by Mark Harris
Reels of the footage to finally become public on June 15: Doherty, Projections of War, 242–44.
“the greatest pictorial team play”: Variety, July 5, 1944.
Sometime around June 12, Ford made his way: Versions of this incident were recounted by William Clothier and Mark Armistead in unpublished interview transcripts with Dan Ford, JFC.
Ford began to turn his thoughts to until after the war: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 399–403.
Ford was in the Mulberry harbor: Martin, “We Shot D-Day on Omaha Beach.”
“Sorta winding this thing up”: Letter from John Ford to Mary Ford, June 23, 1944, JFC.
He would remain in England: OSS memorandum to John Ford, September 1, 1944, JFC.
“Second morning in marshaling area”: George Stevens in notebook #12, June 22, 1944, GSC.
“a very volatile, moody man”: Unpublished interview with Ivan Moffat, file 52, FJC.
“he laughed”: Ibid.
“He was taciturn, always grave-looking”: Irwin Shaw interviewed by Susan Winslow, October 14, 1981, file 66, FJC.
one of Stevens’s diary entries from late June: George Stevens in notebook #12, June 23, 1944, GSC.
As he stood with Moffat . . . “They’d think I’d gone nuts”: Gavin Lambert, ed., The Ivan Moffat File: Life Among the Beautiful and Damned in London, Paris, New York, and Hollywood (New York: Pantheon, 2004), 149–150.
Stevens gave himself license to film to “the sense of indirection”: Ibid., 219–21.
The men in Stevens’s unit are identifiable: George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin.
“They were near a farmhouse”: Irwin Shaw interviewed by George Stevens Jr., November 3, 1982, file 67, FJC.
Chapter 22: “If Hitler Can Hold Out, So Can I”
The navy had chartered his boat: Letter from Commander W. J. Morcott to Mary Ford, January 15, 1942, and Declaration by John Ford, January 19, 1942, JFC, and Charter Party for the Auxiliary Ketch “Araner” between John Ford and the United States of America, August 29, 1942, legal file #15, JFC; also Mary Ford interviewed by Dan Ford, JFC.
a “ribbon freak”: Andrew Sinclair, John Ford (New York: Dial, 1979).
a Distinguished Service Medal: Memo from John Ford to CO, Naval Command, OSS, September 12, 1944, JFC.
even asked for a Croix de Guerre: Dan Ford, Pappy: The Life of John Ford (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979), 207.
“He did a fine job”: Pete Martin, “We Shot D-Day on Omaha Beach (an Interview with John Ford),” American Legion Magazine, June 1964.
“shameless”: Ford, Pappy, 207.
“I have been ordered to Hollywood”: Letter from John Ford to Albert Wedemeyer, October 430, 1944, JFC.
he spent $65,to buy: Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001), 405.
Ford established what he called “the Farm”: Scott Eyman, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 283–84.
“rehabilitation and benefit fund”: Fred Stanley, “The Hollywood Agenda,” New York Times, February 4, 1945.
Ford angrily rebuffed a suggestion: Robert Parrish, Growing Up in Hollywood (New York: Little, Brown, 1976), 159.
when Zanuck heard that his return to work . . . “including the wounds”: Letter from George Wasson to John Ford, October 4, 1944, JFC, and letters from Darryl Zanuck to George Wasson, October 11, 1944, and from Wasson to Zanuck, October 11, 1944, from 20th Century Fox archives, UCLA, cited in Garry Wills, John Wayne’s America: The Politics of Celebrity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 332, and letter from executive manager of 20th Century Fox to John Ford, October 23, 1944, JFC.
“if Hitler can hold out”: Letter from Frank Capra to Phil Berg, June 13, 1942, FCA.
began discussions with Sam Briskin: Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992; revised 2000), 506.
“I will have been away from my civilian profession”: Letter from Frank Capra, September 2, 1944, FCA.
“tell the sweet old Maestro”: Letter from Frank Capra to Robert Riskin with enclosure, July 15, 1944, FCA.
“Dear Daddy”: Letter from Frank Capra Jr. to Frank Capra, June 2, 1944, FCA.
“that it be withdrawn from showing”: Letter from Osborn to the army chief of staff, November 1, 1944, FCA.
