subscribe to this page
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1998.A3 G67 1976
In this book Marx examines the life of Samuel Goldwyn, the Polish immigrant who became one of the most influential producers in film. Chapter 23 focues The Best Years of Our Lives, which won Goldwyn an Oscar. Through its entertaining anecdotal narrative, Marx follows the story of film, which began as an idea that came to Goldwyn as he read an article in Time in 1944 documenting the difficult transition many returning soldiers went through upon their return home. Goldwyn then called upon MacKinlay Kantor, a novelist, to turn the idea into a novel, which he would then adapt into a screenplay. Kantor delivered a short novel called Glory for Me about three men coming back to face civilian life in blank verse, which Goldwyn hated and wrote off as a loss.
It wasn't until Willy Wyler, who in the war, returned that the idea of making a film based on Glory for Me was revisited. Wyler wanted to make a film about the war, and he and writer Bob Sherwood adapted the novel to a screenplay. Goldwyn was never an ardent supporter of the film, and was ready to halt its production at many points. It was not until he consulted the Audience Research Institute (ARI), which gauged the American theatergoer's interest in a film, and received very positive results that he threw his support behind the film. The result was a wildly successful film which enjoyed great success.
This story gives insight to the studio-based methods of production of 1946, before the Paramount Decision, and to the postwar movie-making atmosphere. Goldwyn's doubts initally plagued the production of this film, as he was unsure if a serious, socially critical film was what American audiences really wanted to see after the war. The response he received from the ARI raises the ever-present issue of the divide between what audiences want to see and what Hollywood thinks they want to see. This response represents the readiness of American society to address the problems that postwar life created in 1946. The ability of Goldwyn, Wyler and Sherwood to capture the clearly struck a chord with the American public that wanted to confront the social issues of the day rather than sweep them under a rug.