The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) - Film Locations

Theatrical Poster

There are so many movies about war, but not nearly as many that show life after war. One of the few classics on the post-war subject is the 1946 film, The Best Years of Our Lives. This Academy Award winning film tells the story of three veterans returning home from World War II and the challenges each one faces. 

Fredric March plays Al Stephenson, an Army Sergeant who returns to his loving wife Milly (Myrna Loy) and their family. He was a successful bank executive before the war and when Al returns, he is promoted to Vice President. All seems good, except that Al is having trouble adapting back to civilian life and is now struggling with alcoholism. 

Dana Andrews plays good looking Fred Derry, a soda jerk before the war and during the war an Air Force bombardier. After the war, Fred expects to get a better job upon returning home, but finds that he faces tough competition from other returning vets and that he lacks the necessary civilian skills. To make matters worse, Fred's wife has moved on to other men while Fred was away at war. 

Harold Russell plays Homer Parrish, the quarterback of his football team before the war, who married his sweetheart Wilma (Cathy O'Donnell) before leaving to fight. Homer, a sailor in the war, lost both of his hands. When he returns home to his fiance and family, he has trouble adjusting to life with his disability. What troubles Homer most of all is that he feels that he will be a burden on his fiance, so he pushes her away, trying to give her a way out of their relationship. 

The home that Fredric March's character returns to is an apartment building located at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and N. Sycamore Avenue in Los Angeles. It's a pretty nice building about a block from La Brea Avenue that looks like the kind of fancy place where a bank executive might live. Below is a screenshot of the building from the film and an image of the building as it appears today.

Fredric March's apartment building.

Fredric March's apartment on Beverly Blvd (c) 2011 Google

Looking east down Beverly Blvd.

Looking east down Beverly Blvd (c) 2011 Google

Fredric March returns home with Dana Andrews in the car.

The Best Years of Our Lives won seven Academy Awards, including Best Motion Picture, Best Director for William Wyler, and a Best Actor award for Fredric March. This film is currently available on DVD and it sounds like a blu-ray release is still TBA.

Ralph Bellamy Arrives in Hollywood, Has Dinner With Clark Gable

Ralph Bellamy

Once sound made its way into films many silent film stars soon found themselves out of work. Some silent stars didn't have voices that fit their on-screen image. Others were foreign actors who suddenly needed to be able to speak English, which wasn't an issue for silent films. For many silent actors though, they just didn't possess the ability to memorize and speak lines. The Hollywood studios quickly turned to Broadway in order to find trained actors that could meet the needs of the new talking pictures. This is the era that actor Ralph Bellamy entered Hollywood.

Prior to films, Bellamy had been honing his acting skills on the stage, first in stock theatre and eventually Broadway. Just before Bellamy moved to Hollywood he was cast as the part of Texas in the play Roadside, which ran at the Longacre Theatre in New York. What Bellamy thought was going to be a big hit ended up closing after just eleven performances. Fortunately, for Bellamy, he was getting contract offers from a few major movie studios. Bellamy signed with United Artists, headed by Joseph Schenck, and like so many actors during this time, left the stage for the screen.

The Knickerbocker Hotel

Bellamy took a first class train from New York to Los Angeles. When he arrived in Los Angeles he moved into the Knickerbocker Hotel located at 1714 Ivar Avenue in Hollywood. The hotel, which is now senior apartments, used to be a choice hotel for many newly arrived actors. 

It was November when Bellamy arrived in Hollywood and the city was dressed for Christmas. The city was having a Christmas parade. A truck pulling a large propeller rolled down Hollywood Boulevard in which a man threw confetti that then blew like snow over the spectators. This was followed by Santa Clause in his sleigh, musicians in folk costumes and various other parade vehicles. It was a hot November, especially for an actor who just came from New York.

Henry's Restaurant (Photo from Getty Images)

Former site of Henry's Restaurant

Rather than going to work right away for United Artists, Schenck loaned out his newly acquired star to Irving Thalberg over at M-G-M. Thalberg, in December 1930, put Bellamy to work in the film The Secret Six, which also starred Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, and Clark Gable. Bellamy played "Johnny Franks," a bootlegger/cafe owner.

One night during the filming of The Secret Six, Bellamy went and had dinner at Henry's Restaurant in Hollywood. Henry's was financed by Charlie Chaplin and operated by fellow silent film actor, Henry Bergman. According to the book, The Story of Hollywood, by Gregory Paul Williams, Henry's was the first restaurant in Hollywood to stay open after midnight. It was Al Jolson's favorite spot to eat after the fights at Legion Stadium and was a favorite spot of actress Myrna Loy, as well as many other Hollywood celebrities of the time.