“I’m not trying to alibi” . . . “not through lack of study or effort”: Letter from Frank Capra to Frederick Osborn, November 21, 1944, FCA.
“Now,” Capra wrote, “we can spend money”: Memo by Frank Capra, June 9, 1944, FCA.
When his eighty-nine-year-old grandmother died: Lawrence Grobel, The Hustons: The Life and Times of a Hollywood Dynasty, updated ed. (New York: Cooper Square, 2000), 261.
he signed to write two screenplays: Ibid., 264.
he strongly preferred the title The Footsoldier and St. Peter: Memo from John Huston to Frank Capra, August 5, 1944, file 501, JHC.
“The War Department wanted no part”: John Huston, An Open Book (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), 119.
“My God, nobody ever wanted to kill Germans”: Kaminsky, John Huston: Maker of Magic, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), 41.
“In one of the missions”: Midge Mackenzie, “Film: An Antiwar Message from the Army’s Messenger,” New York Times, April 16, 2000.
“deletion of certain footage” . . . identified the corpses as Italian: Memo from Colonel Curtis Mitchell, November 3, 1944, file 495, JHC.
“most prefer to think that the objectives”: Letter from Colonel Melvin E. Gillette to John Huston, October 28, 1944, file 499, JHC.
“Alright, Huston, let’s not have any more” . . . “similarity for the third time”: Memo from Lyman T. Munson to Frank Capra with note from Frank Capra attached and sent to John Huston, December 22, 1944, file 501, JHC.
The only portion of his battle reenactments: Memos to John Huston, May 31, 1944, files 665 and 666, JHC.
‘Dear John, ‘tha Lilly’ was bye”: Handwritten note from Doris Lilly to John Huston written on back of page 70 of draft of Know Your Enemy—Japan script, dated September 11, 1944, file 222, JHC.
“The Japanese are afflicted with a mission”: Handwritten note by John Huston in margin of Know Your Enemy—Japan script, dated September 11, 1944, file 222, JHC.
“He is pigeon-toed and perhaps bow-legged”: Ibid.
they approved on the condition: Army Service Forces memo from First Lieutenant Lehman Katz to John Huston, November 15, 1944, file 226, JHC.
Raoul Walsh’s Objective, Burma!: Objective, Burma! production file, Warner Bros. Archives, University of Southern California, cited in Bernard F. Dick, The Star-Spangled Screen: The American World War II Film (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993), 228.
“a billion people” . . . paranoiac race of animal-deity worshippers: Draft of Know Your Enemy—Japan dated January 4, 1945, file 223, JHC.
“a fatuous booby”: Draft of Know Your Enemy—Japan dated September 11, 1944, file 222, JHC.
“too much sympathy for the Jap people”: John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon, 1986), 19.
a line that acknowledged the existence: William Blakefield, “A War Within: The Making of Know Your Enemy—Japan,” Sight and Sound, Spring 1983.
Chapter 23: “Time and Us Marches On”
They were soon joined by Ernest Hemingway: Gavin Lambert, ed., The Ivan Moffat File: Life Among the Beautiful and Damned in London, Paris, New York, and Hollywood (New York: Pantheon, 2004), 150.
Stevens asked for, and received, permission: George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin (1994), written and produced by George Stevens Jr.
he filmed his men loading, cleaning: This and all subsequent descriptions in this chapter of the film shot by Stevens and his unit come from the author’s viewing of Stevens’s unedited war footage at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Stevens and the 2nd Armored: Letter from George Stevens to Yv
onne Stevens, September 1, 1944, GSC.
“One knew at the time”: Lambert, ed., The Ivan Moffat File, 215.
“He didn’t have to do it”: Unedited interview with Ivan Moffat, file 52, FJC.
He told Choltitz, Leclerc, and de Gaulle: This incident was widely recounted, including in George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin.
Stevens barked at Choltitz: Lambert, ed., The Ivan Moffat File, 155.
Irwin Shaw bet him that the war: George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin.
“The days and nights all ran over themselves” . . . “time and us marches on”: Letter from George Stevens to Yvonne Stevens, September 1, 1944, GSC.
“For whom was [each bottle] destined?”: George Stevens journal entry, October 7, 1944, GSC.
