Cross Word

Hollywood's Tribute to Those Who Served Never Gets Old

• Michele McAloon

Share episode

Send us a text

This Memorial Day episode revisits a conversation with Alison Maker about her book "Making the Best Years of Our Lives," exploring the classic 1946 film that portrayed veterans returning home from World War II.

• William Wyler, the film's director, was a Jewish immigrant who served as a major in the Army Signal Corps during WWII
• Wyler flew actual combat missions while filming documentaries and lost his hearing in one ear during service
• Harold Russell, who played Homer Parrish, was a real veteran who lost both hands in a training accident
• The film portrays three different couples: a long-established marriage, a troubled wartime marriage, and a new relationship forming
• "The Best Years of Our Lives" won seven Academy Awards and was more successful than "It's a Wonderful Life," which was released weeks later
• The movie realistically shows the challenges of veterans reintegrating into civilian society while maintaining a message of hope
• Producer Samuel Goldwyn and director William Wyler had creative tensions throughout production that extended into lawsuits lasting decades
• The film remains relevant today as we continue to understand and support veterans returning from conflict

As you celebrate Memorial Day, remember to honor those who sacrificed their lives or part of their lives for our nation.


Michele McAloon:

You're listening to Crossword, where cultural clues lead to the truth of the word, and my name is Michele McAloon, your host. In honor of Memorial Day, which will be this Monday, I'm re-releasing an older podcast that I did with Alison McCore and she wrote Making the Best Years of Our Lives, the Hollywood classic that inspired a nation and that actually came out in 2022. And the reason why I am re-releasing this is Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal wrote a beautiful editorial about how classic, war films remind us that as long as we're alive in America, we're all in this together, and her opinion piece is called Memorial Day and the best movie of our lives. It's still currently up on the Wall Street Journal website. So I thought this Memorial Day, especially of all Memorial Days, as we kind of start celebrating the end of the 80th year of the end of World War II, we maybe need to remember the men and women who've gone before us, who've sacrificed their lives for our nation, and it's just a good time to remember who we are and what we are as Americans. I hope you enjoy this and you know something Happy Memorial Day, when you're celebrating and having a good time, drink a beer, have fun, but remember all those men and women who have given something up in their lives or their whole life for our nation. Thank you, god bless.

Michele McAloon:

Today we are speaking with Alison Macor, author of the book Making the Best Years of Our Lives, the Hollywood classic that inspired a nation. Well, alison received a public scholars grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for this book. She's also the author of Rewrite man, the life and career of screenwriter Warren Skarin, published also by University of Texas Press and Chainsaws, slackers and Spy Kids. 30 years of filmmaking in Austin, texas. She holds a PhD in film history and taught for more than 20 years at the University of Texas, at Austin, texas State University, austin Community College and the Austin Museum of Art. A former film critic, she currently works as a freelance writer and ghostwriter and lives in Austin with her husband and son.

Michele McAloon:

Welcome, allison. Thank you so much, michelle. All right, I'm excited to talk about this movie and the name of the movie is the Best Years of Our Lives. It came out in 1947, correct. 1946. 1946. Okay, it is a blockbuster of a movie. It was a blockbuster when it came out. It is a good. What is it? Almost three hours long, yeah 171, 172 minutes.

Alison Macor:

Yeah, Okay.

Michele McAloon:

A great movie. I have had a lot of personal interaction with this movie simply because my father-in-law, james J, colonel James J McElhune, was a World War II veteran, and my husband, brendan McElhune, who is a retired Army colonel, but anyway he was raised by Colonel James J McElhune, who came back from the war, was a Anzio veteran and actually lived through a lot of what the best years of our lives is actually about. So we've watched this through the years, we've watched it with our boys and it's sort of a touchstone for our family and it's a great movie. It's a great family movie, I think.

