CIFF Student Classic Film Series “The Best Years of Our Lives”

The Best Years of Our Lives – “I don’t care if the film doesn’t make a nickel. I just want every man, woman, and child in America to see it.”

This is a special Memorial Day screening. It is FREE and open to the entire community. Bring the entire family!

“I don’t care if the film doesn’t make a nickel. I just want every man, woman, and child in America to see it.” Thus spoke MGM Studio head Samuel Goldwyn in 1946 as this masterpiece he produced was released. This first post-war feature film from legendary director William Wyler went on to win a then unprecedented seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. It was honored with an additional special Oscar for disabled vet Harold Russell’s performance as Petty Officer Home Parish for ”bringing aid and comfort to disabled veterans through the medium of motion pictures.”

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, even though Oscar winning director William Wyler was 40 years old and exempt from the draft, he volunteered and served with distinction in the US Army Air Forces. Discharged as a LtCol in 1945, Wyler’s time with the 8th Air Force left him permanently hearing impaired and uncertain of his prospects to return to his career directing movies in Hollywood. Of his wartime experience Wyler observed, “The only thing that mattered was human relationships … relationships with people who might be dead tomorrow were important.” Returning home to Los Angeles, he searched for the right story to tell in his return to the director’s chair. After Wyler read McKinlay Kantor’s Glory for Me, a story of challenges faced by war veterans coming home, he told MGM Studio Boss Sam Goldwyn, “This is what I want to make.”

The Best Years of Our Lives tells the story of veterans returning from war more movingly, hopefully and beautifully than any other motion picture in Hollywood history. The film captured the atmosphere of post-WWII America. Its enormous critical and commercial success confirmed this was THE story post-war audiences needed to see in the wake of the deadliest and most destructive conflict in human history; the story of the war’s impact on returning veterans and its impact on their relationship with home and family.

Do not miss this perfect Memorial Day “table setter.” CIFF’s FREE screening of The Best Years of Our Lives will be presented Sunday, May 25 at 1 pm in the Library’s Winn Room. Bring your family and invite your friends to share this beautiful Oscar winning classic.