“It is a wet day”: George Stevens journal entry, October 12, 1944, GSC.
“My new Jeep driver”: Ibid.
“I came upon a theater”: Paul Cronin, ed., George Stevens Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), 59.
“Though you have been out of circulation” . . . “guarantees ever dished out”: Letter from Charles Feldman to George Stevens, October 1944, cited in Marilyn Ann Moss, Giant: George Stevens, a Life on Film (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 113–14.
“The big Nazi flag is of value”: Letter from George Stevens to George Stevens Jr., late October 1944, GSC.
“I’ve been hoping against hope”: Letter from Frank Capra to George Stevens, November 7, 1944, FCA.
“the kind and stimulating things”: Letter from George Stevens to Frank Capra, December 17, 1944, GSC.
told Capra he wasn’t ready: Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992; revised 2000), 508.
“Whew! Christmas is approaching fast”: George Stevens journal entry, December 5, 1944, GSC.
“IMPOSSIBLE”: George Stevens journal entry, December 18, 1944, GSC.
“He had never understood”: Unedited interview with Ivan Moffat, file 52, FJC.
“You have a most holy”: Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 271.
“a joke,” since “the Free French”: Ibid., 273.
“First, the subject matter is very difficult”: Letter from William Wyler to Colonel William Keighley, November 22, 1944, file 418, WWA.
“He ran his own war”: Axel Madsen, William Wyler: The Authorized Biography (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973), 249–51. The subsequent account of Wyler’s trip into Mulhouse is taken from his own version of events as told to Madsen.
Wyler had Hemingway drive him: Note in Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 490.
Chapter 24: “Who You Working For—Yourself?”
“I like that” . . . “as it had happened”: Peter Bogdanovich, John Ford, revised and enlarged ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978).
“We are sticking to facts”: Fred Stanley, “The Hollywood Agenda,” New York Times, February 4, 1945.
“would be helpful to the Navy”: James Forrestal to Charles Cheston (acting director of the OSS), September 12, 1944, JFC.
“speak for the thousands of silent lips”: Speech by General Douglas MacArthur following the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, September 2, 1945.
“dynamic forcefulness and daring”: Congressional Medal of Honor citation for John L. Bulkeley.
“The whole thing happened at a time”: Dan Ford, Pappy: The Life of John Ford (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979), 196–97.
“the most decorated man” . . . “a wonderful person”: Bogdanovich, John Ford.
he asked James McGuinness to thread through: “Notes for Jim McGuinness on ‘Expendable,’” undated, They Were Expendable production file, JFC.
a pair of modest crosses: Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001), 410.
“Like many fine artists”: Letter from Dudley Nichols to Lindsay Anderson, April 22, 1953, quoted in Lindsay Anderson, About John Ford (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981).
questions about the navy’s preparedness: Andrew Sinclair, John Ford (New York: Dial, 1979), 120.
“it would be a great experience for you”: Letter from John Ford to Gregg Toland, September 16, 1944, and reply, September 29, 1944, JFC.
“an outstanding contribution” . . . “what’ll dey do for lynchin’s?”: OWI script report by Peggy Gould, November 21, 1944, cited in Randy Roberts and James S. Olson, John Wayne, American (New York: Free Press, 1995), 270.
Ford cast a uniquely qualified actor: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 406.
pulled strings to arrange for his transfer: Ford, Pappy, 197.
“be comprised almost wholly of actors”: “Screen News,” New York Times, November 8, 1944.
MGM turned to its second choice, John Wayne: “Screen News,” New York Times, January 31, 1945.
Pat Ford had even thought: Letter from Patrick Ford to John Ford, February 4, 1944, JFC.
“Well, Jesus, I [was] 40 years old”: John Wayne interviewed by Dan Ford, JFC.
“said yes without reflection” . . . “And we started”: Robert Montgomery to Lindsay Anderson, About John Ford. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981), 226–28. All subsequent quotes from Montgomery in this chapter are from this interview.
“Bob Montgomery was his pet”: Ford, Pappy, 200–201.
“had forgotten to replace the windshield” to “they’re my eyes!”: Ibid.
Wayne murmured to Montgomery . . . “home from the hill”: Montgomery in Anderson, About John Ford, 226–28.
