Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War

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Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War Page 67

by Mark Harris


  Penny Serenade, 80–81, 387

  A Place in the Sun, 440, 443

  pneumonia contracted by, 196

  Russian soldiers and, 368–69

  Screen Directors Guild and, 79, 81, 166

  Shane, 443

  SPECOU team of, 261, 263, 290–91, 309, 311–12, 315, 316, 320–23, 339, 343, 366, 376, 415, 443–44

  The Talk of the Town, 166–67, 169, 172, 263

  The True Glory and, 347

  Tunisian Victory and, 237–41, 254, 261, 288

  Vigil in the Night, 39, 40, 46–49, 80

  Woman of the Year, 5–6, 81, 165, 166

  Wyler and, 349

  Stevens, George, Jr., 166, 195, 196, 261, 290–92, 339, 342, 344–47

  Stevens, Yvonne, 195, 196, 263–64, 290–92, 341–42, 345, 346, 404, 414, 416, 418

  Stevenson, Robert Louis, 360

  Stewart, Jimmy, 41, 389, 422

  Stimson, Henry L., 183, 208, 296

  Story of G.I. Joe, The, 279, 334, 407

  Stout, Junius, 325

  Stranger, The, 331, 401

  Streicher, Julius, 403

  Sturges, John, 348–49, 361–62, 388

  Sturges, Preston, 420

  Stürmer, 403

  Strauss, Theodore, 225

  Sullavan, Margaret, 31

  Sullivan, Arthur, 335

  Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), 262

  Surles, Alexander, 217, 218, 224, 243, 250, 278, 308, 331, 332

  Swerling, Jo, 423

  Swing Time, 21

  Szekely, Hans, 76

  Talk of the Town, The, 166–67, 169, 172, 263

  Tanaka plan, 330

  Tannenbaum, Harold, 169, 199, 200, 220, 246, 259

  Target for Tonight, 181

  Tashlin, Frank, 235

  Taylor, Robert, 356

  Taylor, Telford, 403

  Tebourba, 180, 215

  Technicolor, 76, 152, 173, 257, 415

  Tehran, 309

  Temple, Shirley, 62

  Test Pilot, 300

  They Were Expendable (film), 299–302, 318–19, 325–27, 352–61, 395, 405–7

  They Were Expendable (White), 272, 299–300, 353

  Thief of Bagdad, The, 76

  Thin Man movies, 308

  This Above All (Knight), 142

  This Is the Army, 304

  “This One is Captain Waskow” (Pyle), 279

  This Thing Called Love, 79

  Thunderbolt, 298, 348–49, 351, 361–65, 388–89, 415

  Time, 24, 31, 38, 43, 54, 55, 78, 88, 138, 139, 165, 172, 173, 197, 213, 232–33, 289, 307, 383, 391–92, 407

  Times (London), 177

  Tobacco Road, 70

  To Be or Not to Be, 118

  Tobey, Charles, 93–94

  Tobruk, 233

  Tojo, Hideki, 160–61, 278, 380

  Toland, Gregg, 57, 63, 108–9, 147, 155, 191, 206–10, 288, 355–56, 409, 431, 432, 434

  Toldy, John, 76

  Torgau, 368–69

  Torpedo Squadron 8, 150, 158

  Torpedo Squadron 8, 158–59

  Toscanini, Arturo, 329

  To the Shores of Tripoli, 129

  Town & Country, 284

  Tracy, Spencer, 5–6, 165, 272, 318, 356

  Traven, B., 127

  Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The, 127, 170, 293, 410, 440, 443

  Treaty of Versailles, 141

  Tree, Marietta (Marietta Fitzgerald), 192, 241, 284

  Triumph of the Will, 6, 141, 142, 376

  True Glory, The, 347

  Truman, Harry, 213, 216, 217, 372, 375, 376

  Truman Committee (Senate Committee Investigating National Defense), 213–17

  Zanuck and, 215–16, 224, 326

  Trumbo, Dalton, 423

  Tunis, 179, 180

  Tunis Expedition (Zanuck), 214, 232

  Tunisia, 173, 198, 214, 231–33

  Tunisian Victory, 236–43, 254–56, 261, 278, 281, 283, 288–90, 298, 305, 347, 381

  British and, 243, 247–52, 254, 255

  Turkmenistan, 309

  20th Century Fox, 18–19, 23, 29, 53, 70, 73, 74, 93, 105, 111, 129, 142, 155, 258, 161, 162, 197, 293, 327, 335, 380