Clark Gable

While at Henry's, Bellamy's co-star Gable came into the restaurant and sat next to him. After Gable ordered his meal, Bellamy, in his autobiography, When the Smoke Hit the Fan, says their exchange went like this:

"What do you think of all this out here?" [asked Gable]

"I don't know yet," I answered. "I haven't been here long enough to form an opinion."

"I just got eleven thousand dollars for playing a heavy in a Bill Boyd Western," he exclaimed. "Eleven thousand dollars!" he went on, almost in disbelief. "No actor's worth that. This can't last. I've got myself a room at the Castle Argyle [an inexpensive hostelry at the top of Vine Street] and a secondhand Ford. I'm socking away everything I can and I'm not buying anything I can't put on The Chief. This just can't last."

While Gable's thinking was wise, his fears never did come true. Both Bellamy and Gable went onto have successful careers until the end of their lives.

Hollywood's Earl Carroll Theatre

Earl Carroll Theatre, 6230 Sunset Blvd

In 1938, after getting his start in New York, Earl Carroll would move his dinner theatre business to Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. A show at the Earl Carroll Theatre, according to an early advertisement, included a chance to dance to "two famous orchestras, watch a CBS broadcast, and dine on superb dishes created by world-renowned chefs." For $3.50 you could enjoy all of the evening's entertainment plus a full-course dinner or for $1.65 without dinner.

Another advertisement exclaims the theatre features "sixty of the most beautiful girls in the world." These girls would perform elaborate stage revues usually led by a popular star.

During the 1940s, Hollywood was the nightspot destination for visiting servicemen. Like the Hollywood Canteen or the Florentine Gardens, the Earl Carroll Theatre welcomed many servicemen. You can imagine at the price of $3.50 you got more bang for your buck than you would have visiting some of the Sunset Strip nightclubs.

The Earl Carroll Theatre would continue to be a popular nightspot until June 17, 1948, when Carroll died in a plane crash. Afterwards the club would struggle for a few years. In 1953, Frank Sennes changed the club into the "Moulin Rouge." Still a theatre and restaurant, the Moulin Rouge featured more Vegas Style shows and would last into the 1960s.

6320 Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, Ca

Above is an image of the Earl Carroll Theatre building as it appears today. The building is now occupied by Nickelodeon studios.

"Wall of Fame" Earl Carroll Theatre

Grauman's Chinese Theatre had celebrity hand prints, footprints and signatures in the sidewalk in front of the theatre. The Earl Carroll Theatre had celebrity signatures on plaques on their "Wall of Fame" next to the entrance of the theatre. Some of the names on the plaques include Don Ameche, Rosalind Russell, Joan Bennett, Ray Milland, and Myrna Loy. Does anyone know where these plaques are today?

Beryl Wallace

One of the stars of the Earl Carroll Theatre shows was the beautiful Beryl Wallace who also happened to be Earl Carroll's wife. Wallace also died in the same plane crash as her husband.

Earl Carroll Theatre Glasses

If you went to the Earl Carroll Theatre one of the souvenirs you could purchase was a set of "Hollywood Star Autograph Glasses." The set included eight different glasses with color embossed autographs of many of the popular actors and actresses of the time. The colors came in Red, Blue, Green, Orange, White, Maroon, Yellow and Black and each color had different celebrity signatures. Fred Astaire was on the green set, Humphrey Bogart on the orange, and Rita Hayworth on the red set for example. To purchase a set of these eight glasses would put you back $3.00. Does anyone still have a set of these glasses in their home? If you do, I hope they're on display and not being used!

Frank Sennes Moulin Rouge on Sunset Blvd

Above is an image of Frank Sennes Moulin Rouge. As you can see, the Wall of Fame is still on display outside the theatre. From the outside, the building did not change much from the change over from being the Earl Carroll Theatre to the Moulin Rouge, other than the signage. You can still go by the theatre today but now you will see all the Nickelodeon signage displayed on the building - and no Wall of Fame.

As I mentioned before, I always like reading the messages on the back of old postcards. On the backside of the very first Earl Carroll Theatre postcard displayed at the top of this post it reads, "We are about ready to start our long trip back - this place is pretty but we haven't seen any movie stars." Postmarked in 1947 to a Mrs. Rose Kellerman & Sister in Memphis, Tenn. Even back then tourists were disappointed to not have any star sightings.