Talk:The Best Years of Our Lives

Plot holes
It is unlikely that an older draftee like the character Al would have become an infantryman. In Stephen Ambrose's book Citizen Soldiers, it is explained that most older draftees were employed using their civilian skills. Most front line soldiers were under 25. My father, who was a 26 year old civilian machinist, was put in a motor pool as a machinist. --rogerd 10:57, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Good point, though I don't really think it was a plot hole. During the 2nd World War, the US drafted single men up to age 45. In 1946, when the film was released, March who played the part of Al was 49 years old. My uncle, who was 42 when he enlisted in 1942, became a US Army Air Force aircraft engine mechanic in the States and was discharged in poor health in 1944 (per his discharge papers). --TGC55 14:47, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Not really. He could have been a volunteer, or a WWI veteren, in each case he would have been sent overseas. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.82.48.186 (talk • contribs) 13:38, November 4, 2006  (UTC)
 * Oh, there were plenty of soldiers over 30 overseas. Most of them were mechanics, supply clerks, personnel clerks, translators, worked in medical-related fields, or other vital support roles, but not front-line soldiers.  If he had been a WWI vet, he might have been assigned to a training role.  They weren't about to assign soldiers that were less physically capable to front-line roles just because they volunteered for it.  If you read Ambrose's book, you would see that half of the men in the ETO where not functioning in a direct combat role.  This is much the same in the modern US Army, however today's US Army does tend to have older soldiers in combat roles, probably due to better conditioning.  --rogerd 19:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Careful watching of the movie and an understanding of the rank structure of the US Army will reveal that an infantry sergeant is not necessarily a combat role; each infantry company also had NCOs in support roles such as company quartermaster or company first sergeant, an administrative position. Had he been a company first sergeant, he would have worn three "rockers" and a lozenge, but would have reverted to his "hard" stripes upon being sent home - entirely possible here in the film.68.146.200.201 09:28, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

You're all assuming that all assignments of people to specific job functions in the four million man Army during World War II were completely logical. While many were, some were just made based on who was available and the specific need at the moment. Also transfers between branches were common, with many Coast Artillery (which then included Anti-Aircraft Artillery) personnel being transfered in bulk to Infantry in 1944, due to reduction in Axis airpower and need for replacement infantry personnel.

From his speech, Al was a platoon sergeant on Okinawa (May 1945). In many infantry units, lieutenants were usually in short supply, so many platoons were led by older sergeants. Also, none of the characters ever mentions whether they were drafted or volunteered. GCW50 (talk) 02:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

In Kantor's Glory for Me, this issue was addressed. Stephenson was class of 24 at Harvard, so born probably 1902, thus 39 or 40 at start of the war. Kantor certainly knew what he was writing about.--Jrm2007 (talk) 08:21, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

My father was almost 32 years old when drafted in 1942. He served in the 24th Infantry Division in the Pacific as a rifleman and took part in five major landings. His highest rank was PFC. So those over 25 did serve in the infantry.70.136.142.112 (talk) 01:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Biggest plot hole to me was the disappearance of Michael Hall who had the best line of the entire film when he begins obsessing of the future of the meaning of nuclear weapons: an obsession for the world of his generation for the next 50 years - and it is clearly seen here in 1946. The beauty of the scene is the immediate disconnect but the son and father who hadn't seen each other during his formative years - the boy wasn't interested in the toys (the real samurai sword) that his father brought home for him.  The kid is basically ret-conned for the rest of the show.  The scene was the reason I sought out the film.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.48.170.188 (talk) 16:49, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

New rewrite started
I welcome any comments on the rewrite that was just undertaken. FWIW Bzuk (talk) 09:05, 5 March 2008 (UTC).


 * The cast section should be: actor as character, hence, my update. Otherwise, nice job.  Luigibob (talk) 09:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Luigi, the new section does list cast in a template box, you also have eliminated references and changed an entire section. I am reverting to the original edit and ask you to wait until I have made further changes. Bzuk (talk) 14:04, 5 March 2008 (UTC).
 * I and (more importantly) MOS:FILM agree with Luigibob. Clarityfiend (talk) 14:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The use of a simple cast list is not inconsistent with any guidelines but this cast section is not a cast list at all, it is a wholesale description of individual roles. Eliminating other AGF contributions is also involved. Bzuk (talk) 03:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC).