  Zanuck and, 214–16, 326

  25 Missions, 246–47

  Two Down and One to Go!, 380

  Two-Faced Woman, 101

  unions, 20, 26, 40, 41, 91, 105

  United Artists (UA), 46, 52, 68

  Universal Pictures, 24, 29, 31, 103, 176, 331

  USAAF, 293

  U.S. Film Service, 276

  USO, 273

  U.S. Relocation Authority, 162

  USSR Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, 265

  Valley Forge, 24–25, 28

  Variety, 16–17, 38, 54–55, 68, 77, 88, 104, 138, 225, 233, 407, 436

  Vatican, 348

  V-E Day, 375, 381, 385

  Veiller, Anthony, 247, 250–52, 262, 264, 308, 380

  Venafro, 267–70, 279

  veterans, returning, 396–97

  The Best Years of Our Lives, 390, 391–96, 417, 425–38, 441, 442

  Let There Be Light (originally The Returning Psychoneurotic), 386–87, 396–400, 409–13

  Veterans Administration, 410

  Vigil in the Night, 39, 40, 46–49, 80

  Vivacious Lady, 22

  V-J Day, 388

  Voice of America, 138

  von der Lippe, Victor, 403

  Wake Island, 102, 147, 149

  Wake Island, 129

  Wallace, Irving, 277–78

  Wallis, Hal, 33, 38, 84, 85, 86, 124, 127

  Walsh, Raoul, 85, 336

  Walt Disney Studios, 164, 182, 235, 276

  Wanger, Walter, 46, 48, 52–53, 59, 63, 174, 204, 288, 415, 420

  “Wanted: A Faith to Fight For” (Alsop), 7

  War Activities Committee (WAC), 158, 217, 218, 224, 225, 265, 295–96, 389

  War Comes to America, 164, 308, 379–82

  War Department, 112, 133, 137, 152, 153, 160, 175, 207, 208, 210, 211, 224–26, 233, 243, 249, 254, 302, 308, 317, 321, 328, 330–31, 332, 336, 361, 376, 387, 413

  Bureau of Public Relations, 217, 243, 333, 383, 388, 410–13

  Ford and, 105, 107, 325–26

  liaison between movie industry and, 9–10, 91, 104, 216, 217

  newsreel producers and, 10

  War Department Report, 288

  war movies, pre-World War II, 20–21

  Warner, Albert, 15

  Warner, Harry, 15, 16, 17, 50–51, 61–62, 73, 96–97, 103, 279, 328

  speech of, 60, 62

  Warner, Jack, 29, 60, 61, 73, 94, 102, 103, 124, 125, 127, 129, 130, 344

  Mann dinner hosted by, 15, 16–17

  Warner, Sam, 15

  Warner Bros., 5, 8, 15, 17, 23, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37–38, 46, 59, 60, 65, 73, 82, 85–88, 97, 111, 123–25, 127, 129, 140–41, 170, 191, 235, 253, 278, 293, 294, 329, 331, 336, 379n, 410

  Washington, Booker T., 306

  Washington, George, 24–25

  Wasserman, Lew, 422

  Wayne, John, 10, 52, 55, 63, 109, 272–73, 275

  in They Were Expendable, 356–60, 406

  Wead, Frank “Spig,” 56, 208, 300–301, 353–56, 406

  Wedemeyer, Albert, 274, 326

  Wehrmacht, 346

  Weizmann, Chaim, 89

  Welles, Orson, 77, 123, 253, 331, 401

  Wellman, William, 154, 407

  Westerner, The, 49, 51

  What Price Glory?, 259

  Wheeler, Burton K., 88, 261

  White, William, They Were Expendable, 272, 299–300, 353

  Whitty, May, 121

  Why We Fight, 113, 114, 131–33, 141–44, 163–64, 169, 181–82, 185, 217, 218, 234, 236, 264, 276, 303, 329, 330, 381–82, 421

  The Battle of Britain, 164

  The Battle of China, 164, 308, 330

  The Battle of Russia, 164, 264–65, 278, 288

  Divide and Conquer, 164


  The Nazis Strike, 164

  Prelude to War, 144, 164, 182–85, 205, 210, 211, 217–19, 224, 234, 264, 421

  War Comes to America, 164, 308, 379–80

  Wilcoxon, Henry, 121–22

  Wilder, Billy, 68, 436, 440

  Wilhelmshaven, 202–3, 205, 219, 220, 297

  Willkie, Wendell, 87–88, 91–94, 118, 245, 288

  Wilson, Woodrow, 5

  Winchell, Clarence, 202

  Winchell, Walter, 17

  Wing and a Prayer, 150n

  Winged Victory, 298

  Wings, 169, 407

  Winsten, Archer, 412

  With the Marines at Tarawa, 289–90, 297

  Woman of the Year, 5–6, 81, 165, 166

  Wood, Sam, 69–70, 275

  World at War, The, 181–83

  World’s Fair, 84

  World War I, 2, 4, 5, 7–8, 19, 21, 22, 63, 64, 83, 84, 87, 113, 183, 221, 340

  as movie subject, 21, 87

  World War II:

