A Vital Story Of Returning Veterans That Morphs Into A Love Story For The Ages

Rating: 10/10 (14 June 2017)

In a movie full of superlative acting performances, including Oscars for two of the three returning vets, it was the third vet, Fred Derry, played by Dana Andrews, who "steals" the movie--thus making Andrews's performance the best to not win the Oscar in it's history.
This movie contains many notable scenes, the four that touched me most were: when Fredric March starts drinking heavily before his being honored before the bank trustees--I felt myself tensing up, hoping he wouldn't "blow it" at the podium, and that's tribute to masterful direction and acting.
The second scene was when Fred Derry is told by March to stop seeing his daughter, and when Fred goes to the phone to break it off, you can see him in the back of the bar, talking on the phone, and when he hangs up the receiver, he holds it for a long moment, and that was powerful to see, even though he was in the back of the bar, and a scene was playing out in the foreground, your eyes are always on Fred on the phone.
Third is the terror of the plane field full of decapitated war planes, which the director used to mimic the broken psyches of the returning vets who had been tossed aside. Finally, the final scene of the wedding, where Fred reunites with Teresa Wright's character, and you see him from behind, as the best man, and he turns to look at her and she is tearing up--Wyler uses a large hat to help "funnel" her face towards Fred's--he turns back to the wedding, and when they go into their wedding vows, he turns again towards her, and they never look away, and when the pastor says "you may kiss the bride", and Homer and Wilma share a modest kiss, Fred staggers towards Teresa Wright and plants a kiss of pure unadulterated passion on her, and it's the best scene ever filmed, in my opinion. I'm tearing up now.