 * Are you enamored with cast templates. I surely am not. And I am willing to re-write plot to make that fit.  That is the only problem I have.  Luigibob (talk) 05:21, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * What is now present is a rewrite of the plot rather than a cast list, and rather than being a graphic, easy to read form, it is a repetitive derivative that is an inconsistent and jarring note. I have no qualms about using a visual cue which is what I believe that a cast list represents and I have written them in a variety of fashions to suit the type of article. The use of the cast list table is neither my creation nor is it an issue if it was not allowed. A template box is merely that, a box providing information. Where the present edit refers to the character's role in a developed sentence for each main character, that does not leave much room for information about casting decisions, choice of actors for the role and any other aspects of casting that could have been provided. My decision to use what other editors had developed was based on how the article has related information to the reader. If a cast list based on the main characters in the order that they appeared in the screen credits did not make sense, I would have considered the edit now used as suitable. The other specious argument that tables are not allowed by the MOS: Film guidelines is not present in the statement about casts. This note states: "Background information about the cast and crew should be provided, ideally as well-written prose, and as well, The key is to provide plenty of added value "behind the scenes" background production information, without simply re-iterating IMDB. Of course, some film articles will lend themselves to one style better than others. Failing that, a cast list inserted into the body of the article may be appropriate, though some editors frown on lists inside articles." Reading any more into this guideline is an example of WP:OWN and certainly not conducive to a discourse about the relative merits of the decisions to go one way or the other. The strictly "this is the way it should be argument" and reversion of AGF submissions does not provide a balanced approach. FWIW, if your positions are firm, I have no recourse and will not continue this lively "banter." Bzuk (talk) 11:41, 12 March 2008 (UTC).
 * Urk. What's there now isn't what I envisioned. I have to agree with Bzuk - the descriptions are really unnecessary. As for tables, the general MOS says they should be avoided for simple lists; however, at this point, I'd accept either format. Finally, what the heck does AGF mean? Clarityfiend (talk) 20:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Clarity, thanks for your input; AGF means "assume good faith" which is what I was indicating was what I hoped other editors would see. I have no abiding interest in this particular article other that I thought some additional information may be useful. As to the cast list list, I see it merely as a listing and normally only provide additional details regarding casting such as problems in getting a "star name" or other casting decisions. Sometimes the star that is first cast decides against the production, and "ankles" it; I love that term as it clearly shows that the original star thought better of the deal and took off. There is a bit of hurt feelings over the edit that was made but rest assured, once others have a singular attachment, I usually will try to extend a compromise but if it doesn't work, so be it, I just move on. Anyways, thanks again for your many contributions to clarity (the reasoning behind your moniker, I presume)... FWIW, my one-and-half cents worth. Bzuk (talk) 02:01, 13 March 2008 (UTC).

I wonder where you got your information that Harold Russell used his Oscar sale money for a "cruise" for his wife instead of medical bills for his wife. I can find absolutely no references to this statement anywhere.Zabadu (talk) 22:09, 26 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I took the rewrite and broke it into set up, story and conclusion with some additions. I hope this works OK but I think a lot of class issues were forgotten between All and Fred. Also, Homer and Wilma's relationship probably has the most powerful moment of the movie so I quickly plotted it in. Writing this now as I just watched this great last night Cocoablini (talk). 21:29, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Aviation elements in the film
Although The Best Years of our Lives is recognized as a treatise on the veterans that were returning from war, it also represents a unique aviation film. Director William Wyler had served as a Lt. Colonel in the USAAF throughout the war and had created the landmark Memphis Belle documentary in 1944, chronicalling the last mission of a B-17 crew. The film itself as well as the follow-up documentary, Thunderbolt which was shot in 1944 but released later in 1947, used a "composite style" that combined the stores of diverse characters, albeit real-life combat aviators set in an aviation milieu. Wyler became engrossed with the stories of these flyers and endeavoured to find a way to encapsulate the epiloque to his wartime creations. In planning and preproduction, Wyler went back to the community of filmmakers and artists he knew well, seeking out famed film flyer and stunt pilot Paul Mantz, who he hired to take on the position of Air Operations Director (generally known in aviation circles as the "Air Boss"). Mantz had an impressive list of aviation related films to his credit including John Ford's Air Force (1943) and Victor Fleming's A Guy Named Joe (1944), and later was instrumental in recreating the aviation armada sequences of the epic Twelve O'Clock High (1947).

More importantly, Wyler and Mantz developed the film treatment with the main characters returning from war, looking through the singularily narrow perspective of the glass "bubble" of the front compartment of a wartime bomber, reenacting the visual impact that had been so much a part of the wartime Wyler documentaries. From the vantage of a bombardier's cupola, each of the main characters stare out on a familiar yet alien landscape to which they are entering. Mantz used his converted B-25 bomber "camera ship" to recreate the feeling of the veterans looking out on a postwar world that they are not yet able to understand. The dramatic opening sequences of the film were painstakingly compiled by Wyler and Mantz along with Gregg Toland's cinematography crew to capture the emotional upheaval of the returning airman, soldier and seaman.

