by Mark Harris
“corny” narration: “The New Pictures,” Time, September 28, 1942.
“nothing . . . that a spy would waste”: “The Current Cinema: Epidemic,” New Yorker, September 19, 1942.
“many scenes where the concussion of bombs”: John T. McManus, “America Cheers Midway Battle,” PM, September 15, 1942.
“should be seen by all Americans”: “The New Pictures,” Time, September 28, 1942.
booked more than thirteen thousand times: Thomas Doherty, Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 253.
Wanger politely replied that the war: Robert Parrish, Hollywood Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), 19–20.
“I had a 36 hour talk with John Ford”: Letter from Sam Spewack to Lowell Mellett, September 4, 1942, Mellett files, box 1446, Records of the Office of War Information, NA.
“to prove that we were actually in the war with them”: Parrish, Hollywood Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
the War Department had given them all pamphlets: Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain (Washington, DC: War Department, 1942).
The navy installed him in Claridge’s: Letter from John Ford to Mary Ford, ca. August 1942, JFC.
Darryl Zanuck, who had just begun a leave: Rudy Behlmer, Memo from Darryl F. Zanuck: The Golden Years at Twentieth Century-Fox (New York: Grove, 1993), 63.
Two of his other ideas: Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 247.
“it just drove Willy crazy”: Ibid., 248.
“half of it had been sunk by the Germans”: Axel Madsen, William Wyler: The Authorized Biography (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973), 231.
“[Ford] didn’t like Willy Wyler”: Unpublished transcript of interview with William Clothier by Dan Ford, JFC.
“The trouble with London”: Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 246.
“The picture of England at war”: Michael Troyan, A Rose for Mrs. Miniver: The Life of Greer Garson (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999), 149–50.
“defense of bourgeois privilege” . . . “unconsciously pro-Fascist propaganda”: Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black, Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits, and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies (New York: Free Press, 1987), 230.
“hogwash. . . . Oh, God, those Hollywood men”: Troyan, A Rose for Mrs. Miniver, 150.
“propaganda worth many battleships”: John Douglas Eames, The MGM Story, 2nd revised ed. (New York: Crown, 1982), 176.
“portrays the life that people live”: Telegram from Lord Halifax to William Wyler, July 3, 1942, WWUCLA.
Olivier was granted a leave from service: Donald Spoto, Laurence Olivier: A Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), 165.
“a propaganda picture doesn’t have to be” and “Don’t worry”: Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 237, 253.
Olivier took Wyler’s advice and went to Ford: Spoto, Laurence Olivier, 165.
“we might just as well” . . . “stripped down and getting tanned”: John Ford oral history, Naval Historical Center.
“Can’t I ever get away from you?”: Darryl F. Zanuck, Tunis Expedition (New York: Random House, 1943), 63–65.
Zanuck had somehow managed to take possession: Dan Ford, Pappy: The Life of John Ford (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979), 177.
getting to know the men of D Company: John Ford oral history, Naval Historical Center.
“the Germans were making sporadic [air] raids: Ibid.
“All along, I have inquired about Jack Ford”: Zanuck, Tunis Expedition, 125–26.
“twenty-four hours a day for six weeks”: Letter from John Ford to James Roosevelt, March 20, 1943, JFC.
before retreating, Ford had to turn over everything: Ibid., 377.
the New York Times called it: Bosley Crowther, “‘The World at War,’ a Powerful Documentary Survey of the Past Decade, at Rialto,” New York Times, September 4, 1942.
“as tough and ferocious . . . as a super-bayonet”: Letter from Eric Knight to Frank Capra, April 15, 1942, FCA.
“Superb!”: Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory (New York: Viking, 1973), 473.
“Colonel Capra, how did you do it?”: Letter from Frederick Osborn to Lucille Capra, October 23, 1942, FCA.
“Darling—Have so many things”: Letter from Frank Capra to Lucille Capra, October 25, 1942. FCA.
“a bad picture in some respects”: Letter from Lowell Mellett to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, November 9, 1942, Mellett files, Records of the Office of War Information, NA.
