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Samuel Goldwyn's The Best Years of Our Lives, the classic 1946 William Wyler (winner of the Best Director Academy Award for this film) return-from-World War II (WWII) romantic love triangle military veteran melodrama ("From the Novel by MacKinlay Kantor"; "The screen's greatest love story"; "Acclaimed by critics as 'The greatest picture to come from Hollywood in a long time'"; "Love that lives forever! Love that ends in hate!"; "Love that meets the test!"; winner of the Best Picture Academy Award; about three servicemen returning from World War II and the difficulties they face in returning to civilian life after years at war; one of the three is a man who lost his hands during the war, and he was played by a real life veteran) starring Myrna Loy, Fredric March (winner of the Best Actor Academy Award for this film), Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, Hoagy Carmichael (the famous singer and composer in a fine acting role), Cathy O'Donnell, Harold Russell (winner of the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for this film; the real-life veteran who lost his hands in WWII; he also won an Oscar for being an inspiration to all veterans, which makes him the only actor to win two Oscars for the same role!; O'Donnell & Russell are billed as "And introducing"), Steve Cochran, Gladys George, and Roman Bohnen. Note that this movie premiered in the U.S. in November of 1946 (no doubt to qualify for the Academy Awards), but all of the U.S. paper has a 1947 NSS number. Also note that Gladys George and Roman Bohnen played Dana Andrews' lower class parents, and gave fine performances. It is remarkable that Bohnen (a fine actor who looked much older than his actual age) was only six years older than Andrews, playing his father!
NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography.

Important Added Info: Note that we were recently consigned a truly remarkable collection of pressbooks (the first 37 were auctioned in our December Major Auction, and the most expensive one sold for $17,500!). In our January 15th auctions, we auctioned another 59 from this collection. In our February 15th auctions, we auctioned another 159. Now we continue to auction more of these pressbooks, which is absolutely the finest collection of pressbooks we have ever been consigned. In this set of auctions, we are solely auctioning larger pressbooks, mostly 11" x 15" or larger. Some of them were folded at one time, but they were stored unfolded for many years, so we left them unfolded, and unless the new owner requests otherwise, we will send them unfolded, because re-folding them would likely lessen the condition. Many of these are ones we have either never auctioned before or only once auctioned before, sometimes many years ago. These were collected decades ago, which was the only time that many of these could be found, and after these auctions are over it may be years (or decades!) before some of these are offered again. They ARE that rare! Note that pressbooks from the 1930s are almost never found in great condition, and some of them (especially those printed during World War II, including all the MGM ones from that time) are printed on newsprint, and are hard to find in even lesser condition. We have several images from each pressbook. We have given each an overall grade, and ask that you look at our images to get a good sense of the condition of that pressbook, because, since they have many pages, it would take forever to describe their condition in detail. However, EVERY one of these pressbooks is complete and uncut!

Note that pressbooks were prepared prior to a movie being released. Often, changes would be made in a movie advertising campaign (billing of actors, different images, etc.), and the theaters would print up special supplements that they would send out with the pressbooks that had already been printed. These supplements are very rare, far more rare than the pressbooks themselves! Some pressbooks would have no supplements, some would have one, and some would have several. Also note that we have provided an image of the front and back covers of this pressbook, and of course, the winner of this auction will receive the entire single pressbook we are auctioning (plus any supplements or heralds described above)! Also note that this pressbook is complete and uncut! Given that theater owners received pressbooks partly in order to create their newspaper advertising, and quite frequently cut them up for that purpose, it is rare to find a pressbook that IS complete and uncut!

Our address for UPS or FedEx only is:
Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775