THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

[warrior1972]

This is a hard movie to watch.

....But if you're a veteran, it's one of the best.


Trust me on that one...please.



(CNN) -- This Christmas season the classic film most of us will watch on our televisions is Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life." With good reason: It's the perfect feel-good Christmas movie. In celebrating the quiet good works that Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey has done in running his family's savings and loan bank for the benefit of the residents of Bedford Falls, "It's a Wonderful Life" tells the story of American modesty at its best.

But the movie we ought to be watching this Christmas season is another 1946 classic, William Wyler's "The Best Years of Our Lives." With a script by playwright Robert E. Sherwood, who also was a speechwriter for President Franklin Roosevelt, "The Best Years of Our Lives" tells the story of the difficulties three World War II veterans overcome on returning to their peacetime lives in the fictional Midwestern town of Boone City.

What makes the Academy Award-winning "Best Years of Our Lives" so relevant are the problems today's veterans -- now coming home in increased numbers with the end of the Iraq war -- are having finding a place in civilian life.

Veterans in the 20-24 age bracket have an unemployment rate of nearly 30%, more than double the 14.5% unemployment rate of nonveterans in the same age group, and veterans of all ages have an unemployment rate of 11.8% compared with the civilian unemployment rate of nearly 9%.




www.cnn.com/2011/12/23/opinion/mills-xmas-movie/index.html?hpt=hp_abar

[peterd]

I saw it. It is a good movie.

[RavenHawk]

That is one of my favorite movies and one of the very best from Hollywood. It resonates on so many levels. The acting, directing, and cinematography carefully staged to express meaningful truisms. It is basic American values. The key message in the movie comes near the end (actually two main scenes). The underlying concept is that despite the hardships encountered, the human spirit in an atmosphere of a hard fought-for and earned freedom, things will work themselves out and for the best. And I know you are not going to like it, but a certain politician is the antithesis of that spirit. That first scene is Al’s speech: “I love the Cornbelt Loan and Trust Company. There are some who say that the old bank is suffering from hardening of the arteries and of the heart. I refuse to listen to such radical talk. I say that our bank is alive, it's generous, it's human, and we're going to have such a line of customers seeking and GETTING small loans that people will think we're gambling with the depositors' money. And we will be. We will be gambling on the future of this country. I thank you.” There are still a few in this country that still live by that challenge and haven’t succumbed to the poison of Socialism and are still working and showing that capitalism is our future and the best is yet to come. The other scene is the wedding. It is the reaffirmation of the self-reliant rugged individual. And that such individuals gather together making stronger unions. This was pre 50s. The movie has strong women that are not just Ozzie & Harriet “housewives”, but equal partners. We were a people tired of war and let our vigilance drop and that is where we began to lose our way. Oh, to get back to that one moment represented by this movie. (cue theme