Wearing the Black Flag (4)

The story began here, previous chapter here.

We've discussed books quite a bit throughout this rambling narrative - but now the time has come to pause briefly for film study.

Hate to do it, but I'm going to put the test up front. It's just one question though, and if you get it wrong, no problem. Here goes:

The following films from 1946 were nominated for the 'Best Picture' Academy Award:

It's a Wonderful Life (Liberty Films; RKO Radio)
The Best Years of Our Lives (Goldwyn; RKO Radio)
Henry V (J. Arthur Rank-Two Cities Films; United Artists)
The Razor's Edge (Twentieth Century-Fox)
The Yearling (MGM)

Which one won?

(I'll simplify - it wasn't Henry V. Sequels rarely win Oscars...)

(Yes, that last line was a joke.)

One of the obscene amenities available to us G.I.s lounging around over here in Iraq is a huge supply of DVD's available at (ahem) very reasonable prices from local vendors. In addition to just about every hot new movie released in theaters up to yesterday we can obtain disks with multiple older features. Some are conglomerations of Oscar-winners, and the other day for a whopping 2 dollars I picked up one that included Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, and a few other gems - including the winner from the list above: The Best Years of Our Lives.

In fact, I bought it because it included that movie. I'd heard about it but never seen it - and I'll be damned if it didn't turn out to be as good as the rest of the films on the disc. Worth the cost by itself, I'm sayin'.

If you haven't seen it and want to read the entire plot, here it is. I would advise against it, however. In fact, I'd urge you to buy it and watch it for yourself - you probably aren't going to find this mostly-forgotten classic at your local rental store.

In the meantime, while I'm going to quote from the above link here, I'm not going to offer anything that will spoil your enjoyment of the movie - so read on without concern.

The film follows the lives of three servicemen returning to the same home town after World War Two, a soldier, an airman, and a sailor (the picture waves and blurs and fades, then)...

The film begins abruptly with a long interior shot of an airport terminal, where returning-from-overseas serviceman Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) lugs his belongings and crosses a map of America on the floor. The war hero inquires at a receptionist's desk about flights to his hometown of Boone City [supposedly patterned after Cincinnati], and is told rather curtly: "Three scheduled daily flights sir, but there's no space available right now...We could probably get you on flight 37 on the 19th." A businessman next to him (with a black porter handling his luggage and heavy bag of golf clubs) requests his airlines ticket which was pre-ordered and arranged by his secretary. The passenger is promptly handed his ticket and told he has sixteen pounds of excess baggage. He reaches for his wallet: "Oh, that's all right, how much is it?" Transportation shortages don't seem to affect everyday civilians as much as returning soldiers.

It is suggested that Fred find a ride on the ATC (Air Transport Command) of the Army Air Forces. In the ramshackle interior of the Army terminal's lounge, many other uniformed veterans have been waiting for the few available flights to their destinations. Fred and two other veterans, Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) and a graying Army Sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March), are placed on a long B-17 bomber flight with many intermediary stops for a two-day journey to Boone City. Parrish, a young Naval seaman, reveals that he lost both hands in combat - prosthetic, articulated hooks are replacements - when he signs the passenger list. They are relieved to be returning home after "a couple of centuries."

In the film's first major opening sequence, the three share cramped space on board a soon-to-be retired Air Force bomber in its observation cone, as it flies at low-level across America...

Much-decorated for his war effort, Fred was an Air Force bombadier/captain during the war and spent most of his time in the nose of a bomber: "This used to be my office...I spent a lot of time on my knees up there." The boyish-looking Homer has remarkable dexterity - he lifts an offered cigarette from Fred's pack with the mechanical hooks, strikes a match on a matchbook, and lights all their cigarettes - he quips: "Boy, you ought to see me open a bottle of beer." Homer's memories of his experiences as a sailor and the torpedo explosion that caused him to lose both hands are shared in an upbeat tone - except for some mixed uncertainties and fears about returning home to his next-door girlfriend Wilma

Harold Russell was born in Canada and moved to Massachusetts with his family in 1933. In 1941, he was so profoundly affected by the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor that he enlisted in the Army on the following day, December 8.

While an Army instructor, and training with the U.S. 13th Airborne Division stateside in 1944, a defective fuse detonated an explosive he was handling while making a training film. As a result, he lost both hands and was given two hooks to serve as hands. After his recovery, and while attending Boston University as a full-time student, an Army film called Diary of a Sergeant about rehabilitating war veterans was made featuring Russell.

