The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Ambitious film about servicemen nervously returning to their homes…and the reaction of their families and their hometown. The refrain of this film could be "you can't go home again." But it's also hopeful.

I think that the filmmakers could have tightened it up; part of what makes it such a looooong movie (nearly three hours) is fluff. But, for the most part, a moving and, I imagine, utterly new subject for Hollywood.

B