The Best Years of Our Lives : Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

...to be in the army? I believe he was 48 years old in 1945 (older when the movie was made).

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

Depends on how desperate the Army was when he was inducted. But yes, 48 y.o. was old even during the draft's peak.

- - -


"...and that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana shaped."

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

Well, the character he was playing has a daughter obviously around 23-24 and a college aged son. That would put the characters age around 44-48. In WW2, they had the draft but if you were married and had pre-adult children, or were the sole support of a parent, you usually got an exemption. My step-father got the first, my father (who died later) got the second. But...the sole support exemption ended and he was drafted after he married my mother,(he was 22 in 1942) and he was sent to infantry school, but volunteered for the AAF and became a flying officer (like Derry). My step-father was married and had an infant son, but his wife legally separated and turned him into the draft board. He was 28 in 1943 and 10 years older than the rest of his company. So there can be significant age differences. Regarding Al Stephenson, he could have seen all that was going on around him and with older kids and providing for his wife, he could have enlisted. Funny that with an education he winds up as an enlisted man and Derry with little to no education winds up an officer. That usually doesn't happen. But it can with enlisting and in war time, they needed bodies for cannon fodder, thus 'Al' was thrown into a combat situation. That he made it to commanding sergeant tells of his superiors realizing he had leadership abilities.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

I think the daughter was 21, the son 17. Say the daughter was born in 1925, they married in 1924 when Al was 22. Then he would have been 44 at 1946. He would have been 40 in 1942, quite reasonable to volunteer or be drafted. I think they drafted up to age 45 at first.

So then he would have been married 22 years as the movie starts. Why does he say 20 years to Fred? Probably he lied! He didn't want to sound so old. He may have been sensitive about his age. Even saying 20 years made him sound very old to Fred.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

"...Derry with little to no education winds up an officer."
I think they said Derry was Air Corps, flying bombing missions over Nazi-occupied Europe as a bombardier. It's my recollection that when the top Allied brass realized they were going to be losing a lot of crewmen on nearly every mission, they started routinely making every member of every bomber crew (a B-17 usually had a 10-man crew) an officer in the hope that the Germans would treat captured downed crewmen better if they were officers than if they were enlisted men, as stipulated in the Geneva Conventions.


I have seen enough to know I have seen too much. -- ALOTO

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

all men aged 18-45 were subject to military service in WWII based on the Selective Service and Training Act of 1940; and all men 18-65 were required to register.

So, assuming March was playing a man of his equal chronological age, he was age appropriate. AND if he were portraying someone somewhat younger, then he was certainly age appropriate.

*****************************************
There's no place like home.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

Not by more than a few years. I believe they were taking men as old as 38 years old. If he joined after Pearl Harbor, he could have easily been between 43-45 depending on when these men were coming home. My father didn't come home from the war until almost the end of 1946.
The other thing that people tend to forget too is that people then tended to look older than most people of the same age do today.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

Peggy Stephenson seemed to be about 20-21; Rob was still a high school student
of about 16 or so, which is why he was too young to accompany the rest of the
family when they went bar-hopping on Al's first night back. At least three
years had gone by since Al had enlisted, so he could still have been in his
late thirties at that time. Plus, he might have even shaved off a year or two
if he was desperate enough to escape his mundane banker's life for one last
fling at seeing some adventure in the army.





I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!

Hewwo.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

Maybe he volunteered. They were so desperate for men that they took volunteers up to the age of 60. Dasheill Hammett volunteered at 60 and was shipped up to Alaska.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

I believe that when the three of them are talking shortly after meeting at the airport Fred asks Al if he's married and Al replies that he has been married for twenty years. If so then his daughter would have been nineteen and his son around fifteen/sixteen.

So assuming that Al was twenty when he married, he would have been forty in 1946 and 36 when he enlisted in 1942. I don't recall him saying anything about being in combat so I assume he would have had a desk job behind the lines which would have been perfectly feasible for a 36 year old.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

I got the impression he was an infantry sergeant in the Pacific- during his speech at the bank dinner/banquet welcoming him back from the war he made a point about taking risks (alluding to his giving of a loan to a vet without sufficient collateral) and used as an example him leading his troops up and taking a hill in combat- a very risky endeavor. Whether that incident was fact or fiction he was trying to make a point.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

I think there were several hints and off hand statements to establish that Al was a combat infantryman. It's been some time since I've looked at the movie and I'll have to go on memory, but here's what I recall.

