The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives is a very interesting film made just as the Second World War had come to a close, and the fighting men were returning home. The film had won big at the 1946 Oscars, and for good reason, as it was both a melodramatic film, and a very topical one, as the story itself involved the adjustments that soldiers had to face upon returning home.
Three soldiers (Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Harold Russell) meet up while trying to find a flight back to their home town. The three men had never met before, even though all three were in the war, and in fact live in the same town. The reason for this seems to be that the three are completely different men -- March was a high-ranking employee at the bank, Andrews was working at the pharmacy, and Russell was a college football star. These guys lived in completely different worlds, until the war forced people of all backgrounds into a common cause.
The three guys return home, and for a while, go on their separate ways. Each person has a very unique situation. March's character is pressured to work at the bank again, getting promoted to small loans officer. Andrews' character returns to his wife, who seems more interested in the fact that she married an officer and a gentleman rather than the fact that she married this specific person, and is sorely disappointed when he is forced to return to his old job as part time soda jerk at the pharmacy, while Russell's character has to contend with the fact that he is a double amputee, having lost both his forearms in an explosion. He's returning home to a family, and to a girlfriend, and has severe doubts, bordering on self-loathing, on whether anyone could appreciate him for who he was, rather than noticing his lack of arms.
Some important issues are discussed. When Andrews visits the pharmacy, we see a shot of a couple of employees lamenting the fact that the soldiers are returning home, and wanting to return to their jobs, in effect displacing people who got work due to the exodus of people going off to war. We are also reminded, very briefly, that more women were working at this time -- Andrews' wife was working at a club during the war. The man isn't too impressed, and is able to convince her to quit her job, now that he's here to bring home the bacon.
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