William Wyler on scooter with Dana Andrews in uniform The Best Years of our Lives set 1946
by David Lee Guss
Title
William Wyler on scooter with Dana Andrews in uniform The Best Years of our Lives set 1946
Artist
David Lee Guss
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
"The Best Years of Our Lives is a 1946 American drama film directed by William Wyler and starring Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, and Harold Russell. The film is about three United States servicemen readjusting to civilian life after coming home from World War II. Samuel Goldwyn was inspired to produce a film about veterans after reading an August 7, 1944, article in Time about the difficulties experienced by men returning to civilian life. Goldwyn hired former war correspondent MacKinlay Kantor to write a screenplay. His work was first published as a novella, Glory for Me, which Kantor wrote in blank verse. Robert Sherwood then adapted the novella as a screenplay.
The Best Years of Our Lives won seven Academy Awards in 1946, including Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), Best Actor (Fredric March), Best Supporting Actor (Harold Russell), Best Film Editing (Daniel Mandell), Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert Sherwood), and Best Original Score (Hugo Friedhofer). In addition to its critical success, the film quickly became a great commercial success upon release. It became the highest-grossing film and most attended film in both the United States and UK since the release of Gone with the Wind."
"Between 1942 and 1945, Wyler, who became a United States citizen in 1928, served as a major in the United States Army Air Forces and directed a pair of documentaries: The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944), the story of a Boeing B-17 and its U.S. Army Air Force crew; and Thunderbolt! (1947), with Lester Koenig and John Sturges, highlighting a P-47 fighter-bomber squadron in the Mediterranean. Wyler filmed The Memphis Belle at great personal risk, flying over enemy territory on actual bombing missions in 1943; on one flight, Wyler passed out from lack of oxygen. Wyler's associate, cinematographer Harold J. Tannenbaum, was shot down and perished during the filming. Working on Thunderbolt! Wyler was exposed to such loud noise that he passed out. When he awoke, he found he was deaf. (He managed to continue to direct by using earphones connected to the cameraman's equipment, and recommended all directors do this, even those with no hearing issues, as it enabled them to hear the sound as it would be on the finished film.) Later, partial hearing came back in his left ear. Wyler returned from the War a disabled veteran.
Returning from the War and unsure whether he could work again, Wyler turned to a subject that he knew well[ and directed a film which captured the mood of the nation as it turned to peace after the war, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). This story of the homecoming of three veterans from World War II dramatized the problems of returning veterans in their adjustment back to civilian life. Arguably his most personal film, Best Years drew on Wyler's own experience returning home to his family after three years on the front."
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September 2nd, 2016
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