  beginning of, 49, 53, 103

  in Europe, end of, 365, 375, 383

  in Japan, end of, 387–88

  loss of American optimism in outcome of, 141–42

  Pearl Harbor in, see Pearl Harbor

  U.S. entry into, 1–2, 121

  Wright, Richard, 306–7

  Wright, Teresa, 427

  Wurtzel, Harry, 275

  Wuthering Heights, 30, 34–35, 52, 178

  Wyler, Cathy, 30, 170, 205, 221–22, 247

  Wyler, Judy, 170, 222, 247

  Wyler, Leopold, 350

  Wyler, Margaret Tallichet “Talli,” 4, 30, 31, 49, 51–52, 60, 69, 70, 123, 126, 129, 169–70, 177, 201, 202, 204–5, 220–22, 245, 247, 257, 290, 347–48, 351, 364, 365, 432

  Wyler, Robert, 350

  Wyler, William, 4–5, 11–12, 18, 29–35, 49–52, 60, 69, 72–73, 79, 89, 124–26, 136, 144, 168–70, 176–79, 193, 211, 219, 221–22, 244–46, 262, 263, 339, 347–52, 382, 408, 420, 421, 425–35, 440–43

  Academy Awards and, 33, 52, 69–70, 72, 118, 123, 125–26, 203–5, 435–36, 442

  Air Medal awarded to, 221

  The Best Years of Our Lives, 390, 391–96, 417, 425–38, 441, 442

  on bombing missions, 201–3, 219–21, 245–46, 430, 434

  Davis and, 31, 33, 51, 60–61, 118–19, 426, 429, 442

  death of, 442

  in doorman incident, 296–97, 428

  and family and friends in Europe, 4, 11, 29, 51, 61, 348–51

  Ford and, 177

  in France, 347–51

  Goldwyn and, 72–73, 169, 245, 258, 298, 365, 389, 390

  hearing loss of, 363–65, 366, 388, 389, 431, 432–33

  How Green Was My Valley and, 73–76, 105

  Huston’s friendship with, 30–34, 442

  in Italy, 298, 348, 351, 362–64

  The Letter, 60–61, 69, 118

  Liberty Films and, 389–90, 402, 416, 417, 421, 424, 437

  The Little Foxes, 60, 73, 75, 118–19, 125, 126, 134, 429, 431

  in London, 176–78, 199–204, 257, 258

  marriage of, 30, 31, 60

  The Memphis Belle: The Story of a Flying Fortress (originally 25 Missions), 246–47, 257–61, 293–98, 317, 348, 349, 361, 362, 388

  Mrs. Miniver, 4, 5, 119–23, 126–27, 129, 134, 138–39, 169, 172, 177–78, 203–5, 211, 220, 298, 389, 426

  in Mulhouse, 348–51, 361

  The Negro Soldier and, 134–36, 303

  Olivier and, 178

  P-47 fighter plane documentary of, 298

  Signal Corps joined by, 4–5, 123, 126, 127

  Stevens and, 349

  Thunderbolt, 298, 348–49, 351, 361–65, 388–89, 415

  25 Missions, 246–47

  Wuthering Heights, 30, 34–35, 52, 178

  Wyler, William, Jr., 430

  York, Alvin C., 83–86, 88, 95–96, 103

  You Can’t Take It With You, 24, 26–27, 40–41

  Young Mr. Lincoln, 53

  Your Job in Germany, 378–79

  Zanuck, Darryl F., 18, 19, 53, 59, 70–72, 74–76, 93, 97–98, 104–5, 112, 126, 134, 161, 176, 196, 214–15, 224, 279, 298, 344, 380, 385, 395, 401

  At the Front in North Africa, 215, 232–34

  Ford and, 327

  in North Africa, 179–81, 184, 211, 214, 215, 231–32

  Truman Committee and, 215–16, 224, 326

  Zeroes, 146–49, 188, 190, 207

  Zukor, Adolph, 90

  * Sex Hygiene remained in use until well into the Vietnam War.

  * In 1939, All Quiet on the Western Front itself was the victim of revisionism. Universal decided not only to rerelease the film, but to recut it; footage that was sympathetic to German soldiers was removed and a voice-over was added, interrupting the film a dozen times to describe war atrocities and emphasize Germany’s plan for world domination, specifically mentioning Hitler. The New York Times described the new version as “stupid vandalism” that deliberately undercut the original film’s antiwar message, but with the disingenuous billing “The Uncensored Version,” it did business well into 1940.

  * Balaban and Zukor were the president and cofounder of Paramount; Schenck, the chairman of 20th Century Fox, had recently been convicted of income tax evasion.