Alison Macor:

I agree. I mean, I love that, that it has a place in your family like that. I didn't see it till I was in my 20s, when I was studying for my degrees, my grad degrees, and, as I say I've said before, I love film history. So obviously I loved getting those degrees. But you don't love everything right. I can respect certain movies but I may not love them as much. But when I saw this movie, it just really knocked me back because it felt very relevant and fresh, even though it had been made in the 40s. Yeah, it's so powerful, it is really powerful, and it's funny, it's grim, it's heartwarming in lots of different ways.

Michele McAloon:

Give us a synopsis of the movie.

Alison Macor:

So the movie starts when the main characters played by Dana Andrews, fred Frederick March as Al Stevenson, and Harold Russell, who had only been in an army training film before he appeared in this film. He plays Homer Parrish. So Harold Russell lost his hands during a training accident at Camp McCall in 1944. And so you know, as I always tell my students, those are not special effects, that is how he is, how he looks, and he had to rehabilitate and get prosthetics and learn, basically learn a lot of things all over again. So those three meet, coming back on a military transport, going back to Boone City, the fictional Midwestern town where they all live and they all have struggles in readapting to their lives, and they meet and re-meet and their lives intersect and they help one another. They fall out of friendship, they fall back into friendship. Fred becomes enamored of Al's young adult daughter, played by Teresa Wright. Fred comes back to a wife he barely knew right, very typical sort of military situation, especially at that time played by the wonderful Virginia Mayo who really hadn't done dramatic roles up till that point. So their marriage is definitely rocky and Peggy sort of comes into that. And then Homer comes back to his girlfriend Wilma, who lives next door and he is struggling with himself and also just struggling to reintegrate and to find purpose again in his life, and so all of those stories weave together throughout the film. The film ends with a wedding and probably one of the worst proposals in history. But I love it. I think it's just so realistic and wonderful and hopeful and that's pretty much the movie. It has.

Alison Macor:

This cast, that's just, you know, most popular actors at the time Dana Andrews, who had just done the film noir. Laura Teresa Wright had done Hitchcock, shadow of a Doubt during the war. Myrna Loy was known from the Thin man series. Frederick March was just a really respected actor, did drama, did comedy. And Virginia Mayo, as I said, she had done a lot of comedy and she was on producer Sam Goldwyn. She was under contract to him and so he wanted to use as many contract players as he could and that was one reason she was in the movie.

Michele McAloon:

The actors that you describe are all wonderful, but there's kind of some behind the scene that doesn't really make it to the screen but influences the screen and is as much an actor in the eventual production of the movie as the physical actors, and that is the relationship between Samuel Goldwyn, the producer, william Wyler, the director, and Harold Russell is also his, and Harold Russell is also his. He's actually, I think, a very, very big part of this, because he in many ways represents the reality of the war, the PTSD, the handicap that is coming back from the war. So you've got these three things that are very operative, that really come and play out on this movie. Let's talk about the director, william Wyler, and his story, because his story is unique too. He comes over here as an immigrant. Tell us that story.

Alison Macor:

He was born in a town called Mulhouse, which is sort of on the border. It's in France. Now. You had asked about Wyler's background. So yes, he came. His mother was a distant relative of Carl Lamley who was the head of Universal Pictures, and he sponsored Willie to come over to the US and so he started in the film business, you know sort of running errands, an office boy and he worked his way up and by the time World War II well, even before Pearl Harbor, he was watching what was going on in Europe because of his relatives. He tried for, and was successful, bringing over relatives to the US to get as many family members and relatives as he could. Was he Jewish? His mother was Jewish. Us to get as many family members and relatives as he could. Was he Jewish? His mother was Jewish.

Michele McAloon:

Jewish Okay.

Alison Macor:

Yeah, that became an issue for him. You know, once he did go overseas he was making documentaries and he was with the Royal Air Force and after he made Mrs Miniver and it won the Best Picture Oscar, you know definitely the military was very concerned about his movement around. And if Oscar, you know definitely the military was very concerned about his movement around and if he, you know, should go down and become a prisoner of war, and so in order to make his second documentary, thunderbolt, he kind of defied orders to go back up, you know, and get the last shots that he needed for that documentary.

