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

by Mark Harris

  Harry Truman on the cover of Time magazine, shortly before his Senate committee took aim at what they perceived as the wastefulness of the military’s filmed propaganda effort.

  20th Century Fox’s Darryl F. Zanuck, who turned his brief time in Tunisia into both a book and a poorly received movie, left military service and returned to Hollywood soon after. (Everett Collection)

  Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart on the set of It’s a Wonderful Life, the first venture of the director’s ill-fated postwar company, Liberty. (CinemaPhoto/CORBIS)

  Homer (Russell) shows his girl, Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell), his prosthetics in a moment that brought the personal cost of war home to audiences in The Best Years of Our Lives. (Everett Collection)

  Wyler in the spring of 1943, photographed just after an army photographer told him he had won the Oscar for Mrs. Miniver. (AP Photo)

  Dana Andrews, Fredric March, and (foreground) the untrained non-actor Harold Russell fly home in The Best Years of Our Lives. (Everett Collection)

  Wyler receives a Best Director Academy Award for The Best Years of Our Lives from his admiring colleague Billy Wilder. (Everett Collection)

  NOTE ON SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This is a work of history and of collective biography. In attempting to recreate the lives of Frank Capra, John Ford, John Huston, George Stevens, and William Wyler during the World War II years, I have turned as often as possible to archival source materials, including letters, diaries, memos, cables, contracts, scripts, handwritten notes, travel logs, financial records, budgets, receipts, and U.S. Army and Navy documentation, as well as to contemporaneous accounts and interviews from newspapers, magazines, and trade journals. I have drawn in particular from the George Stevens Collection and the Filmmaker’s Journey Collection, the John Huston Collection, the William Wyler Archives, and the Samuel Goldwyn Collection, all of which are housed at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study in Los Angeles; from an additional collection of William Wyler’s papers in the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA; from the Frank Capra Collection in the Wesleyan Cinema Archives at the Center for Film Study, Wesleyan University; and from the John Ford Collection at the Lilly Library, Indiana University at Bloomington. Access to the Goldwyn and Ford collections required special permission from their heirs; my grateful acknowledgment goes to the estate of Samuel Goldwyn and to John Ford’s grandson Dan Ford, himself the author of a lively Ford biography, for granting those permissions. Catherine Wyler and George Stevens Jr. both produced documentaries about their fathers’ lives; in the Wyler, Stevens, and Filmmaker’s Journey collections, they have generously included their own research materials, including unedited interview and oral history transcripts. This book would not have been possible without their scrupulous preservation of the words and work of their fathers.

  Special thanks go to Barbara Hall, for allowing me access to uncatalogued material in the Stevens Collection, including correspondence between Stevens and his wife and son during the war. I am also grateful to Jenny Romero, Kristine Krueger, and the staff of the Margaret Herrick Library, to Amy Wong at UCLA, to Jeanine Basinger and Joan Miller at Wesleyan, and to the staffs of the New York Public Library, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the Lilly Library at Indiana University, Bloomington, the Butler Library at Columbia University, the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, the Naval Historical Center, and the Mémorial de la Shoah, Musée, Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine in Paris. For access to all of the documentary footage George Stevens shot during and after World War II, thanks to Rosemary C. Hanes and the staff of the Motion Picture & Television Reading Room at the Library of Congress, and for access to the unedited reels of John Huston’s restaged footage of the battle of San Pietro as well as to a wealth of material archived by the War Department, the Office of War Information, and many other government agencies and entities, thanks to the staff of the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.

  A complete list of the books I used in my research is in the bibliography. But I want to express particular appreciation for the work of several writers whose scholarship about these five men informed and challenged my writing and thinking. They are Scott Eyman, whose Ford biography Print the Legend is as rich and thoughtful as one could hope; Joseph McBride, whose remarkable biographies Searching for John Ford and Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success are essential for anyone seeking to understand the lives of these men; Jan Herman and the late Axel Madsen, whose books are the deepest, most thoroughly researched biographies of William Wyler; Lawrence Grobel, author of the fascinating family biography The Hustons; and Marilyn Ann Moss, whose Giant is as of this writing the only full-length biography of George Stevens. The University Press of Mississippi’s Conversations with Filmmakers series, which includes separate volumes of interviews with each of the five directors in this book, was also of great value. Of the many studies of Hollywood films and Hollywood politics during World War II, I returned again and again to Thomas Doherty’s Projections of War, Bernard F. Dick’s The Star-Spangled Screen, Hollywood Goes to War, by Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black, and the reference guide Hollywood War Films, 1937–1945, by Michael S. Shull and David Edward Wilt. And any writer seeking to understand the culture and politics of this period in the movie industry owes debts to Otto Friedrich’s City of Nets and Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund’s The Inquisition in Hollywood. The autobiographies The Name Above the Title, by Frank Capra, and An Open Book, by John Huston, are, like all autobiographies, both vital and unreliable, and I have tried to quote only those passages from them that shed more light than heat.

