Trivia for
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) More at IMDbPro »

• The character played by Ray Teal (the actor that Harold Russell attacks at the soda fountain) is listed in the credits as "Mr. Mollett". However, the character's name is never mentioned or otherwise alluded to.
  
  
• Director William Wyler was furious when he learned that Samuel Goldwyn had sent Harold Russell for acting lessons; he preferred Russell's untrained, natural acting.
  
  
• William Wyler wanted a completely unglamorous look, requiring all costumes to be bought off the rack and worn by the cast before filming, and making sure all sets were built smaller than life-size.
  
  
• In order to give the film a documentary-style realism, the director drew each member of the crew - props, grips, mixers, etc. - from the ranks of WWII veterans.
  
  
• William Wyler's first post-war movie.
  
  
• Harold Russell was first discovered by William Wyler when he saw an army training film called "Diary of a Sergeant" that Russell had appeared in about the rehabilitation of wounded servicemen.
  
  
• This was William Wyler's last film for producer Samuel Goldwyn.
  
  
• This was the first time Myrna Loy had worked with William Wyler and she was wary of his reputation as "90-Take Willy". As it turned out, the two got along very well.
  
  
• This is the first film role for which Cathy O'Donnell, in the role of Wilma Cameron, receives screen credit. Her film debut was in Wonder Man (1945) as an uncredited extra in a nightclub scene.
  
  
• In 1946 this became the most successful film at the box office since Gone with the Wind (1939) which was released 7 years earlier.
  
  
• Myrna Loy receives top billing as she was the most successful female star at the time.
  
  
• One of the very first films to be selected by the Library of Congress to go into their newly created National Film Registry in 1989.
  
  
• The novel "Glory for Me" by MacKinlay Kantor, upon which Robert E. Sherwood based his screenplay, is written in blank verse.
  
  
• Writer Robert E. Sherwood had been the head of the Office of War Information during the Second World War, one of the reasons why Samuel Goldwyn approached him to write the script.
  
  
• Harold Russell's character was originally written as a war veteran suffering from combat trauma. This was changed to a physical disability when Russell joined the cast.
  
  
• To avoid awkwardness when he first met his fellow cast members, Harold Russell made a point of reaching out with his hooks and taking their hands, thus putting them at ease with his disability.
  
  
• William Wyler pattered the fictional Boone City after Cincinnati, Ohio.
  
  
• For his performance as Homer Parrish, Harold Russell became the only actor to win two Academy Awards for the same role.
  
  
• Came sixth in the UK's Ultimate Film, in which films were placed in order of how many seats they sold at cinemas
  
  
• In a scene at Butch's bar, Homer asks Butch if he would play a song for him. "How about 'Lazy River?'" Homer asks. "Remember that?" Hoagy Carmichael, who plays Butch, composed "Lazy River."
  
  
• Director William Wyler despised Hugo Friedhofer's Oscar-winning score for this film.
  
  
• In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #37 Greatest Movie of All Time.
  
  
• According to his biographer 'A Scott Berg', Samuel Goldwyn re-released the film in a modified format to play on wide screens. It opened with all the hoopla of a new picture, including a gala premiere in Washington D.C. on February 3, 1954, with Sherman Adams, five Supreme Court justices, two cabinet members, and twenty-four senators in attendance. There was a quarter-million-dollar campaign advertising it as "The Most Honored Picture of All Time". The film grossed another $1 million.
  
  
• During the wedding scene at the end, Harold Russell fluffed his lines during his vows. Rather that calling cut and ordering a re-take, William Wyler liked how natural it sounded and this was the take used.
  
  
• William Wyler, who served as a major in the Army Air Force during World War II, incorporated his own wartime experiences into The Best Years of Our Lives. Just as Fred Derry did in the movie, Wyler flew in B-17s in combat over Germany, although rather than being a bombardier, as Derry was, he filmed footage for documentary films. Additionally, Wyler modeled the reunion of Al and Milly, in which they first see each other at opposite ends of a long hallway, on his own homecoming to his wife, Talli.
  
  

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