“You see, Mr. Milton, in the Army I’ve had to be with men when they were stripped of everything in the way of property except what they carried around with them and inside them. I saw them being tested. Now some of them stood up to it and some didn’t. But you got so you could tell which ones you could count on. I tell you this man Novak is okay. His ‘collateral’ is in his hands, in his heart and his guts. It’s in his right as a citizen. “

‘The Best Years of Our Lives’, directed by William Wyler in 1946, is an American drama set after the end of the Second World War. Dana Andrews, Harold Russell and Frederic March play Fred, Homer and Al, three servicemen who return home after fighting in Europe. Fred is the senior officer but returns to a menial job and a broken marriage, Homer, maimed when his aircraft carrier was sunk, returns home to face the oppressive sympathy of his family and fiancé, whilst Al returns to his comfortable home and job. All three face difficulties in adjusting to civilian life: a lack of purpose, a lack of masculine comradeship, bad memories and an inability to express what the war was like. The film is ostensibly about the relationships between the men and their families, but also about the shifting relationships between the trio whose lives are intertwined by their past and by a chance love affair. What it’s really about is how the effect of war echoes after armistice, and about how the traumas of conflict, whilst it includes the physical injuries, go deeper. The one injured man (played by the real veteran Russell, isn’t stopped or hampered by his disability, but rather by the suffocating actions of those around him. In the end, this film is, brilliantly, about how veterans from all wars can adjust to normal life when it returns.

Would I recommend it? Yes – it’s an important movie that movies cinema beyond propagandising war films and into a new place – one where the idea of post-traumatic stress and adjustment to civilian life is a focus. Watch in a double bill with ‘Sergeant York’.