When they all meet at Butch's on their first night back in town Homer is doing some introductions and mentions that he and Al were in the Lingayen Gulf battle together, but didn't know it at the time.

In the confrontation Al has with Fred regarding Peggy, also taking place at Butch's, Al mentions that the army has taught him a lot of "tricks" about fighting. The implication is that Al has the kind of ability to use them that comes from actual experience.

When Peggy is talking about the difficulties they had during the war, the "problems on the home front," Al makes a chiding remark about he and the other soldiers reading about them in Stars And Stripes. "We felt awfully sorry for you civilians." Again an implication that Al was enduring the hardships of combat and not enjoying a cushy office job.

Al is talking to Milly, I believe about the problems Fred is having, and he says something to the effect that "when you've been in the infantry" anything is better. Another implication that he was in a combat unit.

***
It's easier to be an individual than a god.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

I was an infantryman when I was 19-20, and even at that age it was backbreaking. So, in his late 40s, with a wife & two kids at home? Even for WWII, I'm not buying it.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

Think again - Older men DID sign up for the service:

"The first Seabees were not raw recruits when they voluntarily enlisted. Emphasis in recruiting them was placed on experience and skill, so all they had to do was adapt their civilian construction skills to military needs. To obtain men with the necessary qualifications, physical standards were less rigid than in other branches of the armed forces. The age range for enlistment was 18-50, but after the formation of the initial battalions, it was discovered that several men past 60 had managed to join up, clearly an early manifestation of Seabee ingenuity. During the early days of the war, the average age of Seabees was 37. After December 1942 voluntary enlistments were halted by orders of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and men for the construction battalions had to be obtained through the Selective Service System. Henceforward, Seabees were on average much younger and came into the service with only rudimentary skills."

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

"The service" covers a lot of ground. Infantry and construction (Seabees) were worlds apart.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

Both he AND Dana Andrews were too old for their roles, but I forgive this because I come to love the film more each time I see it.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

I agree that both March and Andrews were a bit too old for their roles but it still works for me.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

I don't know how old Al was, but since he says in the plane home that he's been married 20 years, Peggy is 19, early 20, tops. She's my only beef with the movie. Theresa Wright was 27 when this was shot, and plays her as if she's 27.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

Peggy had to be at least 21, because her dad wanted her to come out drinking with himself and his wife.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

Her father said he had married 20 years while traveling to Boone City. What state is supposed to be in? Some states the drinking age would have been 18. Peggy is probably 18 or 19.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

The short answer is yes, he was too old. On the other hand, he could have been a reservist before the war, and thus already in?

Otherwise, Hollywood is replete with actors too old for the part they are playing.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

Depends. During the worst parts of the war, every able bodied man was drafted. My friend's grandfather was 41, married with two young boys and working at a shoe company in Brooklyn, and he was drafted into the army.

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

My dad was 36 when he was drafted and 40 when he went home. He was not happy about it, but nothing he could do. He was a Sergeant in the Infantry (Army).

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

Many men who served in the Great War, 1917 vintage, also served in WWII. I always figured Al was a reservist who was called up again. Or he re-volunteered. Of course, he would probably have been commissioned, not served as a non-com. Actors like Lee Tracy, Jack Pennick and Raymond Massey (Canada), served in both wars.
May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

He was a little old, but it is possible. I got the impression he was a WW1 vet, so maybe he stayed in the National Guard. (He wears the insignia of the 25th ID, a regular army division, but he could have been transferred.) And he was definitely not a desk jockey as was suggested, since he wears the Combat Infantryman Badge.

"I'll do the masterminding around here." -Sgt. Stryker, "Sands of Iwo Jima"

Re: Wasn't Fredric March a little long in the tooth…

I think several actors were too old in this movie.

It's that man again!!
Top