Michele McAloon:

But he was 39 years old and it was December 7th right 1941. We all know what happens that day, but he feels compelled at this point to go and enlist or get a. Actually, he doesn't enlist, he gets a commission in the army. I believe he commissions as a major right. Right out of the gate as a major? Yes, as a major, and he is assigned to the army's kind of film documentary under the Signal Corps branch. Is that?

Alison Macor:

correct. Yeah, yes, I mean that's originally what he wanted to go in to do. And then, you know, as you know from the military, he was kind of moved around a little bit and ended up going to England and he ended up flying with the men who flew Memphis Bell although they flew on different aircrafts depending on the state of that bomber for a while, and so his first assignment became making this documentary. You know, for a lot of the filmmakers, their assignments overseas were to make films that would show the public what the war effort was about, what it meant to fly a bomber, what was being done, where were the bombs dropped, that kind of thing. And he took that very seriously, which means he was essentially embedded with them and flew these flights. Depending on the aircraft he was in, he could either work a camera or not. He would have to send pilots up with cameras.

Michele McAloon:

Okay, he was really. I mean he was in a B-17. He was, I mean he was in different aircraft, but he really was, and he was flying combat missions with the men. So he truly was sort of an embedded reporter, even before that word became into existence, an embedded reporter. So he makes one movie that is actually very successful Memphis Belle right and he's able to get that distributed and that really shows kind of the war effort in Northern Europe at the time.

Alison Macor:

Yes, it was shown in theaters. Originally, these films. They weren't always shown as features, but Memphis Belle was shown at the White House. It was really given sort of big treatment, treated as a Hollywood film, very successful. The men who flew with did a whole tour of the US and Wyler brought them. They were brought out to California and Wyler did some final voiceover with them for the film and he also threw them a big party, a very Hollywood party, and said tell me your favorite film stars, I'll make sure to have as many of them there as I can. So it was a big deal. His service meant a lot to him too. It was very important to him to be a part of the war. You know, his wife was sort of resigned to it because he left when their child was only I think Judy was only a few months at that point. She said basically what could I do? It was everyone's situation at that time.

Michele McAloon:

He actually receives a legion of merit for his service in the military, but it doesn't go as well as planned because he becomes injured filming a movie. Can you describe that a little bit? What happened?

Alison Macor:

He was making his next documentary, which would be called Thunderbolt, and he was going up for some final shots atmospheric type stuff he wanted to shoot up flying the coast of Italy. He had dealt with the noise being a problem, sort of not having his hearing. Once he came back, this time it just didn't come back Very quickly the doctors were saying I think you just need to go home, you've lost your hearing. And devastating Sent him home by way of ship where he just had to kind of deal with this situation. His hearing came back a bit in his left ear, but he was deaf in his right.

Alison Macor:

He came back and was on the East Coast for a while he didn't go directly home and to California and I write about that reunion with his wife and his mother and just kind of how he was just a shell of the person that they had known when he had left, in part just from having been in service and in those situations, you know, having lost a ton of weight and all of that, but also now not being able to hear and having this disability and being despondent. Really, as he said to his wife. You know, what are we going to do now?

Michele McAloon:

And because he's a director, you have to be able to hear. I mean, that's exactly, sound is part of movie. But you write that he uses this kind of experience to go into the best years of our lives. That, and his wife was very instrumental in understanding this awkwardness, this, this tension of being gone for so long and then having to come back as a married couple, and what I like about the best years of life of our lives. It follows three couples in very different phases. So you've got a long-term married couple, you've got a newly married couple where the marriage is on the rocks and you've got a couple newly forming and it kind of shows each how the war affected those relationships and it seems very realistic, very plausible.

Alison Macor:

I agree. You know, none of the women in the film were recognized with Academy Awards for their work. It was very important to me. Obviously, when you asked me to describe the plot of the film, I start with the three men because it really does showcase them, but the women when you asked me to describe the plot of the film, I start with the three men because it really does showcase them. But the women if you watch the film and I'm sure you feel this way too, as your own military experience and also having three sons and being married they become so important.

Alison Macor:

And the literature at the time was really telling women in various ways through articles, direct address, through advertisements, like really it's up to the women to help the men readjust.

