2024 the best years of our lives book review

Price: $29.95
(as of Nov 21, 2024 00:04:25 UTC - Details)

2023 Wall Award Finalist, Theatre Library Association

How a Hollywood gem transformed the national discourse on post-traumatic stress disorder.

Released in 1946, The Best Years of Our Lives became an immediate success. Life magazine called it “the first big, good movie of the post-war era” to tackle the “veterans problem.” Today we call that problem PTSD, but in the initial aftermath of World War II, the modern language of war trauma did not exist. The film earned the producer Samuel Goldwyn his only Best Picture Academy Award. It offered the injured director, William Wyler, a triumphant postwar return to Hollywood. And for Harold Russell, a double amputee who costarred with Fredric March and Dana Andrews, the film provided a surprising second act.

Award-winning author Alison Macor illuminates the film’s journey from script to screen and describes how this authentic motion picture moved audiences worldwide. General Omar Bradley believed The Best Years of Our Lives would help “the American people to build an even better democracy” following the war, and the movie inspired broad reflection on reintegrating the walking wounded. But the film’s nuanced critique of American ideals also made it a target, and the picture and its creators were swept up in the anti-Communist witch hunts of the late 1940s. In this authoritative history, Macor chronicles the making and meaning of a film that changed America.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Texas Press; Reprint edition (September 5, 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1477328335
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1477328330
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.1 x 9 inches
Reviewer: ironchefflorida
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An enlightening read
Review: Being a big fan of The Best Years of Our Lives, I was drawn to Alison Macror's book. As it turns out the book really is the story behind the story. I was impressed with the extensive documentation that Macor found and used to craft for a story so interesting that it kept me turning the pages. Once I opened the book, I read it in about 2 1/2 days. I knew something about the careers of Dana Andrews (Fred Derry), Fredric March (Al Stephenson), Myrna Loy (Millie Stephenson) and Teresa Wright (Peggy Stephenson), but comparatively little about director William Wyler, producer Sam Goldwyn and Lloyd Russell (disabled war veteran Homer Parrish). Russell had an amazing, high-profile career after this movie (where he was honored with two Oscars) fighting for veterans and the disabled. I came away after reading this book with the impression that the movie appealed to the better angels of the cast and crew, making for a sublime creation that has withstood the test of time. Macor has a way with words that makes reading go down easy. For anyone who hasn't seen the movie, check it out first and then read this book.

Reviewer: Phil Isett
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: "Making The Best Years of Our Lives" is a Real Gem!
Review: I just got finished reading Alison Macor's "Making The Best Years of Our Lives." What an enjoyable book! It's obvious that meticulous research and careful thought was invested in this well-written gem. What I appreciate most is how Ms. Macor chose to frame the content. She told the "making-of" story through three principal contributors to the movie: Sam Goldwyn (studio head and film's producer), William Wyler (director), and Harold Russell (army veteran and rookie actor). Each had their fair share of struggles and triumphs, and seeing how the film was made within the context of their personal lives made this more than just another "behind-the-scenes" book. Also, I really enjoy Ms. Macor's writing. Details do not mean dullness! Her narrative style made the content both easy to digest and to turn the page. I love "The Best Years of Our Lives," and this book made me love it even more.

Reviewer: Stephen Reginald
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Wonderful Read
Review: A fascinating read for any classic movie fan and especially fans of the film that is the subject of this book. Author Alison Macor has created an interesting narrative on how "Best Years" came to be. The book is filled with details about the filmmakers and actors who brought this classic to life. You'll learn more about Samuel Goldwyn, William Wyler, and all of the cast, especially Harold Russell who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role of handicapped World War II veteran Homer Parish.

Reviewer: PRDude
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Impossible to put down
Review: I have long been a fan of Best Years because my Dad was a WWII vet. Dad, a Pacific vet who was, as it happens, born in Poland and raised in Berlin, where his people were, was awarded the Philippines Liberation Ribbon with a Bronze Star. He was also in the Okinawa campaign; was on the Missouri for the surrender ceremony and was in MacArthur's occupation force. He was on the staff of Stars and Stripes. He never discussed the war. I was desperate to learn everything I could about his inner story, which was an objective of mine that Best Years served beautifully. I discovered the movie in my 20's and fell in love with it. When it reappeared this year, I asked Amazon's website whether there wasn't a book on this very famous movie and it answered, funny you ask. I immediately ordered Making. I inhaled it on arrival. I loved it. I estimate that I read 95% of the book with rapt attention. I just perused the very few parts of the book that I deemed too uninteresting to justify postponing review of the pages I couldn't wait to make mine. To be frank, I would have welcomed far more quotations from all of the stars in the movie. Those, I would have injected. However, the key point is that as a devotee of the film, I found this journey through everything about its making completely engrossing and terribly difficult to curtail. It's therefore the easiest thing conceivable to recommend this book to every other devotee of Best Years.

Reviewer: Kathleen L. Pozar
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Rehash/ Nothing new here
Review: Don't waste your money. Alot of the information was a rehash from Jan Herman's A TALENT for TROUBLE. I am really tired of bad editing--Wyler is an "... out-of-shape thirty-nine-year -old husband and father" in December 1941 and a "... fifty-two-year-old husband..." when he disembarked from a train in Union Station to meet his wife in 1945.A major problem for the author is the that she did not pay attention to the script. She writes that Fred Derry's (Dana Andrew) reoccurring PTS trauma is his reliving of "...the doomed mission that killed his crew."Here is the dialogue between Fred and his wife Marie (Virginia Mayo)---What was Gadowsky?---Where did you hear about him?---You talk in your sleep. (Honey?) Somethings on fire and you want somebody to get out. You keep saying, "Gadowsky! Gadowsky! Gadowsky!'---He was a friend of mine, a B17 pilot. He got it over Berlin.If the mission was doomed and his crew killed how did Derry, the bombardier, survive? There is nothing in the script or movie that has Derry parachuting out of his plane over enemy territory. He saw Gadowsky's plane explode over Berlin and could count the parachutes leaving the plane.Finally, I am 70 years old and I watched the made for TV "Returning Home" in 1975. I can also say that my friends and I were not talking about James R. Miller in the Homer Parrish role. We were all talking about the young actor portraying Fred Derry. He was-- to use the slag of the 1940's-- "the cat's meow." One critic described him as a young, "Clark Gable". The actor, sans mustache, was Tom Selleck, five years before "Magnum PI". The character of Marie Derry was also updated. Marie was no longer a call girl, but a career woman-- remember it was the '70's.I was lucky, because growing up in Pittsburgh I was able to read Harold V. Cohen's column in the "Post Gazette". He knew more about the movies from the silent era to the 1960's than any of today's so called "experts". He and Robert Osbourne would only shake their heads at the fluff that is passing as expertise.