William Wyler’s Academy Award winning The Best Years of Out Lives will be broadcast on TCM Saturday November 11th at 5PM. You can read about the film and other classics in my book Lessons in the Dark. Below are a couple of excerpts.
The Best Years of Our Lives has not dated at all. In fact, it remains extremely relevant to our lives today. Sadly, since World War II, we as a country, have been involved in wars or ‘conflicts,’ seemingly one right after another: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan being the major engagements and there have been numerous others, too many to list. In each case returning soldiers have faced emotional and physical adjustments and sometimes, like during the Vietnam War, were greeted with protests and indifference…
Over the years there have been many films that have focused on returning soldiers coming home with uncertainty or shell shock or with battle fatigue or post war syndrome, call it what you will, in works like Coming Home (1978), The Deer Hunter (1978) and more recently Home of the Brave (2006), and most recently, Stop-Loss (2008) and The Lucky Ones (2008). The Best Years of Our Lives was one of the first, if not the first, to focus on returning veterans coming home and adjusting to civilian life. It also remains the greatest.
You can read more about The Best Years of Our Lives and other films in my book Lessons in the Dark. Available at Amazon.
John Greco Author/Photographer 