The Best Years of Our Lives(1946)

I took the last of the Anti-Biotics this morning, and probably feel about 75-80% back to normal...whatever the Hell normal is 40 days before my 61st birthday....no games last night, but tonight at Spencerville begins 3 days of pretty intense activity on the basketball court....2 games tonight, a JV Boys game at Allen East tomorrow evening, and then Saturday I have a boys Freshman contest at Wapak in the morning, followed by a guys JV game at Lima Perry on Saturday night. This should give my Bronchitis recovery a test.

PRH, the Movie Critic____

On occasion on this blog, I have mentioned movies that I like, those I hate are not worth mentioning...It should come as no suprise that many of the movies I rate as "favorites" came before I was born. Movies, especially those cranked out in the movie factories of the late 1930s and 1940s, featured actors and actresses that we just that...the movies either sank or swam on the dialog, scripts, and talents of those actors...there were no big special effects to support the movies, in fact most of the special effects were comedic by today's standards...the movies were far superior, In my opinion.

Tuesday evening after I completed my games at St. Henry, I came home, showered, and sat my butt on my leather recliner....I grabbed the remote and checked out what movies were on tap on Turner Movie Classics..."10pm-1am The Best Years of Our Lives". Now I was pretty well dragging from the Bronchitis and the games, but this movie is without a doubt in my top 5 of all time...I have it on DVD, but for some reason I decided to wait until it came on TMC and give that a go.....I made it until 11:15 and hit the sack....so yesterday I dusted off the DVD case that contained the movie and loaded it up. After fast forwarding the disk, I picked up where the movie had left off on Tuesday night.

The Best Years of our Lives and the various "trailers" and some posters proclaim it a Love Story...while technically this may be true, it is much more than that, otherwise I sure the heck wouldn't put it near, let alone on the top, of my list of favorite movies...right up there with Rear Window(1954), Casablanca(1943), Blazing Saddles(1974), and American Graffiti(1973).

"Years" is the post World War II epic that although long(174 minutes) is worth the watch, I view it at least 2 or 3 times a year. The story of 3 men back from the war heading to their hometown of "Boon City"(Actually based and overhead shots filmed in Cincinnati, Ohio). Fredric March, Dana Andrews, and Harold Russell, one each from the Army, Air Force, and Navy, play men that return home to their various lives and loves, and the difficult adjustments that face them back in the world. Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, and Cathy O'Donnell, are all superb as the women in their lives...Ray Collins, Hoagy Carmichael, and others round out the outstanding supporting cast.

The Best Years of Our Lives Won 7 of 8 Academy Awards that it was nominated for, including 2 for first time actor Russell, a real veteran who lost his hands during the war. Russell for playing the particularly hard life adjustments for those returning disabled vets. The only slight I note is that Andrews was not one of the nominees, as the Air Force decoraded fly boy adjusting to his free thinking wife and lack of finding a quality job on his return, while falling in lover with Al's(March) daughter, played by Wright....he was outstanding, as were Wright, Mayo, and Loy.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036868/awards

A Love Story? Perhaps, but in my mind a classic for the ages, that will always be relevant, as long as there are men and women returning from war. If there are 5 star movies, give The Best Years of Our Lives 5 1/2. If you've never had the pleasure of seeing it, you owe it to yourselves to do just that.

Out to run some errands and pay some bills....

back later>>>>

Photos-Post from The Best Years of Our Lives(1946), Harold Russell, Dana Andrews, and Fredric March, peer out the windows of the B-17 approaching their hometown of Boon City(Cincinnati),(left to Right) Russell, Teresa Wright, Andrews, Myrna Loy, Hoagy Carmichael(back), and Fredric March, the heart of the outstanding cast, and Carmichael, Russell, and Andrews "belly up to the bar"