Alison Macor:

And I spent some time reading the letters that Willie Weiler and his wife Tally exchanged during that time and to me it was just this, that was the reality, right, that was what a lot of people, a lot of couples, were dealing with and I really wanted to work that in to the book and share their story.

Alison Macor:

So that's one reason why Tally becomes this character as well, I think, in the book, because she was so instrumental. Their older daughter, catherine, told me she basically especially after he came back in the book because she was so instrumental. Their older daughter, catherine, told me she basically especially after he came back from the war, she had to kind of communicate for him in the very beginning. You know she took the phone calls, especially when he was working to finish up Thunderbolt, which wouldn't be released for a year or two after Best Years. She would take the phone calls and then she would talk to Willie. So a lot of this behind the scenes I felt like was really important to work in and little ways to really give some of that realism to their story.

Michele McAloon:

Oh, absolutely, and it continues today. Army wives, army spouses, military spouses when a army spouse, whether it's a woman or a man, whoever's in the service, goes to war, goes to combat deploys, the whole family goes and is affected greatly. I was just in Warsaw, poland, where I ran into a Ukrainian lady and her baby and her husband was fighting on the Eastern front right now of the Donbass and you know what she was as much affected by this war as her husband was. Their lives had been completely rearranged. And I think you do a very good job of bringing that out in the book, because you really see that in the movie that these women are having to react to these men that are coming home who have been so severely affected by the war and their reintegration into society. And it was actually Samuel Golden's wife, right, frances Goldwyn, who kind of planted this whole seed for this movie.

Alison Macor:

Yeah, she had read the article. It was a two-page article in Time magazine called the Way Home and it was this reporter who was on this troop train of guys coming going home to big and small places, big and small towns, and just being with them and the article so well, I thought, captured that nervous energy. The guys would be quiet and then they would be wrestling. It's just like what do I do? You know I'm? I'm sort of as, as Al Stevenson says, when he's about to go home for the first time, he says to Fred you know, I feel like I'm what does he say? Going into a beach. You know, I feel like I'm storming the beach. That, as you said, it's realistic. Going back and having to readjust. I introduced this film a couple of weeks ago here in Austin and I said to me the film is about readjustment, right, it's about readjustment to civilian life, it's about readjustment to your role before and it's about readjustment to one another, right, and that's the biggie right Trying to pick up relationships and sustain relationships.

Michele McAloon:

Right. There's so many poignant scenes when Fred Derry is in the drugstore after he's come back. He was a soda jerk before he left. He's been a captain in the Air Force. He was a bomber pilot. I mean, he was a big deal. And all of a sudden he is back in that drugstore and they just how they film that. You get his disorientation Kind of like what in the heck has happened to me? And you kind of get him trying to put his hands around his life and it's palpable, the scene is. It's such a strong scene, I think a lot of ways, because I've seen it with our veterans coming back to where they're trying to grasp what, what just happened? Where am I now?

Alison Macor:

So yeah, I agree, I mean even the way they sort of overstuffed that drugstore, right, it's the post-war consumerism where there's so many products on display. And in the intro to the book I talk about the scene in Hurt Locker, catherine Bigelow's film, which I know people in the military you know some have trouble with that film because of its inauthenticity in certain ways or inaccuracy, maybe it's a better word. But to me that scene where Jeremy Renner is walking in the grocery store and sort of seeing all the choices, and to me that's just a direct, you know it has a direct connection back to that drugstore scene, for with Fred Derry walking in and just seeing all of the products and just the people and the noise and the, you know it's a. It's a different kind of situation to get used to.

Michele McAloon:

Let's talk a little bit about Harold Russell, the man who he was injured, and he shows up on the film with hooks on his hands because he had actually lost his hands. I have to confess to you when I first that it was shocking to me. Tell us a little bit about his story and who he is.

