Later this a.m. on #TCM! #ThePostmanAlwaysRingsTwice opened during prod. of #TheBestYearsofOurLives. Joe Breen hinted critics were already objecting to POSTMAN's explicitness (not true), so Sam Goldwyn should heed his warnings about censoring the BEST YEARS script. #TCMParty

Thelma #ButterflyMcQueen in her first uncredited role as Lulu in #TheWomen, whom #JoanCrawford pays to cook dinner to impress her married boyfriend. “I didn’t mind being funny, but I didn’t like being stupid,” McQueen said of her roles, in 1990. #TCMParty

On #TCM tonight, #TheSoundofMusic was originally offered to #WilliamWyler. Wyler eventually left the project, said daughter Melanie, because "given his background and Jewish heritage, he couldn’t, in his words, ‘make a movie about singing Nazis.’” #TCMParty

#VirginiaMayo's dramatic turn in #TheBestYearsofOurLives helped her get cast beyond musicals in films like WHITE HEAT. Mayo's favorite scene? When inmate #JamesCagney learns his mother has died: "It is powerful, compelling, horrifying and all Cagney!" she said. #TCMParty

What my relatives in the Czech Republic saw at their local marquee ca. 1947. One of the few advertising images from #TheBestYearsofOurLives with #HoagyCarmichael in the mix. #TCMParty #MoviePoster

Images of #WilliamWyler with RKO sound man Harold Tannenbaum (L) and others during #WWII from Wyler's personal collection. Tannenbaum was KIA shooting footage for THE MEMPHIS BELLE. #TCMParty📸 Wyler Family

Samuel Goldwyn hired Audience Research, Inc. for the Long Beach, CA sneak preview of #TheBestYearsOfOurLives. The audience's EQ (Enthusiasm Quotient) was highest for #DanaAndrews and #FredricMarch (46%), with #TeresaWright (35%) and #HaroldRussell (24%) next. #TCMParty

On the set of #TheBestYearsofOurLives: #HaroldRussell and #CathyODonnell relax between takes of the tense woodshed sequence. #TCMParty #BehindTheScenes

Writing to #FredricMarch before filming on #TheBestYearsOfOurLives, #WilliamWyler reminded him that Al needed to look like he’d been on combat duty in the Pacific. “...very important that your figure suggests a K-ration diet, rather than the '21 Club'." #TCMParty

Today on #TCM: THE OPPOSITE SEX, MGM's musical remake of its '39 classic #TheWomen. The fitting room showdown b/w #JoanCrawford & #NormaShearer is transferred to a backstage dressing room, where #JuneAllyson slaps #JoanCollins & reportedly knocked her out during prod. #TCMParty

As I'm finishing the last chapter of my next book about the making of #TheWomen, I am struck once again by the unusual burial arrangements for #NormaShearer (entombed w/ 1st husband despite 2nd husband) & #GeorgeCukor (in crypt w/dear pal Frances Goldwyn & hubby Sam). #TCMParty

Missed the new #WilliamWyler documentary last week? #TCM is re-showing 40 TAKES WILLY tonight, followed by #TheBestYearsofOurLives! To celebrate, my publisher UT Press is offering 30% off my book about the making of the film. Go to bit.ly/3ebei0D and use code UTXFILM. #TCMParty #booktwt

In his memoir "Victory in My Hands," #HaroldRussell writes about taking piano lessons from co-star #HoagyCarmichael for #TheBestYearsofOurLives. Director #WilliamWyler put the kibosh on Carmichael's acting tips, though, wanting to preserve Russell's naturalness. #TCMParty

#BOTD in 1924, #LaurenBacall was one of the members of the Committee for the First Amendment who traveled to D.C. to attend the HUAC hearings in 1947. According to Bacall, CFA co-founder #WilliamWyler told the group, "(You) must not look like slobs." #TCMParty #censorship

This nearly makeup-free cover photo of #TeresaWright shot by Alfred Eisenstaedt was done as a tie-in to promote #TheBestYearsofOurLives and what cinematographer Gregg Toland called its "honest" photography. #TCMPart

Counterprogramming for #NationalDefySuperstitionDay: the "three on a match" scene from #TheBestYearsofOurLives. With a nod to the wartime superstition about death, Homer (#HaroldRussell) strikes a new match after lighting Al's & Fred's cigarettes. #TCMParty #Veterans

