Abstract
Alison Macor gives the certified masterpiece from studio-system Hollywood, the industry art firing at the peak of its powers in 1946, right before TV, HUAC, and the DOJ busted up the racket, the treatment it deserves-intelligent, sensitive, and respectful. Tracking Best Years from a notion inspired by a two-page Time magazine article on veteran readjustment to heavy rotation on TCM, she smoothly incorporates and generously acknowledges the research and insights of previous critics, culls the money-minded trade press with ready expertise, and applies her own sharp eye for illuminating intrepretations. Driving through the old hometown in a taxicab, the men watch wide-eyed as the world they left behind-or rather a world now transformed-passes by in a montage of peace and plenty, sheer munificence actually, with all the things so lately rationed or out of reach there now for the taking: automobiles, steaks, teenagers in hot rods, wives with baby carriages. The two big egos inevitably clashed, but the arguments, recalled Wyler, were always about the art, not the money. Since Macor is such a rich encyclopedia of all things Best Years, I wish she had done more deciphering of the wartime codes of the film, the referential meanings-to crib David Bordwell's term-that audiences well understood in 1946 but require a translation today: the four forearm stripes on Fred's uniform