Best Years of Our Lives, The [Blu-ray]

** BLU-RAY UPDATE: The November 2013 Blu-ray issue of this title is a MAJOR UPGRADE from the DVD re-issue from January 2013. (See notes about that DVD below). Dirt, scratches and other debris have been digitally removed and the film now looks and sounds (DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0) gorgeous. The moment the opening credits roll, you know you're about to see the sharpest transfer of "The Best Years of Our Lives" ever released on home video. Keep in mind, however, that there's still some graininess present - which is common with vintage movies given the Blu-ray treatment - and I do not consider this a defect. While original negatives of old films never have the sharpness of movies shot today with high-resolution cameras, I'm not a fan of digital noise reduction - which removes details from each frame. All special features from the January 2013 DVD re-issue are also on this Blu-ray, with subtitles available on everything except the theatrical trailer. The 1995 interviews with Virginia Mayo and Teresa Wright were shot on video tape hence are NOT in high resolution - nor is the theatrical trailer, which is still ragged and has not been cleaned. Still, in my view, the November 2013 Blu-ray is now the "gold standard" for this title. Note also that this film is presented in its original 1:37:1 semi-square aspect ratio format. Like "Gone With the Wind," "Casablanca" and other Golden Age classics, "The Best Years of Our Lives" was NEVER shot with wide screen cameras.** DVD UPDATE: The January 2013 re-issue DVD offers NO improvement in picture or sound quality from previous DVD releases (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo). Beyond cosmetic changes to the box - this edition brings back the 1995 interviews with Virginia Mayo and Teresa Wright that were on the 1997 HBO Video DVD release of this film - and improves the look of the English subtitles - which were all left off the MGM DVD release in 2000. The January 2013 DVD release is a "must" ONLY if you want everything previously released - on one disc. Remember, the 1997 HBO Video issue was a "flipper" - part 1 of the movie and special features were on side one, part 2 of the movie was on side two. The 2000 MGM issue had NO English subtitles and NO special features other than an old trailer. The January 2013 issue has the entire movie, subtitles and all the aforementioned special features on one side of the disc, with "no flipping" required.===============================ORIGINAL CONTENT REVIEW BELOW.===============================* Just before legendary director William Wyler died, equally legendary director Billy Wilder was interviewed about his feelings about Wyler's films, from "Best Years of Our Lives" to "Roman Holiday" to "Ben Hur" to "Funny Girl."* Wilder, a tough man who hated schmaltz and sentiment, the director of such classics as "Double Indemnity," "Some Like it Hot," "The Apartment," "The Seven Year Itch" and "Sunset Boulevard," suddenly got emotional, expressing great affection for "The Best Years of Our Lives," noting that it was one of the best films he had ever seen.* He reacted the way I reacted. He said that it was the only film that he could remember where he and the entire audience were drenched in tears within the first 10 minutes. It was an unforgettable experience for him, and he recognized immediately that "The Best Years of Our Lives" was obviously a deeply personal work for Wyler, where every scene, every frame, every note of music and word of dialogue, rang true with authenticity and emotion. This was Wyler's territory. He knew the material. And many of the scenes that were shot mirrored his own experiences when he returned home from war.* This is why, after so many viewings, I still can't get over the fact that no matter how many times I say to myself, "I'm not going to be moved by this or that scene," I fail miserably. I just can't help it. To say that this is a great film is an understatement of the highest order. And yet I can only count on one hand the number of friends I know who have seen this film from start to finish. I think the running length has something to do with it. You never see it on commercial television at all and unless you're lucky enough to have cable, you'll miss it entirely. And it's not a film that people are banging down the doors to rent.* The wonderful thing about "The Best Years of Our Lives" is that it still holds up beautifully, unlike a lot of films that seem awkward or stilted. Fredric March, as the patriarch of the family (in an Oscar winning role), is stupendous. His acting and delivery of lines seems effortless and spontaneous, not the product of a script recited from memory. And to have Myrna Loy as his partner and the wonderful Teresa Wright playing his daughter (the latter an Oscar winner a few years earlier in "Mrs. Miniver"), how can you lose?* Like all great films, time has no meaning. The story sweeps you along like a great wave -- a ride -- that you never want to end. The famous "long hallway homecoming shot" that appears in the first 10 minutes of the film -- I don't care that it's the scene that most people remember and is usually the ONLY scene that turns up in any highlight reel of greatest films ever made -- it gets me every time.* And the ending, the last line from the movie, the one uttered by Dana Andrews -- despite the sentimental setting -- is so fabulously understated, negative and cynical - and yet filled with such hope, that you can't help but be -- what I describe as being -- "happily devastated." It's a wonderful ending that purposely leaves you guessing about what will become of the characters played by Teresa Wright and Dana Andrews, but you can't help but feel that their future looks bright in spite of their apparent state of destitution.* I just wish more people would see this film. There's a treasure chest of great movies from the past that people overlook every day. This is one of them. I pity people who still buy or rent movies based on slick packaging alone.* I would rather pay $10 to see this film on the big screen or less than $20 to own this film so I can see it on a little screen -- than pay about $4 to rent junk that has a good looking box -- and a few great critical reviews from people you've never heard of.* Some films are good enough to rent, but only a few films are good enough to buy. "The Best Years of Our Lives" is a film to BUY.