On #TCM tonight! Excited to watch this new French documentary about #WilliamWyler with archival photos and super 8 footage from the Wyler family collection. I was given access to some of that collection for my book about #TheBestYearsOfOurLives, and it’s impressive. #TCMParty

Hey, #Aggies, I'm coming to you! I'll be speaking this Friday, 9/12 at the #TAMU College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts on the production and legacy of #TheBestYearsofOurLives. Talk begins at noon in LAAH 435. #TCMParty #BookTwitter

The Guardian reviews #TheBestYearsofOurLives upon its London release, praising its "absolute command of the seeing eye" and comparing its realism to a Russian film. But #DanaAndrews fans, you may not want to see the last 'graph. And poor "Walter" Wyler. 🙄 #TCMParty #London

Overlooked by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for her work in #TheBestYearsofOurLives, #MyrnaLoy nonetheless received the award for top female performance at the inaugural World Festival of Films in Brussels in the summer of 1947. #TCMParty #Oscars

Because it's Friday....#MyrnaLoy ca. 1946 in the garden of her Colonial house in the Pacific Palisades, where she grew lavender to scent her lingerie drawers. #TCMParty

#OTD in 1946, as the PR campaign for #TheBestYearsofOurLives took shape, producer Sam Goldwyn told his top execs "not to star #HoagyCarmichael in any adds as would minimize others' importance," a decision that would later enrage Carmichael and his handlers. #TCMParty

#FredMacMurray turned down the role of Al Stephenson in #TheBestYearsOfOurLives saying he didn’t want to be a “third banana.” 🍌See him play 2nd banana to #BarbaraStanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY on #TCM in the overnight! #TCMParty

Their #WWII disabilities gave them common ground, but the friendship between #WilliamWyler and #HaroldRussell became about so much more. Nearly 40 years after they first met, Wyler wrote the intro to Russell's 2nd memoir just months before the director died. #TCMParty #VJDay80

#OTD in 1939 THE WOMEN was released. The night before in Los Angeles, MGM hosted an over-the-top premiere at Grauman's Chinese. LB Mayer, #PauletteGoddard, #GeorgeCukor, #JoanCrawford, and producer Hunt Stromberg posed for photographs. #TCMParty

TGIF, #TCMParty! Always love the laid-back camaraderie of this on-set photo from #TheBestYearsofOurLives. Everyone looks pretty happy (including lurker Danny Kaye visiting from the WALTER MITTY set)...and then there's Gen. Curtis LeMay 😳 #WWII 📸 Wyler

Homer shows Wilma how he removes his harness in #TheBestYearsofOurLives, the shot that took 18 takes to film. #HaroldRussell grew so weary during filming that the script supervisor noted after one discarded take, "He looked dead." #TCMParty #BehindTheScenes #DisabilityInclusion

#JoanCrawford had to fight for the role of Crystal Allen in THE WOMEN. “It would offend your fans if you played such a cold-hearted bitch,” MGM's LB Mayer warned her. Apparently not, given the film's success, which led to her next role: SUSAN AND GOD on TCM today! #TCMParty #SUTS

As principal photography and retakes were finished on #TheBestYearsofOurLives in August '46, editor Daniel Mandell's work on the rough cut began in earnest. A former acrobat, he credited his early career in front of audiences for helping him find the rhythm of a scene. #TCMParty #Editing

On the set of #TheBestYearsofOurLives with #FredricMarch and #DanaAndrews. Given the costumes and the cake, they may be celebrating the first day of production in April 1946 or #WilliamWyler’s birthday on July 1. #TCMParty #BehindTheScenes

#GeorgeCukor gives direction to a submerged #JoanCrawford between takes during filming of the bathtub scene in #TheWomen ca. July 1939. #TCMParty

This guest appearance on #LittleHouseonthePrairie (left) was probably my introduction to #PatriciaNeal. Her battle back to health after a series of strokes a year after winning an #Oscar for #Hud has always inspired me. Watch Neal today as part of #TCM's #SUTS!