Alison Macor:

For him. On the one hand you have Weiler, who you know he says Pearl Harbor came to my rescue right. He was just eager to be able to go over to the war, go overseas and fight in the war. Pearl Harbor was the US's entry into the war With Harold Russell. He sort of saw the war as an opportunity as well. He wasn't sure where his life was going. He was working in a meat market. He lived in Cambridge, massachusetts. He was very eager to go overseas too and he sort of was on that trajectory somewhat. He was working as an instructor in Camp McCall.

Alison Macor:

It was a relatively new parachutist school that he was instructing in, and so it was D that that the whole prep for that training course had been delayed because I think their lunch had lasted longer, they were being given information about, you know, dj has started and supplies to teach this explosives course had been left out on the grass and it was basically gotten overheated. So when he was starting to put you know the blast cap together and get the things together for the course, it exploded in his hands and he lost his hands and he struggled. He struggled with a lot of things, but one of the things that he struggled with is that it was an accident. It was a training accident. You know he wasn't injured while fighting. You know he wasn't even overseas, it happened stateside. And so that, on top of just the horror of losing his hands and having to adapt to that, he has two memoirs that he wrote and I use them for that chapter where I write about his and Weiler's injuries and how they coped and really what was available to them at the time in terms of treatment. You know how the military was handling war trauma at the time and I found his whole story of rehabilitation just very moving and it really allowed me.

Alison Macor:

I realized early on I need to sort of set this up to give people an idea of how do you end up with the hooks and why is he, in a way, such a poster child for rehabilitation and struggling with that. And so I knew I had to sort of do a PTSD chapter for lack of a better way to refer to it. But it was overwhelming. And also you can't just do this.

Alison Macor:

The way I write, you know I write narrative nonfiction. So it's to take sort of the techniques of writing, say fiction, and apply them to nonfiction to make it more of a story. So I knew I couldn't do an info dump on just you know, here's all the background on PTSD. So it was really when I sat down and did a chronology of like, oh, harold Russell was injured in the spring of 94, and William Wyler in 45, in April 45. And actually their experiences really show how the military was moving, you know, very quickly to kind of okay, we're going to use this treatment, now we're going to switch to this treatment and I just I thought that was fascinating and so I really kind of that was the first chapter I wrote of the book. Chapter two, because I thought this is going to be the hardest. I've got to do all this research and I've got to weave it together in a way that doesn't make you forget who these people are and that this book's about a movie.

Michele McAloon:

Sure, yeah, and your writing is very good. Actually, it's very tight writing and it's very easy to follow. It was one. The history of PTSD, also how to make a movie. I didn't realize everything that goes into making a movie and I'm sure, even though the technology has changed, there's a lot that is still very similar. William Wyler was a hard worker. He worked and worked and worked and it looked like Samuel Goldwyn. He was a good worker, but there was some tension on the set because of Samuel Goldwyn and William Wyler. So you have Samuel Goldwyn, who is this magnificent producer, world famous, everybody knows him and then you've got William Wyler and they don't really see eye to eye on a lot of things and they have a conflictual relationship, it sounds like to the very end.

Alison Macor:

They did. And yet Wyler's wife said in a way it kind of fed the creativity. They're sort of butting heads. They had worked together for a long time and actually when Wyler came back from the war he owed Goldwyn only one more picture on his contract. And originally Goldwyn said you know, let's make this biopic of Eisenhower. And Wyler said, yeah, I'm not interested in. You know someone who kind of is up here. I want to make a film that's more about the everyday person. I think that will have some more resonance. Resonance. And he found McKinley Cantor's novel Glory for Me, which Goldwyn had commissioned from that Time article I mentioned earlier.

Alison Macor:

And when they started working together, you know I quote from a letter Wyler wrote to his good friend, the playwright Lillian Hellman, the writer Lillian Hellman, and he said you know, I thought the war kind of would would fix this for me. But I find I have another attack of Goldwyn-itis, meaning he's clashing again with Sam Goldwyn and it's over a different thing. It wasn't necessarily over money, like Willie, you're going over budget. It was more just decisions and things.