When film director William Wyler saw the film on Russell, he cast him in the film The Best Years of Our Lives starring Fredric March and Myrna Loy. Russell played the role of Homer Parrish, a sailor who lost both hands during the War.

For his role as Parrish, Russell won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1947. Earlier in the ceremony, he was awarded an honorary Oscar for "bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans." The special award had been created because the Board of Governors very much wanted to salute Russell, a non-professional actor, but assumed he had little chance for a competitive win. It is the only time the Academy has awarded two Oscars for the same role.

And now back to our feature presentation:

Homer: I didn't see much of the war...I was stationed in a repair shop below decks. Oh, I was in plenty of battles, but I never saw a Jap or heard a shell coming at me. When we were sunk, all I know is there was a lot of fire and explosions. And I was on the topsides and overboard. And I was burned. When I came to, I was on a cruiser. My hands were off. After that, I had it easy...That's what I said. They took care of me fine. They trained me to use these things. I can dial telephones, I can drive a car, I can even put nickels in the jukebox. I'm all right, but...well, you see, I've got a girl.

Fred: She knows what happened to ya, doesn't she?

Homer: Sure, they all know. They don't know what these things look like.

Al: What's your girl's name, Homer?

Homer: Wilma. She and I went to high school together.

Al: I'll bet Wilma's a swell girl.

Homer: She is.

Fred: Then it will be all right, sailor. You wait and see.

Homer: Yeah, wait and see. Wilma's only a kid. She's never seen anything like these hooks.
<...>
Fred: Do you remember what it felt like when we went overseas?

Al: As well as I remember my own name.

Fred: I feel the same way now - only more so.

Al: I know what you mean.

Fred: Just nervous out of the service, I guess.

Al: The thing that scares me most is that everybody is gonna try to rehabilitate me.

Later, after the three have made it home, Fred meets Al's daughter Peggy...

Peggy: What d'ya do before the war, Fred?

Fred: I was a fountain attendant...soda jerk...Surprised?

Peggy: Yes, a little. I betcha you mixed up a fine ice cream soda.

Fred: You're darn right. I was an expert behind that fountain. I used to toss a scoop of ice cream in the air, adjust for wind drift, velocity, altitude. Then wham, in the cone every time. I figured that's where I really learned to drop bombs.

Peggy: What do you think you'll do now?

Fred: I'm not going back to that drugstore. Somehow or other, I can't figure myself getting excited about a root beer float. I don't know just what I will do. I'm gonna take plenty of time looking around.

Lot's of foreshadowing in the first moments of the movie. Foreshadowing, we learn in film study, is where someone says something like that mere moments before they do this...

Fred revisits the drugstore where he was a fountain soda jerk - it looks unfamiliar to him because it was "sold out" to the Midway chain during his absence. He passes dozens of women shopping for perfume and other novelty counter items (rampant, crass advertisements and sale signs hang in the store) as he makes his way to the prescriptions section at the rear of the store. While Mr. Bullard (Erskine Sanford), the former owner and his former employer, explains the sell-out to the big chain, two other drugstore employees make contrasting comments about the typical serviceman's employment prospects in the post-war economy and marketplace:

Man: I'll bet he's back looking for a job.

Woman: And he'll get it too with all those ribbons on his chest.

Man: Well, nobody's job is safe with all these servicemen crowding in.

Mr. Thorpe (Howland Chamberlin), the new store manager whose office is perched above, explains how the chain is under "no legal obligation" to give him his old position back. Without qualifying job skills or experience (other than two years behind a soda fountain and three years targeting bombsites), Fred is not experienced in "procurement - purchasing of supplies, materials" or "personnel work." Quite plainly, Fred replies: "I didn't do any of that. I just dropped bombs...I was only responsible for getting the bombs on the target. I didn't command anybody." It is tragically and bluntly implied that his best years were in the Air Force:

Mr. Thorpe: Unfortunately, we've no opportunities for that with Midway Drugs. However, we might be able to provide an opening for you as an assistant to Mr. Merkle, the floor manager...Incidentally, your work would require part-time duties at the soda fountain.

Fred: At what salary?

Mr. Thorpe: Thirty-two fifty per week.

Fred: Thirty-two fifty. I used to make over four hundred dollars a month in the Air Force.

Mr. Thorpe: The war is over, Derry.