“Jack was awfully intense”: Ford, Pappy, 199.
He had broken his right leg: Memo to Cheston from James McGuinness, May 22, 1945, JFC.
“He wouldn’t let anyone else” . . . to her or to himself: Montgomery in Anderson, About John Ford, 226–28.
“I’m not coming back” . . . “he’d have done it”: Ibid.
“You’ve got to make the mission”: Handwritten note attached to “revised rough draft” of Thunderbolt, February 14, 1945, file 414, WWA. the note appears to be in Wyler’s handwriting, suggesting it was intended for Koenig and/or Sturges, but is unsigned.
They had placed Eyemos in cockpits: Axel Madsen, William Wyler: The Authorized Biography (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973), 244.
what Wyler called “atmosphere shots”: Ibid., 254. Except as noted, the account that follows in this chapter comes from Wyler’s version of events as told to Madsen in his authorized biography.
“I thought it was nothing”: Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 275.
“This is serious”: Ibid.
“Instead of a happy voice”: Madsen, William Wyler, 255.
he entered an air force hospital at Mitchell Field: Ibid.
“I’d never seen anybody”: A. Scott Berg, Goldwyn (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), 405.
“worst weeks of my life”: Mary Morris, “Stubborn Willy Wyler,” PM, February 2, 1947.
checked in with some old colleagues at the War Department: Letter from Major Monroe W. Greenthal to John Huston, April 26, 1945, file 499, JHC.
Koenig’s new and improved draft of Thunderbolt: Lester Koenig, Draft of Thunderbolt, May 15, 1945, file 415, WWA.
“He was terribly thin”: Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 276.
hearing rehabilitation center for returning veterans: Madsen, William Wyler, 256.
“sixty dollars every month”: Ibid.
Chapter 25: “Where I Learned About Life”
Stevens and his crew were to join to a concentration camp prisoner: George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin (1994), written and produced by George Stevens Jr.
“So completely without record” . . . “by name and nationality”: Letter from George Stevens accompanying Nordhausen footage, April 15, 1945, GSC.
“as stark an example as could be found”: Ibid.
/> Capra received his first report: Letter from commander of film unit at Belsen to Frank Capra, April 19, 1945, FCA.
“a bald-headed private”: Gavin Lambert, ed., The Ivan Moffat File: Life Among the Beautiful and Damned in London, Paris, New York, and Hollywood (New York: Pantheon, 2004), 226.
footage Stevens’s unit shot at Torgau: This and all subsequent descriptions of the war footage Stevens’s unit shot in this chapter are based on the author’s viewing of his unedited reels at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
“People talk glibly” . . . “if you’re driving around in a Jeep”: Handwritten notes by Moffat accompanying the guide to Stevens’s footage, Library of Congress.
they received orders to proceed south to Dachau: Interview with George Stevens by William Kirschner, Jewish War Veterans Review, August 1963, reprinted in Paul Cronin, ed., George Stevens Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), 18–19.
Stevens assumed that he and his team . . . “one of Dante’s infernal visions”: Ibid.
Stevens aimed the lens of his camera skyward . . . “and the woodpile was people”: Unedited transcript of George Stevens interviewed by Robert Hughes, 1967, file 3677, GSC.
For some of the men in Stevens’s unit . . . stop or sleep for days: George Stevens in Kirschner, Jewish War Veterans Review.
“where I learned about life”: Unedited transcript of George Stevens interviewed by Robert Hughes, 1967, file 3677, GSC.
“Strange thing” . . . “never heard anybody ever talk about it”: Ibid.
He would walk into a field . . . “stand at attention and salute”: Ibid.
“in a paroxysm of terror”: George Stevens to Kevin Brownlow, unpublished full transcript of interview, April 22, 1969, file 3671, GSC.
“Every time you turn a corner”: Unedited transcript of George Stevens interviewed by Robert Hughes, 1967, file 3677, GSC.
“as matters now stand”: Dennis Hevesi, “Abraham Klausner, 92, Dies; Aided Holocaust Survivors,” New York Times, June 30, 2007.
“Almost everybody was in shock” . . . “which you despise the most”: George Stevens to Kevin Brownlow, unpublished full transcript of interview, April 22, 1969, file 3671, GSC.