Flight attendant Doris Fessette (rt) was discovered during the "airborne premiere" of THE KID FROM BROOKLYN, and Samuel Goldwyn cast her in #TheBestYearsofOurLives as the "camera girl" who's bossed around in the nightclub scene by #VirginiaMayo. #TCMParty

Al making a drink (first of several!) in #TheBestYearsOfOurLives because the drinks @ the Cornbelt Trust reception will be “pink, sweet, and nauseating,” a line that generated an angry letter to Sam Goldwyn from a company that made grenadine. #TCMParty #FredricMarch #TeresaWright

In August '46, as principal photography on #TheBestYearsofOurLives wrapped, #WilliamWyler began work as a partner in Liberty Films. The indie venture would be short-lived, tanked partly by the high costs of Liberty's first project, #FrankCapra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. #TCMParty

Saul Bass's storyboard for the shower scene in #Psycho, on #TCM tonight! Said #AlfredHitchcock, “I’m going to shoot and cut it staccato, so the audience won’t know what the hell is going on.” #TCMParty #horror

I love when I find something that connects a past project ( #TheBestYearsofOurLives) to a current one ( #TheWomen), like this group shot of #classichollywood directors! In the back row, #WilliamWyler is next to #GeorgeCukor (mid-sentence of course 🤣). #TCMParty 📸 Marv Newton 1978

One of my favorite scenes in #TheBestYearsOfOurLives, with William Wyler’s young daughter Cathy (now a producer) as an extra in the first drugstore scene where #DanaAndrews returns for a post-war visit. Can’t tell at all that she was a Dana Andrews super-fan😂 #TCMParty

Returning from an international press tour to promote SABRINA in the fall of 1954, when #TheBestYearsofOurLives was playing as a re-issue, #WilliamHolden told The Hollywood Reporter TBYOOL was instrumental "in building American prestige abroad." #TCMParty #BehindtheScenes

In August ’46, the Kansas City Star reported on the pinball machine featured in scenes shot at Butch's in #TheBestYearsofOurLives. The working prop was apparently so popular with #DanaAndrews (when he wasn't acting asleep😉) that "it is paying for its own rental." #TCMParty #HoagyCarmichael

#NormaShearer and #GeorgeRaft in 1940. They began their controversial relationship just as Shearer finished shooting #TheWomen in Aug. 1939. Raft followed her to Europe that month, but the trip was short-lived once Britain and France declared war on Germany. #TCMParty #nextbook

Happy Thursday, #TCMParty! Enjoy #TeresaWright promoting #TheBestYearsofOurLIves ca. 1946/1947.

#JudyGarland and #JamesMason on the set of #AStarisBorn (1954). The script's final line ("This is Mrs. Norman Maine..."), first written for the '37 version, was said to be inspired by #NormaShearer's acknowledgment card sent after Irving Thalberg's death in '36. #TCMParty

"We've been having lectures in atomic energy at school, and Mr. McGlaggen--he's our Physics teacher--he says that we've reached the point where the whole human race has either got to find a way to live together, or else...." #TCMParty #Hiroshima80 #TheBestYearsofOurLives

#OTD in 1944 #SamuelGoldwyn telegrams story ed. Kay Brown to "register immediately" the titles "Home Again" and "The Way Home," the title of the original TIME article read by his wife Frances that inspired the novel and #TheBestYearsOfOurLives script. #TCMParty #ScriptToScreen

The closest #TheBestYearsofOurLives comes to slapstick is the scene where #MyrnaLoy changes the drunken #FredricMarch into pajamas on his first night home. #TCMParty #Veterans

Happy 😇 Birthday to #MyrnaLoy, seen here in the uniform she wore while assisting the #RedCross during #WWII. Those experiences informed her performance as Milly in #TheBestYearsofOurLives. #TCMParty #OldHollywood

The almighty #RueMcClanahan as Countess de Lage in the 2001 revival of #TheWomen at Roundabout Theatre, later broadcast on #pbs. With Kristen Johnson (Sylvia), Jennifer Tilly (Crystal), and Cynthia Nixon (Mary). #TCMParty #Broadway #nextbook

Here's what happened to the budget of #TheBestYearsofOurLives when #WilliamWyler stayed home with a cold and filming shut down for a day in July 1946 (also noted in the production reports). #TCMParty #BehindTheScenes

THE BAD SEED on #TCM today! Upon its release in 1956, many theater managers posted the following warning in their advertising: "The management recommends this picture for adult entertainment only." Also, no one would be admitted during the last 15 minutes 😱 #TCMParty