  • • •

  I am very fortunate to have Andrew Wylie as my agent, adviser, and remarkably thoughtful and patient guiding hand. My thanks also to Jess Cagle, Dan Fierman, Jeff Giles, Henry Goldblatt, Adam Moss, and David Wallace-Wells, the great editors who helped me keep one foot planted in the twenty-first century during the years I worked on this book with encouraging words and gainful employment; to Michele Romero for the photo supplement and much more; and to Scott Brown, Kate Clinton, Elly Eisenberg, Linda Emond, Oskar and Laurie Eustis, Betsy Gleick, Michael Mayer, Jeremy McCarter, Eric Price, Lisa Schwarzbaum, Mary Kaye Schilling, Brian Siberell, Alisa Solomon, Urvashi Vaid, and Roger Waltzman for all their reserves of comradeship and support.

  I’m immensely grateful to Scott Moyers, who played an extraordinary number of crucial roles in the evolution of this book, all of them with characteristic grace, generosity, and wisdom. It’s a privilege to work with him, with Ann Godoff, and with the wonderful people at Penguin Press, especially Mally Anderson and Yamil Anglada.

  To my steadfast family—those who are here and who are gone—my thanks and my love. They are too many to name, but as I worked on Five Came Back, the wartime service of my late father Lewis Harris and of my uncles Edward, Chet, and Ray Wisniewski was never far from my mind.

  Finally, to Tony: Yes, I do know how lucky I am. Thank you for a million things, including the fact that you’d never ask that question. My love for you and gratitude for your love would fill a book; I hope you know that it fills this one.

  NOTES

  List of Abbreviations Used

  EKP—Eric Knight papers, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

  FCA—Frank Capra Archives, Wesleyan University

  FJC—Filmmaker’s Journey Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, Beverly Hills

  GSC—George Stevens Collection, Margaret Herrick Library

  JFC—John Ford Collection, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington

  JHC—John Huston Collection, Margaret Herrick Library

  NA—National Archives, College Park, MD

  SGC—Samuel Goldwyn Collection, Margaret Herrick Library

  WWA—William Wyler Archives, Margaret Herrick Library

  WWUCLA—William Wyler Collection, Charles E. Young Resea
rch Library, UCLA

  Prologue: Pearl Harbor

  When news of the bombing came: Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001), 347.

  She showed the Fords a bullet hole: Tag Gallagher, John Ford: The Man and His Films (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986), 202–3. Gallagher credits an unpublished interview with Mary Ford conducted by Anthony Slide and June Banker for this story.

  “I never let them plaster over that”: Dan Ford, Pappy: The Life of John Ford (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979), 165.

  “everybody at that table”: Gallagher, John Ford, 202–3.

  just three weeks after completing production: Scott Eyman, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 245.

  failed the entrance exam: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 67.

  “I think it’s the thing to do”: Frank Farrell, “John Ford Dons Naval Uniform Because ‘It’s the Thing to Do,’” New York World-Telegram, November 1, 1941.

  “They don’t count”: Letter from John Ford to Mary Ford, October 2, 1941, JFC.

  He checked into the Carlton Hotel: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 346.

  “of a man who might set out to sea”: Farrell, “John Ford Dons Naval Uniform.”

  “It would take volumes”: Letter from John Ford to Mary Ford, September 30, 1941, JFC.

  a proper Catholic wedding ceremony: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 347.

  Ford and his men welcomed America into the war: Andrew Sinclair, “John Ford’s War,” Sight and Sound, Spring 1979.

  “Willy and I wanted”: Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 232–33.

  the aftereffects of a childhood defined by frail health: Lawrence Grobel, The Hustons: The Life and Times of a Hollywood Dynasty, updated ed. (New York: Cooper Square, 2000), 101.

