Death of an actress

Wow,Teresa Wright died and i belive she was the last living actor from my top 5 films,Best years of our lives. If you've missed this film for some reason,then you've really have missed a movie as to how it really was after WWII.

She has been in several of my favorite films...including Best Years of our lives, opposite Gary Cooper in the "Pride of the Yankees", opposite Joseph Cotten in Hitchcocks "Shadow of a Doubt", and opposite Marlon Brando in "The Men". Very underratted and unheralded actress which I found strange considering how talented AND attractive she was...maybe because she was a brunette and not the classic blonde everyone went ga-go over back in her day.

You are correct..."Best Years of our lives" was awesome. It is one of my favorite films that deals with WW2. Very real characters and pulled few punches. I'm surprised the censors at the time let some of the politics implied in the film make it to the screen. The Homer character created a stir later when he sold his Acadamy award he won in the film to pay for his wifes medical expenses. He really wasn't an actor, but an actual GI who lost his hands during the war years in a training exercise. Because of him all Oscar winners must now sign an agreement forbidding them from selling their award.

I guess that's today's tibit of useless information!

Adultery and Alchlolism, pretty racy stuff back then. Harold Russel,the only actor to get two Oscars for the same role. Pretty good for a non-actor.

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Originally Posted by shokhead

Adultery and Alchlolism, pretty racy stuff back then. Harold Russel,the only actor to get two Oscars for the same role. Pretty good for a non-actor.

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Actually I was referring the McCarthyisms that were implied during the soda fountain scene. Homer almost got into a fight with a guy because he told him "...you lost your hands for nothing because we were fighting on the wrong side...yatta-yatta-yatta..."

Alcholism wasn't that big a deal then. Ray Millan's "Lost Weekend" had already won a Best Picture Oscar for portrying alcoholism is graphic detail...even by today's standards.
As far as adultry goes...two words..."Citizen Kane"...That was almost 10 years before.

Was/is one of my faves. It did take a shocking look at what the reality of Postwar America was like for returning G.I.s and their families. As for it not being daring or ground breaking, it certainly was. The "greatest generation" mythmaking machine was already in high gear by the time this film was made. To show that not all the Johnny's marched home to picture perfect lives in the suburbs or dutiful, faithful wives was an unexpected tale. The only thing that would've made this movie even better would have been to show what Black Veterans returned to in the South... that would've taken some real guts...

Da Worfster :cool:

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Originally Posted by Worf101

Was/is one of my faves. It did take a shocking look at what the reality of Postwar America was like for returning G.I.s and their families. As for it not being daring or ground breaking, it certainly was. The "greatest generation" mythmaking machine was already in high gear by the time this film was made. To show that not all the Johnny's marched home to picture perfect lives in the suburbs or dutiful, faithful wives was an unexpected tale. The only thing that would've made this movie even better would have been to show what Black Veterans returned to in the South... that would've taken some real guts...

Da Worfster :cool:

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I don't know of any film (even to this day) that has touched on that topic. Many blacks who fought in WW2, experienced far less racism during their travels throughout Europe, only to find Jim Crow was waiting for them in full force after risking their lives to defend "their" country. The subject is touched on somewhat in Ralph Ellison's outstanding American Novel "The Invisible Man", but I don't know if the subject was ever given the full treatment anywhere.

Of note however was that following WW2 HST officially desegregated the miliary thus making WW2 the last segregated war in U.S. history in terms of infantries.

Man...I think I'll hit Blockbusters and rent that flick this weekend. I may get Shadow of a Doubt and well and make it a Teresa Wright tribute weekend.