the verge of having an affair, until he realizes that she’s in over her head and makes it apparent to her that he thinks she’s just as provincial as her husband. It’s the worst kind of insult for Fran, whose humiliation will lead her into two affairs before she's finally able to work herself up to leaving her husband.

The break comes while the pair are touring Austria, when Fran and the much younger Baron Kurt Von Obersdorf (Gregory Gaye) fall into an affair and Fran decides to throw Dodsworth over for her new man. Dodsworth lets her go and wanders aimlessly around Europe, seeing things for the sake of seeing things but not really enjoying them, until he runs into Edith Cortright (Mary Astor), an acquaintance from the journey across the Atlantic, and falls in love himself. However, before the Dodsworths’ divorce can be finalized, Fran comes running back, her plans to marry Kurt having been thwarted by his mother (played marvellously by Maria Ouspenskaya). Dodsworth is willing to give his marriage another chance until he realizes that Fran hasn’t changed at all, that she’s learned nothing about herself from these events, and that she hasn’t grown to appreciate him or their marriage any more than she did before she left him. Fran is the sort of character that you really want to see get her comeuppance – she’s vain and flighty and completely unwilling to take responsibility for her own actions (the withering look that Dodsworth fixes on her when she explains to him that her affair with Kurt was partly his fault is a thing of beauty) – and Dodsworth delivers by allowing her to be thoroughly served not once, but twice, first by the Baroness and then by Dodsworth himself.

Huston is fantastic as Dodsworth, playing this simple, ordinary guy in a very simple, no-frills kind of way. Through Huston, Dodsworth isn’t simply a character, but a man with character who exudes without having to say as much, that the qualities he values most are hard work and loyalty. Because he values loyalty, he’s willing to give Fran another chance, and because he’s such a strong character, he doesn’t seem wimpy for it. It’s also important that Dodsworth, while not necessarily a man of the world in the sense of being well-travelled, is a very intelligent man who is able to assess the situation clearly enough to know that his loyalty isn’t valued, but taken for granted, and that it’s time to call it a day. As Fran, Ruth Chatterton shines in what is an unforgiving role, playing as she does the film’s “villain,” if a film like this can be thought of as having a villain. However, there’s enough shading to her character that, even though you want her to get knocked down, you still feel sorry for her. She’s a woman clinging desperately to her youth, perhaps all the more fiercely because the Dodsworths’ daughter is about to make them grandparents. “You’re simply rushing at old age, Sam, and I’m not ready for that yet,” she tells her husband. Given how society tends to value women less the older they get, it’s easy to understand why she feels so much anxiety about aging, even though that doesn’t excuse the way she treats Dodsworth.

Dodsworth may very well be the most underrated American film ever made. I’ve never seen it included in any Top 100 and I’ve yet to meet anyone else who’s heard of it, let alone seen it. Perhaps because, like its title character, it is so simple, so straightforward, that it’s bound the blend into the background and take a backseat to flashier entertainments. But its simplicity is also what’s kept it fresh, and while Fran spends the movie worrying about getting older, the movie itself hasn’t aged a bit.

100 Days, 100 Movies: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Director: William Wyler
Starring: Frederic March, Dana Andrews, Harold Russell, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright

The Best Years of Our Lives is one of the few films that can be accurately described as timeless. It is a film that’s as powerful today as it was when it was released in 1946, when it was both a critical and commercial success and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. This is a film about coming home from war and finding it changed, returning to a life that fits like clothing you’ve outgrown. At once heartbreaking and uplifting, joyous and sad, it is above all a powerful statement about the cultural narratives and myths surrounding the idea of war.

The story centers on three ex-servicemen: Al (Frederic March), Fred (Dana Andrews), and Homer (Harold Russell), who meet, discover that they’re from the same home town, and get back to it together. Homer is the first to arrive home and his reunion with his family is marked by a mixture of happiness and uncertainty. He’s lost both hands and he and his loved ones are tentative as they approach each other. No amount of training could prepare him or the other men for the human element of returning home, for the way people will treat them and the ways that they’re almost strangers to people they’ve known all their lives.

Al is the next to go home, and his return is one of the great moments in cinema as he walks in the door and puts his finger to his lips so that his children won’t announce his presence. His wife, Milly (Myrna Loy), calls from the kitchen to ask who was at the door and slowly realizes that it must be Al. She goes into the hallway, looks at him for a moment, and then runs into his arms. Fred has a less welcoming homecoming when he finds that the woman he married before going overseas is nowhere to be found.

Soon after returning home, the intensity of these domestic scenes becomes too much for all three men, and they find themselves at the bar owned by Homer’s uncle. After Homer leaves, Fred and Al, along with Milly and their daughter, Peggy, (Teresa Wright), spread the party over the rest of the town until Milly and Peggy can finally convince the two men that enough’s enough and bring them home to get some sleep. Fred ends up at Al and Milly’s house after being unable to gain entry to his own (his wife is still MIA), and when he’s awakened the next morning by Peggy, it’s the beginning of a love affair, though neither knows it yet.

The lives of the three men are irrevocably altered and each struggles to be relevant in a changed world. Al was a banker before and returns to his job now charged with the task of granting or refusing loans to men returned from overseas. A conflict arises in him because the banker in him knows that his first client is a bad risk, but the serviceman in him wants to give him a chance. He grants the loan and is forced to explain himself. “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.” This is one of many instances where the film is critical of the treatment of veterans, expressing that anyone who risks their life for their country has the right to return to it and be repaid. Another moment comes when Fred returns to his former workplace, seeking a better job than the one he had before. The manager tells him that since he has no applicable training, he can’t be promoted to a higher position. Fred points out that he was fighting in a war during the time he might have had training, but the manager is unmoved. Fred walks out but is eventually forced to return and accept his old job working as a soda jerk in order to support himself and his wife, Marie (Virginia Mayo). The scene where the film is most critical of public reception of veterans comes when a stranger expresses to Homer that he lost his hands for nothing, that the war was pointless and driven by corrupt governmental powers. This is a striking moment, especially when seen today, and one of many which keeps the film seeming so fresh.

Director William Wyler guides the film with a light touch, guiding it towards the right notes and never allowing the material to become heavy handed or preachy. When Fred reconnects with his wife, we sense immediately that both were so caught up in the romantic idea of Fred going to war and coming home to Marie, that neither really bothered getting to know the other. Marie likes Fred’s uniform, which he of course no longer has a reason to wear. Fred wants a down-to-earth wife, which Marie, who likes to party, certainly is not. What Fred wants, he discovers, is to be with Peggy. She wants the same and announces to her parents one night that she intends to break up Fred’s marriage. Her parents are understandably unhappy about this, but receive the news calmly and the scene leads to a great speech by Loy about the struggle to maintain a relationship. Frederic March gets a number of scenes in which to show his considerable talent, my favourite coming after Peggy’s announcement, when Al goes to meet Fred. They sit across the table from each other and have a clipped conversation in which a couple of things are established: 1. Al doesn’t like the idea of Peggy running around with a married man; 2. Al wants to remain friends with Fred, but not if he puts Peggy in a compromising position; and 3. Al ultimately recognizes that Peggy has become an adult in his absence and understands that he has to let her make her own mistakes.

This is a wonderful and moving film with too many fantastic moments to name. If forced to choose the most powerful, I would have to say it’s the scene where Homer shows his fiancée Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell) just what his night time ritual entails, when he must remove his hooks and be “helpless as a baby” until someone can put them back on for him again in the morning. This scene transcends mere fiction because it was a fact of Harold Russell’s life. I dare you to try to watch it without getting misty.