Line #8 Trivia/TheBestYearsOfOurLives


1	* ActorSharedBackground: Creator/FredricMarch was a banker before he became an actor, just like his character Al.
2	* BillingDisplacement: Creator/MyrnaLoy gets top billing, as she was the biggest star in the cast. However, Milly is entirely a supporting (though still important) character.
3	* TheCastShowoff: Homer's uncle Butch is played by musician and songwriter Hoagy Carmichael, who gets several opportunities to display his piano-playing chops. There's even a bit where Butch is asked to play "Lazy River"... a song which [[ActorAllusion was composed by Carmichael]].
4	* CreatorBacklash: Although Hugo Friedhofer's score won an Oscar, Creator/WilliamWyler never cared for it.
5	* DawsonCasting: Creator/DanaAndrews was 36 when he made this film, clearly playing someone in his mid-twenties.
6	* DisabledCharacterDisabledActor: Harold Russell, a drill sergeant during the war, lost his hands in a training accident involving a defective bomb. He did such a good job in the role of Homer Parrish he won an Oscar (plus a second honorary Oscar), despite never having acted before.
7	* MethodActing: The actors were encouraged to buy their own clothes to better connect with everyday life, and produce an authentic feeling.
8	* OneHitWonder: Harold Russell's film debut. It netted him ''two'' Oscars, the only time two Oscars have ever been awarded for the same performance.[[note]]The Academy's Board of Governors wanted to recognize Russell's performance in the film, but thought that as a non-professional in his first role he would never win a competitive award. So they gave him an honorary Oscar for "bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans." Then he won Best Supporting Actor.[[/note]] It would be 34 years before he had another film credit; his two remaining credits were very minor roles in since-forgotten movies.
9	* RealLifeRelative: William Wyler's daughters played customers in scenes at the drug store.
10	* RealitySubtext:
11	** The man Fred punches out at the drugstore is based on a man Creator/WilliamWyler had an argument with when he came home from the war.
12	** Most of the crew were war veterans, and this was intentional to give the film a documentary style realism.
13	* ReferencedBy:
14	** ''Literature/LanguageArts'', Charles watches ''The Best Years of Our Lives'' with Emmy as part of a Teresa Wright film festival.
15	** ''VideoGame/ConwaysGameOfLife'' has a methuselah named "Homer", in reference to a previously-discovered methuselah named "[[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones Wilma]]".
16	* ThrowItIn: Harold Russell, a real life veteran who never acted before, flubbed his lines during his character's wedding scene. Creator/WilliamWyler left it in, considering it natural.
17	* UncreditedRole:
18	** Leo Francis Penn (father of Creator/SeanPenn) plays the scheduling clerk at the transport office during the first scene, but is uncredited.
19	** Creator/BlakeEdwards had a small role as a Corporal that goes undcredited.
20	** Future TV star Tennessee Ernie Ford also goes uncredited for a small part as a hillbilly singer.
21	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
22	** Homer's disability was originally written as post-traumatic stress disorder, with frequent panic attacks, before Creator/WilliamWyler decided to cast Harold Russell, a real-life veteran who lost both his hands in the war, and the part was rewritten accordingly.
23	** Creator/FredMacMurray and Creator/OliviaDeHavilland turned down the roles of Al and Milly Stephenson because they felt that the parts weren't important enough.
24	** Rob Stephenson was supposed to appear in more scenes, and conspicuously [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse vanishes from the film halfway through]]. This is because Michael Hall's contract ran out during filming, and Samuel Goldwyn didn't want to pay more money to rehire him.

Context Trivia / TheBestYearsOfOurLives