Many viewers of this great American movie -- it won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, for 1946 -- are unaware that it was based on a most unusual book-length narrative poem by MacKinlay Kantor, "Glory for Me," published in 1945.In 1970, I was a lieutenant working at the Air Force Historical Research Center. The older historians told a word-of-mouth story how the book and the movie came to be. No doubt the story had been embroidered over many years of retelling, but here's the way I heard it.In 1944, movie titan Samuel Goldwyn knew that whether the allied victory in World War II would come sooner, or later, millions of American veterans would return home. Many -- especially those with physical and psychological wounds -- would have trouble finding jobs and "readjusting."Goldwyn knew that journalist and playwright MacKinlay Kantor, who had flown missions with the 305th Bomb Group from England earlier in the war, had gotten to know American servicemen in combat at first hand. Goldwyn asked Kantor to write a screenplay for a planned movie on the veterans returning home.According to the story, Kantor had driven up to a Tennessee mountain retreat to work on the screenplay. He took his typewriter and a case of bourbon. He emerged some months later with empty bottles and "Glory for Me," written in the form of a narrative poem, not a screenplay. Goldwyn was not pleased, and he eventually gave Kantor's poem to Robert Sherwood to reshape for the screen. When the film finally appeared, Kantor was given a minimum of credit. Sherwood -- deservedly -- won the Oscar for Best Writing.If you like the movie, you will be richly rewarded by reading the poem.Kantor's and Sherwood's treatments of the same characters and the same American town ("Boone City") shows two gifted men working the same basic story in different literary forms, poem and screenplay. Reading the book allows one to discover how, here and there, they made some different creative choices.In Kantor's poem, Homer's disability is spasticity, which makes for some painful reading. Sherwood gave Homer a physical disability -- loss of hands and the use of prosthetic hooks. Sherwood's choice was a wise one for the moviegoing public, and few are the hearts not moved by Harold Russell's ortrayal of Homer in the film. But Kantor's portrayal of Homer and his girl Wilma are equally moving, perhaps because the poem gave more room for character development.When Frederic March played Al Stephenson -- the older sergeant returning to his prewar life as a banker at the Cornbelt Trust Company -- he masterfully compressed much of Kantor's material in eloquent but short scenes. In Kantor's fuller telling of the story, Al was the son of a pioneer banker who had made loans to farmers a generation earlier. The poem has more social and historical texture.In Kantor's poem, Homer's uncle Butch (Hoagy Carmichael's character in the movie) provides a vehicle to explore class feelings in pre- and post-war America. This was one of Kantor's themes that Sherwood could not fit into the film. Similarly, Kantor told his readers more about Novak (the veteran asking for a loan to open a nursery) and his experiences as a Seabee in the Pacific. Kantor's use of lilacs as a metaphor for peace and normality could not be picked up in the film.On the other hand, Sherwood changed the story line to say more about wartime marriages. Marie (Virginia Mayo in the film) proves shallow and unfaithful when Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) returns home. The movie's title, not found in Kantor's poem, came from a scene when the two argued.The book was published in January, 1945, months before the war ended. Kantor well anticipated the major contours of veteran adjustment, but there was more to his foresight. On the final page of the poem he showed real prescience when he alluded to the unresolved social tensions that all Americans, not just the veterans, would confront in the coming years.Reading habits have changed in the six decades since the book was published, and readers may now find that it takes some pages to adjust to the poetic form. Kantor's poetic shortcomings earned some dismissive reviews. Poems similar in form by Kantor's contemporaries like Stephen Vincent Benet are now dismissed as middlebrow when they are read at all. I am confident, though, that with each page the reader will find new lines and new scenes to savor and treasure."The Best Years of Our Lives" is a truly great American movie. "Glory for Me" deserves equal recognition. Kantor recognized the coming drama of the returning veterans. He dignified their individual struggles in a literary form that recalled the great epics and placed the American veterans among mankind's heroes. He gave an immortal film -- a film that affected tens of millions -- its basic structure, plot, characters, tone, and feeling.Not a bad result for a few months of solitude with a case of bourbon.-30-

Finally, a movie with a great story, great cast, great production, and a GREAT message for all to live.

Great acting and direction in reminding ourselves of the terrible cost of war

I came to this movie much too late, but I'm making up for it.it deserves all the praise it has receivedJust watch it.