Alison Macor:

Like Goldwyn, it was very risky for him to hire Harold Russell, a non-actor, essentially to be in this big budget film. So he wanted him to take acting lessons and Wyler, when he found out, was furious because he said no, the whole point is that he has this sort of unstudied manner and charm that's going to make him more relatable on screen. So no, so it was things like that. It was really decisions about how the movie should be made, essentially that, where they clashed and butted heads and when the movie did come out, they actually Willie ended up suing Sam Goldwyn because he felt like he wasn't getting the money that was due him, and that suit lasted into the 1960s Wow.

Michele McAloon:

I tell you the find of Harold Russell, because he really he's a good looking guy and he's not good looking in that he's off-putting, he's good looking in like the boy next door and you feel very comfortable with him. And that William Wyler was able to find him is with them. And that William Wyler was able to find him is he actually sort of because of his injuries and because of the way he is, kind of makes the movie in in so many ways.

Alison Macor:

I, I really agree. I mean I think I don't think I realize realize this at the time when I first watched the movie, 30 some years ago, but I think he was my way in in a lot of ways to the movie. He is he is.

Michele McAloon:

He's the entry level and it's interesting because he does. You see the hooks on his hands. It is a little bit shocking, but he's got such a pleasant demeanor that it's not off putting and it is it's a great attribute for him that he's present is.

Alison Macor:

It's a great attribute for him that he's present. You had asked me earlier about his story. And he rehabilitated at Walter Reed and there's a specific ward for people who had lost their limbs, ward 32. And he saw this film called Meet McGonagall. It was a training film and it starred Charles McGonagall, who was a World War I vet who had also lost his arms, and it was very inspiring.

Alison Macor:

And shortly after Walter Reed brought in McGonigal to come visit the guys who were rehabbing and that was another big moment for Harold Russell they stayed in touch. By that point Charles McGonigal had become successful in various businesses so he was sort of like look, you can be like me, you guys are like me, you've had similar experiences, you have similar disabilities and look how I've been able to go on with my life and I'm married and all of those things. So the army approached Russell when he was about to leave Walter Reed and said you know, we need to make another of these films because McGonagall just he's older, so he doesn't really appeal to everybody now, like all the young guys are just like yeah, well, you've had all this time, you know, to make this great life for yourself. You know to make this great life for yourself. So Russell did star in Diary of a Sergeant. He made the film and you know some people say, oh, how can you call him a non-actor in best years because he already had made a film. But I would really argue that making the military training film, you know, diary is very, very different than being among an ensemble cast of big Hollywood stars with a much bigger budget. But Diary of a Sergeant, I think that obviously gave him a platform. The film was shown at War Bond rallies and as William Wyler and the screenwriter for Best Years, robert Sherwood.

Alison Macor:

There are many stories about who discovered Harold Russell. Sam Goldwyn takes credit Harold Russell himself likes to sort of give credit to Weiler and Sherwood that they were going up and down the coast in California visiting military hospitals, talking to different vets to see, well, could we find somebody here? And Russell's name came up. And then they eventually saw a diary and I think that was the clincher. And then Goldwyn sent his team out to the East coast to meet with Russell and sort of feel him out Like could this guy really? When can we work with him? You know, is he? Is he bitter? Is he approachable? You know, does he have any kind of presence that might translate as screen presence.

Michele McAloon:

And he did, he really does, he really does. So the movie's a blockbuster. It wins what? Seven, nine I can't remember the words.

Alison Macor:

Well, it wins seven. And then Russell receives an honorary Oscar, and so does Goldwin. It has nine statues, basically. But if you want to say it wins, then I'd say it won seven.

Michele McAloon:

Yeah, it's a blockbuster, immediately you know. What surprises me, though, is you bring out the fact that it's a wonderful life, frank Capra starring Jimmy Stewart, right. That really becomes like the bigger, the more memorized or the more movie in the American memory than Best Years, but at the time, best Years just absolutely overshadowed. It's a Wonderful Life. So and actually it's a Wonderful Life, broke the film company, the Liberty Film Company, that Wyler had started right Prior to Best Years, right Capra. So it's kind of funny, because I think most more Americans know it's a wonderful life versus Best Years.