“Appreciate desire of Colonel Capra’s Academy friends”: Wire from Lowell Mellett to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, November 9, 1942, Mellett files, Records of the Office of War Information, NA.
“This is the third instance”: Koppes and Black, Hollywood Goes to War, 122–23.
General Osborn, who wrote to Mellett: Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992; revised 2000), 476.
“I don’t know what got into Lowell Mellett”: Letter from Frederick Osborn to Frank Capra, November 26, 1942, FCA.
“I have no particular objection”: Tony Aldgate, “Mr. Capra Goes to War: Frank Capra, the British Army Film Unit, and Anglo-American Travails in the Production of ‘Tunisian Victory,’” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 11, no. 1 (1991).
“there is always one instant reaction”: Letter from Eric Knight to Frank Capra, November 21, 1942, FCA.
when his plane crashed: Charles Hurd, “Eric Knight Victim; Author Among Group of 26 Specialists and 9 in Crew to Die,” New York Times, January 22, 1943.
Chapter 12: “You Might as Well Run into It as Away from It”
thorough, imaginative lists: Undated notebooks, sketches, notes, and memos from file 478, JHC.
“nearer to the enemy”: Except as noted, all quotations and reminiscences from Huston about his experience on Adak in this section are from his autobiography An Open Book (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), 88–96.
“Every day is Sunday”: War Department memo to John Huston, March 11, 1943, attached to script, file 477, JHC.
the highly regarded cinematographer James Wong Howe: Scott Eyman, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 252–53.
“men who can serve as grips”: Memo from John Huston to General James Landrum, November 9, 1942, file 478, JHC.
“a bloody, no-good rogue” and a “crazy son of a bitch”: John Huston interviewed by Peter S. Greenberg, Rolling Stone, February 9, 1981, reprinted in Robert Emmet Long, ed., John Huston Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001), 115–16.
flying nine missions in six days: Scott Hammen, “At War with the Army,” Film Comment, March/April 1980.
“Every time I went with them”: John Huston interviewed by Greenberg, in Long, ed., John Huston Interviews, 115–16.
The first time Huston rode along on a mission: Huston, An Open Book, 89–90, 92.
Huston was awed by the indifference to danger: Huston interviewed in The Men Who Made the Movies, documentary series (1973).
“The thunder of engines makes the earth tremble”: Lawrence Grobel, The Hustons: The Life and Times of a Hollywood Dynasty, updated ed. (New York: Cooper Square, 2000), 236.
“His loyalty and integrity”: Jeffrey Meyers, John Huston: Courage and Art (New York: Crown Archetype, 2011), 96–97.
“access to confidential or secret information”: Ibid.
“it was a very romantic period”: Grobel, The Hustons, 238.
“Having just returned from working”: Huston, An Open Book, 96.
“most of the Hollywood professionals”: Ibid., 102.
One night, he was at the entrance: Marilyn Ann Moss, Giant: George Stevens, a Life on Film (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 103.
“These were men who wer
e way past military age”: Interview with Irwin Shaw, file 67, Filmmaker’s Journey Collection, Margaret Herrick Library.
McCrea, who had recently starred in a pair of comedies: Unedited transcript of George Stevens interviewed by Robert Hughes, 1967, file 3677, GSC.
Stevens had to reassure him: Memo from George Stevens to Harry Cohn, November 10, 1942, file 2723, GSC.
“We deem it very essential” . . . “some sort of bathrobe at all times”: Letter from Joseph Breen to Harry Cohn, September 10, 1942, file 2723, GSC.
J. Edgar Hoover signed off on it personally: Letter from Hoover to Harry Cohn, September 18, 1942, file 2723, GSC.
among the names tested were: Memo from Duncan Cassell, October 16, 1942, and report from Audience Research Institute, November 30, 1942, file 2721, GSC.
he put together a cut of the film: Paul Cronin, ed., George Stevens Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), 112.
“George Stevens is leaving” . . . “when Mr. Stevens returns”: Moss, Giant, 100.