While the ensemble cast included all the three services, it is the character of Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) who provides a poignant portrait of the veteran who at first cannot come to grips with his future. As a decorated bombardier who had risen through the ranks spectacularly due to his combat service, Derry is now faced with the prospect of returning to a life where he held a lowly job as a "soda jerk" and reconciling that he may never be able to recapture the stature of his air force days. As Derry walks among the hulks of an earie graveyard of bombers, he climbs back into the bombardier's station of a B-17 where he had flown many missions over Europe. Toland's remarkable skills in creating the sights (and sounds) of the bomber coming to life engrosses the audience in the turmoil of Derry's mind retracing a combat flight before jarringly bringing him back to reality. He realizes that the cathartic imaginary mission is over and he is sitting in the remains of his former dangerous but glorious life, one which he has to finally abandon. Derry returns to his former life, choosing to become a laborer and leaving behind not only the memories of his wartime career but also his garish war bride (Virginia Mayo) and start a new life with Peggy Stephenson (Teresa Wright).

Where The Best Years of Our Lives also is considered a significant aviation film is its use of the "boneyard" sequence where the row upon row of combat aircraft were stored as the postwar air force first retired then destroyed the massive aerial armadas that had been manufactured in the U.S. Wyler and Toland devoted a significant amount of film footage to a "graveyard" sequence filmed at a former air force base, Ontario Army Air Field, located 25 miles east of Los Angeles. Although this converted air base was one of the smaller scrap yards used by the USAAF, the large numbers of junked aircraft, some stacked on top of each other, others jammed row upon row, awaiting their eventual meltdown, so moved Wyler that he established the boneyard as a visual metaphor of the end of the era. Wyler brought Fred Derry back to his combat life, as he strides thorough the bomber row, still wearing his leather aviator's jacket before climbing into a bomber and sitting in the bombardier's station, peering out of the dusty, crazed plexiglass and then dramatically reliving the emotional experiences of the life-and-death missions that he flew. Other than Lady Takes a Flyer (1958), no other feature length film recreates that fleeting moment in aviation history where the hundred of thousands of combat aircraft were unceremoniously scrapped and destroyed.

In August 1944, Mantz left the USAAF with an honorable discharge as he began to plan out his postwar career. He decided to go to the reclamation centers to purchase a fleet of combat aircraft for film use. Concentrating on revitalizing his 17-odd movie aircraft fleet, Mantz was one of the first to recognize the value of purchasing the USAAF's surplus aircraft which were being sold for as little as $350 for a B-17 bomber (at Kingman Army Airfield). At the end of the war, Mantz purchased a fleet of 475 war-surplus bombers and fighters, including the front line P-51 Mustang fighters, for $55,000. His intention was to use some of this massive armada in film work – at the time, Mantz joked that he had the sixth-largest air force in the world. Despite the critics that lampooned his investment, Mantz immediately drained the fuel onboard and sold it off to make a profit on his initial investment. Retaining only 12 aircraft, the remainder of his "air force" was sold off as "scrap" at a handsome profit. One of the surviving Mantz aircraft was a B-25 that he converted into a specialized camera platform to be used for the first time in The Best Years of Our Lives and remained as the stalwart of Mantz and later Tallmantz Productions' camera aircraft, being employed in other landmark productions such as The Battle of Britain (1969) as well as countless other productions. Is The Best Years of Our Lives an aviation film, yes, it is. FWIW Bzuk (talk) 13:04, 15 March 2008 (UTC).

Popular culture
References to the impact of a seminal film such as The Best Years of Our Lives is a difficult area to address. There are a number of articles that address this topic, chiefly WikiProject Popular Culture. Any submission must meet the "test" of being notable and have a significant impact on the general public. The use of singular articles, episodes, songs or mentions in other works is often problematic. I would like to discuss this issue further considering the recent contributions to this section. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 18:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC).

Possable Oscar Nominations
Here is the list of Oscars wich the film has won

Here is the list of Oscars wich the film has could/should have been nominated
 * Best Actress - Myrna Loy
 * Best Supporting Actor - Dana Andrews
 * Best Supporting Actress - Teresa Wright
 * Best Art Direction (Black-and-White) - Perry Ferguson, George Jenkins and Julia Heron
 * Best Cinematography (Black-and-White) - Gregg Toland
 * Best Special Effects - John P. Fulton and Harry Redmond Sr.

