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Disability in "The Best Years of Our Lives"
Published in the Spring 2015 issue of Breath & Shadow: A Journal of Disability Culture and Literature The Best Years of Our Lives : Shattering Glass, Shattering Disability Taboos By Denise Noe The Best Years of Our Lives is a 1946 black and white motion picture rightly regarded as a classic. William Wyler directed this film from a screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood based on a novel by MacKinlay Kantor. The movie won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Film Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay. One actor, Harold Russell, won two Academy Awards for his performance in this film: an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and a special honorary award “for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans.” By casting Russell, who had lost his hands and forearms in a military training accident, the film shattered a major cinematic taboo: he was the first physically disabled person ever cast in a major role. To this day, Ru...
The Beatniks: Mis-titled But Ahead of Its Time
Published in The Gay & Lesbian Review The Beatniks : Mistitled But Ahead of Its Time By Denise Noe A CHEAPLY MADE black-and-white film, The Beatniks (1960) was voice actor Paul Frees’ only directing venture. It succeeded with neither critics nor the public, and it boasts a pitiful 2.1 rating on IMDB. However, I would contend that this B-minus movie is significant for its homosexual subtext. The Beatniks was badly mistitled. Beatnik culture—bongos, berets, goatees, marijuana, poetry in coffee shops—is nowhere to be seen. The movie may have been given the misleading moniker to cash in on contemporary interest in “youth rebellion.” Another possibility is that the filmmakers believed—or thought the public believed—that “beatnik” was a synonym for “hoodlum.” In fact, the film is about a robbery gang made up of leader Eddy Crane, members Bob Mooney, Chuck, Red, and Eddy’s girlfriend Iris. ...

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