Alison Macor:

For people like us who know it, it's beloved right and it's on the National Film Registry and it's just it's. It has a lot of accolades. But I definitely think more people today know it's a Wonderful Life, in part because it went into the public domain so it was on television so much and I think you know that made it recognizable and people love that film. It's a holiday film but, as others have written, they came out within weeks of each other. Best Years was first and then a few weeks later Wonderful Life came out. Jonathan Rosenbaum, the film critic who writes, you know it says something about the American public that they went to best years in droves. You know that that they kind of lifted that film up at the time. Then it's a wonderful life.

Michele McAloon:

It does, yeah, it yeah and it does. And it's interesting that they had this post war experience. They had this appetite for reintegration, for hope, and it is. It's a movie Ultimately. It is a movie of struggle, but it is a movie of hope in the end. And totally agree. Yeah, it was so good, Real quickly. What's your favorite scene in the movie?

Alison Macor:

I have a lot of favorite scenes, which know I guess it's a contradiction, but I would have to say I'll say too the the scene toward the end that starts in the kitchen when wilma comes to his back, to homer's back door oh, iconic yes basically says we need to talk.

Alison Macor:

And what I love about that scene I mean not just that it's like an emotional catharsis for the viewer, right, it has so many different generic elements, meaning it could be a romance. It's romantic, it's. It's scary. You don't really know what happens when he says come upstairs with me and I'm going to show you. You know basically what life is like for me with these hooks. So it's scary.

Alison Macor:

There's film noir elements because of that tone. But also the lighting is so dramatic, high contrast. So I love that whole sequence. I think it's complicated and rich and terrific. But I also love the soda counter sequence where Homer basically gets into a fight with someone. Yeah, that's great, yeah, and it's kind of a personal reason that I love that, because my father became disabled late in life.

Alison Macor:

I think this might go back to the very first time I saw the film. That scene begins when this guy is at the soda counter. Homer comes in Fred says hey, you know, homer, what can I get you? He starts making him a sundae and Homer can feel this guy staring at him, right, this guy who moves a stool closer, and he turns to him and he says hi, how are you? And in that moment, to me that is Harold Russell. That's not Homer. I mean it is Homer but it's also Harold Russell and it's every other disabled person who kind of has to make things easier for the other person In a way in a social interaction. I saw my father do that so many times to put people at ease and I feel like that's happening in that scene. So that scene, I have a lot of affection for that scene.

Michele McAloon:

To my listening audience. It's a great book. It's an entertaining book. Especially if you read the book and watch the movie at the same time you see the movie in such a different light. So the movie without the book it's still a great movie, but the movie and the book it really kind of you feel like you kind of get to peek behind the curtain with this book. It's well written, very easy to read, I thought, and very interesting and kind of sheds light on that post. That immediate post-World War II era, shows a little bit light on Hollywood and kind of the American mindset. So it was, it's a great book. I really congratulate you and I hope this does really well.

Alison Macor:

Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate that, especially someone who has a military background. You know that was such a hard part. I was like, oh God, getting all the terms right. The dedication of the book is to well. It's to you and your families, to everyone who served, but it's also to my college roommate, michelle Melland, who was in the army she was ROTC when we were students at Notre Dame. To my father-in-law, who was served in the Korean conflict, and to my late father, who also did so. It was like I don't know when I decided to dedicate the book, but I think I was like doing something, like washing dishes or walking, and I was like, oh duh, this is a no brainer. You know, I love the end of your book where you talk about.

Michele McAloon:

Really, the book is about hope and it's about us able as human beings to adapt, to adjust and to look forward because we, ultimately our humanity is hopeful and we are people of hope. I think this book, the movie, it all kind of shows that we can go through a lot, but we also we have a lot in a lot of. That is the future and hope. So it was. It was such a great book and the name of the book is Making the Best Years of Our Lives, the Hollywood classic that inspired a nation and its University of Texas press and sure Well, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak with us about this wonderful book and I hope other people go watch the movie and enjoy the book as much as I did.

Alison Macor:

Thank you so much. I'm so glad it resonated with you.