Mr Hall of England (talk) 19:37, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

MacKinlay Kantor Controversy
I added this section today, a matter which has deserved public airing since this page was added. The information comes from "My Father's Voice: MacKinlay Kantor Long remembered," by his son, Tim Kantor, 1988. He writes that MacKinlay began drinking heavily when he saw control of his fine novel being lost to Hollywood moguls. After I read that biography, I wrote up a list of questions and entered into some correspondence with the author. Sadly, that was so long ago that I have lost the correspondence. A word of suggestion: reading Glory for Me is a delightful experience for any voracious reader. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.128.142.167 (talk • contribs) 16:47, April 12, 2010
 * Consider a rewrite using encyclopedic tone and providing verifiable statements, preferably from pages in the source material. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 00:35, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Reader: This comment backs up the above reportage.

MacKinlay Kantor was hired to be a co-writer of the screen play. He gradually became outraged. One of the three original returning soldiers - read Glory For Me - was disabled by closed brain injury, due to penetrating shrapnel. Sam Goldwyn replaced this character with a war veteran who suffered double arm amputation, below the elbow. This nice man was a one-trick Dog and Pony Show. In learning to use his 2 prosthetic limbs, he mastered striking a match he delicately removed from a standard match pack. The Director taught him to speak lines.

Kantor began boozing on the set. Sam Goldwyn then told MacKinlay the film would be called The Best Years Of Our Lives. THIS was too much. Goldwyn had not been to war, not seen war. The book title Glory for Me comes from a classic Protestant HYMN. The words express belief that getting to Heaven is sufficient enough reward. One does not need a Crown with stars, nor to be close to the Hem of the Garment. Just getting there: "Oh that will be / Glory for me". The point is that the mantra of all men in war is this: "I just want to get home, I just want to get home".

After confronting Sam Goldwyn over the chutzpah to transvalue value - see Niestche - Kantor walked off the Hollywood film set, never to return. When the film was released in theaters, the opening credits showed this statement: "BASED UPON A BOOK BY MACKINLAY KANTOR". The conniving Sam Goldwyn realized that if the book Glory For Me was named 1) people would read it and see the liberties he had taken, 2) Kantor might benefit economically. This information came from MY written correspondence with the son of MacKinlay Kantor - whose book Andersonville won the 1956 Pulitzer Prize. -- Edward Chilton — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.82.56.107 (talk) 12:12, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

See also, for equivalents
The article has no such section now.

There are plenty of films with guys lobbing grenades at one another; there are not so many serious dramatic ones about veterans reintegrating.

At least from my (admittedly middle-aged) perspective, this is the obvious film of that type.

Is it worthwhile having some of those alternatives listed in a See Also here?

Or are there enough to justify a page of its own on that theme?

Iraq has got The Lucky Ones which no one saw. Vietnam has Jacknife which no one saw. And so on.

Varlaam (talk) 14:28, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

1st BEST PICTURE WINNER BASED ON WORLD WAR 2?
No doubt that "The Best Years of Our Lives" was the first post war film to win a best picture Oscar based on World War 2. However, "Casablanca" I feel is undeniably set and based on the events of World War 2 and won a Best Picture Oscar several years earlier. Should the note in the opening synopsis be edited? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.127.72.6 (talk) 08:40, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Phoenixville Hoax?!
Copy/paste from the article: There are numerous websites reporting that some of the film was shot in Phoenixville, PA, including the use of that city's Farmers and Mechanics Bank in the film's bank scenes. This is all false information. All of these sites (including, up until today, the Wikipedia site) have the exact same wording re: Phoenixville, so the wrong information appeared somewhere and was spread around the internet. There seems to be confusion with the film "Bright Victory," which had some hospital scenes filmed there. And scenes from the 1958, The Blob were filmed there. But The Best Years of Our Lives was not shot in Phoenixville.
 * So, don't add this information. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:46, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Blank verse?
The statement that Glory for Me is written in blank verse is not correct, despite the citation of four sources, including one in which Kantor is quoted as using the term. Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter, which is to say that the abstract pattern or template is ten syllables, the even-numbered ones accented: Ta TUM, Ta TUM, Ta TUM, Ta TUM, Ta TUM. See the Wikipedia article on blank verse. Glory for Me is written in mostly iambic lines of varying lengths. Here are the opening seven lines:

Fred Derry, twenty-one, and killer of a hundred men, Walked on the width of Welburn Field. The cargo ship Had set him down in noontime haze of early spring. He smelled the onion farms: He heard the trucks in Highway 52, He saw the signboards, and the ugliness That was a beauty he had dreamed.

Here we have, in order, iambic heptameter, iambic hexameter, iambic hexameter, iambic trimeter, iambic pentameter, iambic pentameter, iambic tetrameter.

Later, lines sometimes become much shorter for extended stretches, as in section xvi, for one example.

Hstaylor4 (talk) 04:23, 24 October 2019 (UTC)