The Best Years of Our Lives (Original Motion Picture Score)

This truly is a great film about WWII Vets returning home to the lives they left behind and the struggles they encounter while trying to re-assimilate. I never fail to cry each time I see it, and I think the soundtrack plays a huge role in making that happen. The music makes you feel the emotions of the characters in this movie...joy, sadness, hope, despair, pride, love, and honor. Hugo Friedhofer is "Copland-like" with this score, and the music makes me cry as I remember the terrific cast and powerful scenes of the movie. If you haven't seen this movie, you owe it to yourself to gain a greater appreciation for the generation that sacrificed so much for our country. The movie and its music is superb!

This isn't probably...or maybe...or perhaps, the greatest American movie of all time. It is. Just ask Billy Wilder or Orson Welles or Sidney Lumet...It their all time favorite. And with good reason. Eight Oscars...Best Actor, Supporting Actor, Editing, Writing, Directing, Music (of course) and Best Picture. Ok, the movie itself aside (hard to do) this is Freidhofer's masterpiece. Along with his contemporaries, Erich Korngold, Franz Waxman, Alfred Newman and Max Stiener, he remains even today, one of the greatest film composers of all time.

One of the greatest vintage soundtracks of all time, bar none -- it never fails to make me weep. It beautifully reflects an amazingly realistic movie (you won't believe it was made in 1946!) about guys and families dealing with all the challenges of returning home from World War II, from the harsh adjustment of returning to jobs and an indifferent home front, to the mental torment of post-traumatic war stress.

Hugo Friedhofer's score is really quite good standing on its own, but it is truly wonderful because of the film. If you have not seen the movie you are missing perhaps the best film coming out of World War II. See it first and Friedhofer's score will be even more special.

I am not a music critic but I am an American who has always been moved to tears by this most poetic and profoundly moving story. "The Best Years of Our Lives" borrows from Aaron Copeland in its inherantly hopeful but frankly sorrowful and poignant sounds. When I hear this score I once again think of the three servicemen flying home through the clouds back to the lives they left behind. I also think of that moment when Homer, the disabled vet, steps out of the taxi to his greet his family and girlfriend, minus his arms and hands. There is so much in this movie that reminds me of the nation we once had, the country that was full of pride, but deservedly so, because it had just defeated fascism. I wonder what the people of 1945 would have thought of us today if they had been able to look in a crystal ball.....

From the greatest movie of all time comes the most beautiful music of all time. The captivating score sweeps you up and enfolds you in its beauty. Friedhofer's music captures every emotion with exactness as he takes you through each scene and each character's journey. This is my favorite movie of all time, and it doesn't receive enough credit. It tells the story of three soldiers trying to make a life for themselves back home after WWII. Harold Russell plays the double amputee. The actor himself is a real amputee and won an Oscar for best supporting actor and another honorary Oscar for bringing hope and courage to WWII veterans. It's a realistic and heartwarming film that will stay with you for a very long time.