A Convential Topical Film

Rating: 8/10 (4 September 2008)

William Wyler was inarguably a supreme Hollywood craftsman who thrived under the studio system from the 1930s to the 1950s, an important example for today's filmmakers to discover and follow. His painstaking methods with actors are cruel and insensitive, though there is something to be said when he has directed 31 different Oscar-nominated performances by 31 different actors, 13 of them having won. What is so important about his film-making style is his subtle language that holds complete bearing over the tone of his films, a technique based on long takes and the dramatic possibilities of deep focus shots.
This suitably extensive film begins right after WW II, as discharged servicemen played by Dana Andrews, Harold Russell and Frederic March meet while hitching a ride home to a Midwestern city in which they all happen to live. One was a captain and bombardier who still endures from nightmares of combat. Russell had been in the Navy and lost both of his hands with mechanical hook prostheses in their stead. March served as an infantry sergeant fighting in the Pacific.
Wyler himself was commissioned a major in the Air Force during World War II and on his return to Hollywood shot The Best Years of Our Lives. Having such fresh and similar experience to his characters, this should have been at least as powerful as The Heiress because of how personally he perceives it, just as he did The Heiress. And while it holds touching passages, this epic hometown drama does not pack the wallop it promises. It is a traditional melodrama about the troubles of servicemen struggling to be relevant to life in postwar America and readjust to the lives to which they return, and as this it is good, not dull or badly made by any means. Despite a flat performance by Russell, one for which you can't blame him, for he never was an actor before but a serviceman himself who trained paratroopers with explosives with an outcome identical to that of his unfortunate character, this film is capably dished up by its especially good performances by Fredric March, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo and Hoagy Carmichael, who can act out dialogue while playing the piano, in addition to clever deep-focus setups.