“One day he came home”: George Stevens Jr. interviewed in the documentary “George Stevens in World War II,” supplement to 20th Century Fox’s 50th anniversary DVD of the Diary of Anne Frank.
“sent by the Special Service Division”: Letter from Frank Capra to Local Board No. 179, North Hollywood, January 6, 1943, FCA.
“I certainly didn’t know whether”: George Stevens interviewed in 1964, in Cronin, ed., George Stevens Interviews, 39–40.
signing over his power of attorney: Power of attorney document, February 22, 1943, file 3806, GSC.
He then went to Washington: George Stevens notebook #15, February 22, 1943, GSC.
he became sick: Stevens’s notebook from this time, numbered 15 in the George Stevens Collection, shows that he returned to New York City on February 25, 1943, became sick in early March, was hospitalized on March 11, 1943, was released from Fort Jay on March 28, 1943, and traveled to Washington, D.C., with his family on April 6, 1943.
“separation was really upon us” . . . “can come back to them”: George Stevens notebook #15, entries dated April 7, 1943, April 20, 1943, and April 25, 1943, GSC.
“Almost everyone sick”: George Stevens notebook #1, May 5, 1943, GSC.
“We flew along in the dark”: Ibid., May 7, 1943.
“It was a film you would avoid seeing”: Cronin, ed., George Stevens Interviews, 112–13.
the graffiti “Hitler is bastard”: Loose page of one of Stevens’s journals dated May 10, 1943, GSC.
“a smart, civilized [comedy]”: “Current & Choice: New Picture,” Time, May 17, 1943.
“Life’s a journey”: George Stevens journal entry, quoted in “George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey,” unpublished transcript, file 13, FJC.
“THIS DAMN WAR”: George Stevens notebook #1, May 12, 1943, GSC.
Chapter 13: “Just Enough to Make It Seem Less Than Real”
all they did was show up regularly: Axel Madsen, William Wyler: The Authorized Biography (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973), 232.
“organize and operate the activities”: Memo from 8th Air Force HQ signed by Lieutenant Colonel Beirne Lay Jr., December 20, 1942, file 777, WWA.
Wyler had already requested flight training: Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 249–50.
“Willy had this brand-new uniform”: Madsen, William Wyler, 230.
Wyler still had only one piece of equipment: Thomas M. Pryor, “Filming Our Bombers over Germany,” New York Times, March 26, 1944.
“Supply agencies have appeared to be mystified”: Memo from Beirne Lay, December 20, 1942, file 777, WWA.
“We had to learn aircraft recognition”: William Wyler interviewed by Catherine Wyler, 1981, reprinted in Gabriel Miller, ed., William Wyler Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), 131–32.
“I was also glad to see I wasn’t forgotten”: Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 250.
The bomber’s captain, Robert Morgan: Patrick Healy, “Robert Morgan, 85, World War II Pilot of Memphis Belle,” New York Times, May 17, 2004.
The B-17s would typically fly: “Working for Uncle Sam,” http://www.91stbombgroup.com/mary_ruth/Chapter_3.htm.
“All my thoughts are with you”: Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 251.
“the flak was terrific”: Madsen, William Wyler, 233.
“We could hear him cuss over the intercom”: Ibid.
twenty-six-year-old Walter Cronkite: Walter Cronkite, “‘Hell’ Pictured as Flying Forts Raid Germany,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 1943.
Lay had arranged a showing of the film: Madsen, William Wyler, 232.
“As soon as I went to England”: William Wyler interviewed in Theatre Arts 31, no. 2 (February 1947).
“I was handicapped by dealing with places”: William Wyler interviewed in Action! 8, no. 5 (September/October 1973).
the ceremony was filled with talk of the war: Mason Wiley and Damien Bona, Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards,10th anniversary ed. (New York: Ballantine, 1996), 128–29.
“It is a matter of deep satisfaction to me”: Letter from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Walter Wanger, reprinted in Hollywood Reporter, March 5, 1943.
“no one person could arrange anything this boring”: Wiley and Bona, Inside Oscar, 131.