Three World War 2 veterans flying home after the war and trying to accept change, still pulls at the heart strings after watching this film numerous times over the years. I get a lump in my throat every time I watch their home coming. I understand this feeling as I also have been away from home on many occasions for longer than a year (not in the military or war) to travel and work abroad, and I understand the deep emotional feeling of coming home to somewhere you believe will be the same, but it never is, as time changes everything. A very emotional movie on every level, and I couldn’t find fault with any aspect of the film.Just purchased this DVD edition at 163 minutes long, but I’ve seen it as 170 and 182 minutes long. I don’t understand the variations, but if I could see another 19 minutes I surely would, although they may be scenes that lessen the quality of the film.You can’t have a good movie without having a good screenplay, production, direction, acting, photography, editing, music and other categories we all take for granted, which is why it won 8 Academy Awards.It was voted Best Film of 1946, the story was well written by Robert E Sherwood who was an Oscar winner for his adapted screenplay. Directed superbly by William Wyler (Oscar winner) and photographed by Gregg Toland. Hugo Friedhofer received an Oscar for his very touching and moving music. Editor Daniel Mandell was also an Oscar winner.Sergeant Fredric March comes home to kids that have grown up and a wife (Myrna Loy) whom he still loves very much, and returns to the bank as someone to provide loans to veterans; he gives a loan without any collateral believing the ex-soldier’s security is inside him. He won a best actor Oscar for his performance, and had been nominated 5 times during his career, but Myrna Loy had never been nominated. I believe the whole cast was very professional in their contributions to the film, and all worthy of nominations.Ex-bomber Captain Dana Andrews returns to his unfaithful wife (Virginia Mayo) that causes the marriage not to work out, he then reluctantly returns to his old employer from lack of job prospects; now working under a pompous guy who was originally beneath him, but because he didn’t serve now has more experience from his narrow-minded existence. In support of Harold Russell he hits an outspoken hypocrite against the war (Ray Teal) and quits his degraded position, but before leaving town is offered a manual job dismantling old war planes that had been part of his life. Near the end after being best man at Russell’s wedding to childhood sweetheart (Cathy O’Donnell), he again strikes up a friendship with Fredric March’s daughter (Teresa Wright) and you know there love will last, because of his willingness to change from war experience. Dana Andrews’ character is the main link between all the other characters.Sailor Harold Russell deservedly won an Academy Award for his supporting performance as the veteran struggling to cope with his handicap after both lower arms were amputated and he depends on hooks, returning to his parents he doesn’t want sympathy only the right to be accepted as he is. He was a real World War Two amputee who lost both hands in an explosion; had no training as an actor, and received a second Oscar for the inspirational hope he gave to others. Apparently in 1993 he needed money – and sold one of his Oscars for $60,500.All the main actors lived to be in their 80’s except Frederic March who died from cancer at about 78 years, and Cathy O’Donnell who in her early 20’s had a tremendous start with this her first film, but died at 47 years from a cerebral haemorrhage. For me this film never ages, and all those people involved had respect for each other, and take you on a journey in an unforgettable movie.

史上名高い本作はブルーレイでの発売がなく、観ることがないまま過ごしてきた。いつまでも待てなくなり、思い切ってエー・アール・シーのDVDの購入に踏み切った訳だがpressed in Taiwanで、「一部見苦しい部分、聞き苦しい部分あり」との注意書きがあった。従って画質に対しては全く期待していなかったが、見始めると傷･汚れは全く無く画像は鮮明。更に、モノクロの階調も滑らかで、台詞も聞きやすく、一部にフィルム粒子がみられるが７５年前の作品としては上質なもので、大変驚かされた。すっかり嬉しくなったので2時間50分の長尺を一気に見ることが出来た次第。この高画質があったればこそ、グレッグ・トーランドの有名なパンフォーカス画面が堪能できると言えるだろう。価格は550円でとてもお得だし、日本語字幕・吹き替えと英語字幕・音声が切り替え可能なのも有り難い。唯一の問題は字幕・音声の切り替えがメインメニューの戻らないと出来ないことくらいだろう。作品評価は多くの方々が発表しており、名作であることが確認できたので言及は必要ないと思い割愛する。なお、若き日のホーギー・カーマイケルの姿と歌声が聞けたのは収穫であった。

This is a wonderful movie about returning war veterans struggle to rejoin society and lead a normal life after the trauma of war. A must see!

Best Years of Our Lives ASIN: B009L147EE (Edición USA) Gran película con una imagen excelente. Aunque según la información de Amazon es región A, (Estados Unidos y Canada) es perfectamente visible en Europa con reproductores convencionales. Como extra, únicamente el trailer. Audio: inglés. Subtítulos en inglés, español latino y francés. Muy recomendable.