Summary: BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES: (1946) On their flight back from WWII, three servicemen look down on their city: Army Sergeant Fredric March (Best Actor Oscar) returns to wife Myrna Loy and daughter Teresa Wright, but finds his bank exec job needs booze lubrication; ex-soda jerk, ex-B-17 pilot Dana Andrews finds pre-war wife-of-a-month Virginia Mayo wants him as little as he wants her... but then meets Wright; and handless seaman Harold Russell — an actual amputee who’d never acted before (and yet won two Oscars, one honorary and one for Best Supporting Actor) — faces Cathy O’Donnell, the girl he left behind; and through their meetings at Hoagy Carmichael’s bar, these very disparate lives intertwine. An evocation of the experience of a generation, a tour de force of deep focus photography by Citizen Kane’s Gregg Toland, and Wyler’s most personal picture — the March/Loy reunion echoed his own with his wife, he was reprimanded for taking a poke at a bigoted civilian, and on his last bombing run for a documentary, he permanently lost his hearing — and an overwhelming box office and critical hit that nabbed 7 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Approx. 168 min. This podcast is a recording of the introduction by Mark Harris, recorded June 6, 2014 before a screening of the film at Film Forum.