  * In 1944, director Mervyn LeRoy incorporated Ford’s footage into an MGM drama about the raid, Thirty Seconds over Tokyo.

  * The movie Hellman wrote, The North Star, a drama about a Ukrainian village shattered by the Nazi invasion in the summer of 1941, was directed by All Quiet on the Western Front’s Lewis Milestone and released in 1943; it was one of the few examples of pro-Soviet propaganda to emerge from Hollywood during the war.

  * The story of Torpedo Squadron 8 was made into a feature film, Wing and a Prayer, that 20th Century Fox released in 1944.

  * It has never been determined whether James Roosevelt was actually present at Midway.

  * Warner Bros. agreed to hold off on Sierra Madre, but the studio reassigned the Ambler project to Huston’s High Sierra collaborator W. R. Burnett. William Faulkner also worked on the screenplay for Background to Danger, which was released in 1943.

  * After several more rejections, Olivier decided to direct Henry V himself, and won an honorary Academy Award for his work on the picture when it was released in the United States after the war.

  * The derogation, a reference to his short stature, was also the title of a 1935 Shirley Temple movie.

  * The other two winners were also war documentaries—the Australian News Information Bureau’s Kokoda Front Line and Russia’s Moscow Strikes Back.

  * Keep ’Em Flying was the title of a huge recent movie hit, a 1941 service comedy that starred Abbott and Costello.

  * Chennault was the son of USAAF major general Claire Chennault, who had become something of an American hero as the leader of the Flying Tigers and was widely recognized for shooting down four Japanese planes soon after Pearl Harbor in the first direct U.S. hit against the Japanese army.

  * After the war, Foreman went on to write High Noon and many other films; he became one of Hollywood’s most famous blacklisted screenwriters after refusing to name names to HUAC.

  * Hayward, born in South Africa, was a popular actor in Hollywood swashbuckler movies who became an American citizen shortly after Pearl Harbor, then joined the marines as a combat photographer. He won the Bronze Star for his work at Tarawa.

  * Wyler received the honor, but not until early 1946.

  * The timing of Capra’s assignment to Stevens has been a subject of confusion and uncertainty for decades. In his 1971 autobiography, Capra wrote that he conceived the Lend-Lease short and sent Stevens to the Iran/USSR border in May 1942, a clear failure of memory since Stevens hadn’t even joined the army yet. Twenty years later, biographer Joseph McBride caught the error, checked it against Capra’s army file, and concluded that the assignment was actually made two years later. His basis for this was a letter dated May 27, 1944, in which Capra and Osborn asked the USSR
for access “to photograph the activities of the Lend-Lease supply into the Soviet Union.” But circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that the date in the army file is a typo and that the request was actually made a year earlier, on May 27, 1943. In his letter, General Osborn refers to the proposed film as covering “the full operation of the Persian Gulf Service Command”—the U.S. Army outpost in charge of coordinating the supply line. But the designation “Persian Gulf Service Command” was only in use from August 1942 to December 1943; after that, its name was changed. Moreover, a May 1943 assignment to Stevens would logically have led into the trip that he and one of the men in his unit, Gunga Din screenwriter Joel Sayre, took from Egypt to Iran one month later. On July 4, 1943, Stevens was in Tehran and wrote in his journal, “Photographed celebration here, commemorating American Independence Day and the delivery of TONS of material to U.S.S.R.” In any case, the short was abandoned when the Soviet army refused to let Stevens and Sayre cross the border so that they could film American supplies arriving at their destination.

  * Ford’s more embellished claim in a 1966 interview with the French magazine Positif that he shed the last vestiges of racism when he saw “scores of black bodies lying in the sand” when he landed on Omaha Beach should probably be discounted as an overstatement at a moment when the somewhat enfeebled director was trying to defend the treatment of African Americans in his films.

  * In the years to come, Ford put at least $200,000 into the Farm’s maintenance; it closed permanently in 1969 after being destroyed by a fire.

  * The Tanaka plan, widely accepted as factual during the war, is today considered to be a skillful anti-Japanese hoax that was created in China.

  * Sturges directed almost fifty movies after the war, including Bad Day at Black Rock, The Magnificent Seven, and The Great Escape.

  * Ryan’s real-life counterpart was a sailor named Bob Kelly, who ended up disliking the way he was portrayed so much that he sued for defamation; he was awarded $3,000.

  * Although Your Job in Germany was not originally made to be seen by American moviegoers, the War Activities Committee eventually gave the short to Warner Bros., which recut it and rewrote the narration, adding some cautions about the possible rise of Fascism in the United States. It was released theatrically in December 1945 under the title Hitler Lives. The following spring, that version, which was overseen by Don Siegel (later the director of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Dirty Harry) won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.

 

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