“I wish he could be here”: Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 254.
“Have you got a photograph” to “Well, I’ll be damned”: William Wyler interviewed by Ronald L. Davis, Southern Methodist University oral history project, 1979, reprinted in Gabriel Miller, ed., William Wyler Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), 98.
“a clean sweep”: Los Angeles Herald Express, March 5, 1943.
Sam Goldwyn told him . . . “Only hope it won’t take as long”: Cables to William Wyler from Samuel Goldwyn, John Huston, and Talli Wyler; cables to Talli Wyler and Mack Millar from William Wyler, all in file 329, WWA.
the strongly anti-Japanese tone of Toland’s cut: Gallagher raised this point in a controversial article titled “Two Big Missing John Ford Stories” that originally appeared in issue 12 of an online publication called Film Journal in 2005 but was later withdrawn by the editors after complaints from Joseph McBride that it mischaracterized his work. (The article appears on the IMDB.com chatboard for December 7th.) Gallagher’s notion that Toland may have been trying to justify American internment policies was not challenged by McBride, and is thus included here.
“Crowd in every interesting foot”: Letter from James Kevin McGuinness to John Ford, March 24, 1943, JFC.
“personal political propaganda”: John Morton Blum, V Was for Victory: Politics and Propaganda During World War II (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977), 39.
“I want our generals to put their time”: Thomas Doherty, Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 70.
Mellett aired his conviction that Prelude to War: “Mellett, War Dept. Clash over Prelude to War Film Release to Public,” Hollywood Reporter, February 11, 1943.
The Roosevelt administration “should see to it”: Leo Mishkin in New York Morning Telegraph, January 11, 1943.
Chapter 14: “Coming Along with Us Just for Pictures?”
“The goal of every man on the committee”: “Billion-Dollar Watchdog,” Time, March 8, 1943.
“All of Algeria reminds me of California”: Darryl F. Zanuck, Tunis Expedition (New York: Random House, 1943).
“One would like . . . to have heard something”: John K. Hutchens, “War Front Diary,” New York Times Book Review, April 1, 1943.
His account of his conversation to racial annihilation: Zanuck, Tunis Expedition.
“I feel like a character” . . . fire off a tommy gun: Mel Gussow, Darryl F. Zanuck: Don’t Say Yes Until I Finish Talking (New York: Doubleday, 1971), 105–10.
“arty shots of tank trea
ds”: “New Picture,” Time, March 15, 1943.
When the Truman Committee decided to take aim: George F. Custen, Twentieth Century’s Fox: Darryl F. Zanuck and the Culture of Hollywood (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 258–59.
Zanuck was furious and humiliated to “these fellows backing out”: Ibid., citing an article by David Robb headlined “Zanuck Caught in D.C. Gunsights,” Variety, date unavailable.
Ford had kept scrupulous records: Dan Ford, Pappy: The Life of John Ford (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979), 178–80.
When the committee, casting a wide net: Scott Eyman, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 269.
Capra was similarly called to account: Letter from Frank Capra to Colonel K. B. Lawton, February 20, 1943, FCA.
George Marshall had brushed off: Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992; revised 2000), 477.
“That goddamned Lowell Mellett!”: Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black, Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits, and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies (New York: Free Press, 1987), 123–24.
“Torrid conference today”: Letter from Stanley Grogan to Alexander Surles, April 22, 1943, FCA.
he hoped Americans would find it “inspirational”: Bosley Crowther, “‘Prelude to War’ Shown to Public,” New York Times, May 14, 1943.
“respectably written”: Nation, June 12, 1943.
“the broad contents of [which]”: “The New Pictures,” Time, May 31, 1943.
War Activities Committee had struck 250 prints: Crowther, “Prelude to War’ Shown to Public.”
The sales pitch to theaters read: Thomas Doherty, Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 79.
“the greatest gangster movie ever filmed”: John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon, 1986), 17.
General Surles, who was bitterly convinced: Koppes and Black, Hollywood Goes to War, 124–25.
“I knew he was this great Hollywood director”: Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 255–56.