Michelle Keenan’s Pick:
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
A few weeks ago I caught part of William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives on Turner Classic movies, and it has stuck with me since. It’s a film I’ve seen a few times over the years, but not in a while and it’s a film worth revisiting or discovering for the first time. So, in honor of Veteran’s Day and all those who have bravely served our country at home and away, The Best Years of Our Lives is my DVD pick of the month.
The Best Years of Our Lives took the Oscar for Best Picture that year (and seven additional Oscars, including an honorary Oscar for Harold Russell) and was, at that time, the second biggest box office hit (behind Gone With the Wind). The country was just emerging and beginning to heal from World War II. This film tells the stories of three men returning home from the war, all damaged in different ways, to resume their pre-war lives in a post-war America.
Al Stephenson (Frederic March), in his 40s, was an infantryman and is now returning home to his now grown family and his cushy job at the bank where he worked. Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) was a bomber pilot and is now returning to a wife he barely knows and life as a soda jerk. Las but now least, Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) was Navy man who has hooks for hands after losing his hands during the war.
The three men didn’t know each other before the war or even during the war; they meet on the transport plane on their way home. Al and his wife of twenty years (Myrna Loy) are nervous as newlyweds and he feels uncomfortable at home. Feeling skittish he talks Milly and his daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright) into going to Butch’s, a local watering hole.
Fred can’t find his sexy bride (Virginia May), who works in nightclubs and enjoys the highlife and soon heads to Butch’s. Homer, unable to deal with the sympathetic looks from his family and his girl Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell) and also heads to Butch’s. There the trio meet, make merry and begin the transition to life on the home front. It should be noted that Hoagy Carmichael plays Butch, so with Hoagy tickling the ivories and pouring the drinks, it’s bound to be a good place to recuperate from war.
In one of the most profoundly poignant and famous scenes, Fred has decided to leave town in search of work. While waiting for his flight, he walks through a graveyard of warplanes. Like him, the planes, once vital and important, are no longer needed.
More than six decades later The Best Years of Our Lives stands the test of time and still feels modern. After years of flag waving patriotism, this was one of the first films to take a more sobering look at the affects of war. It’s direct, it’s honest and its appeal is universally American.
Chip Kaufmann’s Pick:
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Having reviewed Tim Burton’s latest effort, Frankenweenie, for this issue, it’s appropriate that my DVD pick be Burton’s Edward Scissorhands (1990). It was the first film that fully allowed Burton to introduce direct biographical elements into his work and the movie that really introduced Johnny Depp to the world. It also gave Vincent Price his last significant film role.
Edward Scissorhands is set in a fairy tale suburban neighborhood of pastel houses and a Gothic castle at the end of the street. The story concerns the titular character (Depp), a young man created by a lonely old inventor (Price) who dies before giving him a pair of hands leaving him with only scissors for appendages.
He is taken in by a cosmetic saleslady (Dianne Wiest) and her family (which includes Winona Ryder and Alan Arkin) where he tries to fit in. After a successful beginning he is eventually rejected by the neighborhood because of his differences and he leaves them to go back to the castle to live alone.
Every detail from the colors of the neighborhood to Depp’s black body suit, to the performances by an ensemble cast, are right on the money. If you’ve never seen Edward Scissorhands, you should. If you’ve seen it before, you need to see it again, especially if you’ve just seen Frankenweenie.