Meanwhile,

Al's prospects at his former place of employment are much more promising. At the Cornbelt Trust Company, Al is told that there is "considerable uncertainty in the business picture. Strikes, taxes still ruin us...Oh, things will readjust themselves in time. We want you back here in the saddle." Mr. Milton offers him advancement as Vice President in charge of a new department (small loans to veterans) at a salary of $12,000 a year:

"You're the man for it...Your war experience will prove invaluable to us here. See, we have many new problems. This GI Bill of Rights, for instance. It involves us in consideration of all kinds of loans to ex-servicemen. We need a man who understands the soldier's problems. And at the same time, who's well grounded in the fundamental principles of sound banking. In other words, you."

At the elegant welcome-home banquet attended by stuffy bankers and their wives, Al is honored by Mr. Milton as "one who has valiantly fought for that freedom" to have a "land of unlimited opportunity for all." Milly has been keeping track of her husband's drink count by making hash marks in the tablecloth with the tines of her fork. Already soused, Al delivers a two-faced, wartime parable to rectify himself in front of his astonished, skeptical audience about how battles and wars are not won by first demanding collateral from Uncle Sam. He asks his associates to show more tolerance and acceptance toward the less privileged veterans returning from the war:

I'm sure you'll all agree with me if I said that now is the time for all of us to stop all this nonsense, face facts, get down to brass tacks, forget about the war and go fishing. But I'm not gonna say it. I'm just going to sum the whole thing up in one word. [Milly coughs loudly to caution him - worrying that he will tell off the boss.] My wife doesn't think I'd better sum it up in that one word. I want to tell you all that the reason for my success as a Sergeant is due primarily to my previous training in the Cornbelt Loan and Trust Company. The knowledge I acquired in the good ol' bank I applied to my problems in the infantry. For instance, one day in Okinawa, a Major comes up to me and he says, 'Stephenson, you see that hill?' 'Yes sir, I see it.' 'All right,' he said. 'You and your platoon will attack said hill and take it.' So I said to the Major, 'but that operation involves considerable risk. We haven't sufficient collateral.' 'I'm aware of that,' said the Major, 'but the fact remains that there's the hill and you are the guys that are going to take it.' So I said to him, 'I'm sorry Major, no collateral, no hill.' So we didn't take the hill and we lost the war.' I think that little story has considerable significance, but I've forgotten what it is. And now in conclusion, I'd like to tell you a humorous anecdote. I know several humorous anecdotes, but I can't think of any way to clean them up, so I'll only say this much. 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.

And it shouldn't be.

Okay - one final look at our heroes returning to civilian life. (Turn the volume up a bit here...)

At the soda fountain in the drugstore, where Fred has returned to work from Butch's Place, Homer joins him at the counter.
A disgruntled, radical-leaning customer (Ray Teal) asks the good-natured, jovial Homer a "personal question" about his hooks, and then loudly and scornfully criticizes the integrity of the country's leaders who led servicemen into a senseless, worthless war:

Homer: I know what it is. How did I get these hooks and how do they work? That's what everybody says when they start off with 'Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?' Well, I'll tell ya. I got sick and tired of that old pair of hands I had. You know, an awful lot of trouble washing them and manicuring my nails. So I traded them in for a pair of these latest models. They work by radar. Look. (He takes a scoop of his ice cream sundae with a spoon.) Pretty cute, hey?
Customer: You got plenty of guts. It's terrible when you see a guy like you that had to sacrifice himself - and for what?

Homer: And for what? I don't getcha Mister?

Customer: ...We let ourselves get sold down the river. We were pushed into war.

Homer: Sure, by the Japs and the Nazis so we had...

Customer: No, the Germans and the Japs had nothing against us. They just wanted to fight the Limies and the Reds. And they would have whipped 'em too if we didn't get deceived into it by a bunch of radicals in Washington.

Homer: What are you talkin' about?

Customer: We fought the wrong people, that's all. (Pointing at his newspaper, with headlines: "SENATOR WARNS OF NEW WAR")
Just read the facts, my friend. Find out for yourself why you had to lose your hands. And then go out and do something about it.

Overhearing their discussion, Fred intervenes and firmly asks the haranguing customer, who espouses "plain, old-fashioned Americanism," to pay and leave. When Homer and the man continue their disagreement and begin scuffling at the cash register...

Heh - I told you you'd want to get this for yourself
I just wanted to point out once again that there's nothing new under the sun.

Okay - just because I'm a nice guy:

...Fred punches the customer in the mouth - sending him crashing into a glass case.

We'd get "rehabilitated" if we did.

Next: Standing in the Gardens of Stone