  Wyler was a Jewish immigrant: Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 16–17.

  He had relatives trapped in Europe: Sarah Kozloff, “Wyler’s Wars,” Film History 20, no. 4 (2008).

  “I was only a kid”: “A Man of Unsartorial Splendor,” New York Times, January 25, 1942.

  It “seemed dated”: John Huston, An Open Book (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), 85.

  “the worst bunch of shit”: Kenneth L. Geist, Pictures Will Talk: The Life and Films of Joseph L. Mankiewicz (New York: Da Capo, 1978), 106–7.

  “all film,” including his own: Marilyn Ann Moss, Giant: George Stevens, a Life on Film (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 83.

  caught the eye of General George Marshall: Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992; revised 2000), 455.

  “To fight the war”: Stewart Alsop, “Wanted: A Faith to Fight For,” Atlantic Monthly, May 1941.

  Not until the army tried to process him: McBride, Frank Capra, 88–89.

  “That was his politics”: Ibid., 261.

  “I thought, ‘Well, if I go’”: Richard Schickel, The Men Who Made the Movies: Interviews with Frank Capra, George Cukor, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Vincente Minnelli, King Vidor, Raoul Walsh, and William E. Wellman (New York: Atheneum, 1975), 81.

  “Patriotism? Possibly”: Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography (New York: Da Capo, 1997; originally published 1971), 316.

  Fully one-third of the studios’ male workforce: Thomas Doherty, Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 60.

  more than three hundred movies: An exhaustive list of American movies with World War II–related content made during the war appears in Michael S. Shull and David Edward Wilt’s invaluable reference guide Hollywood War Films, 1937–1945 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1996).

  Chapter 1: “The Only Way I Could Survive”

  Jack Warner hosted an industry dinner: Michael E. Birdwell, Celluloid Soldiers: Warner Bros.’s Campaign Against Nazism (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 27–28.

  “militant anti-Hitler campaign in Hollywood”: “Jack Warner’s Dinner to Exiled Thom. Mann May Touch Off a Militant Anti-Hitler Campaign in Hollywood,” Variety, March 23, 1938.

  “the leader of the fight”: Birdwell, Celluloid Soldiers, 30–31.

  But when he tried early in 1938 to get Zanuck: Memo from John Ford to Darryl Zanuck, March 1, 1938, and reply, March 2, 1938, JFC.

  “If you’re thinking of a general run of social pictures”: Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001), 228.

  “May I express my wholehearted desire”: “Hollywood Anti-Nazi League,” Spartacus Educational, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAdies.htm.

  “a definite socialistic democrat—always left”: Scott Eyman, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 186.

  “the picture racket is controlled from Wall Street”: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 193.

  Ford helped found organizations: Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930–1960 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 115.

  he also served as vice chairman: Ibid., 118.

  “America is not free from . . . Nazi activity”: “Anti-Nazis Hear Warning: Audience of 4000 Cheers Assaults on German Propaganda,” Los Angeles Times, January 30, 1938.

  “War itself is so ugly”: “War Films Round Out Long Cycle,” New York Times, November 11, 1938.

  “I said, ‘What better time for an anti-war picture?’”: Stevens’s account of his disagreement with Berman comes from the unedited transcript of his 1967 interview by Robert Hughes, file 3677, GSC.

  “Imperialist propaganda”: Marilyn Ann Moss, Giant: George Stevens, a Life on Film (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 61.

  “The film is delightfully evil”: George Stevens Jr., Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age at the American Film Institute (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 228.

  he had not hesitated to pay $200,000: “Columbia’s Gem,” Time, August 8, 1938.

  “worship at the shrine of an inspiring figure”: Brooks Atkinson, “The Play: Philip Merivale in ‘Valley Forge,’” New York Times, December 11, 1934.

  Cohn said he couldn’t bring himself to finance a movie: Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992; revised 2000), 327.

  “After all, I’m a Jew”: Ibid., 242.

  “little wop”: John Stuart, “Fine Italian Hand,” Collier’s, August 17, 1935.

  Capra was a “bitter Roosevelt hater”: McBride, Frank Capra, 256–57.

  “Salesmen, politicians, moochers”: Except as noted, this and all subsequent quotations of dialogue are transcribed from the movies themselves.

  his growing interest in the fight for directors’ rights: McBride, Frank Capra, 375–76.

  “I can’t stand the sight of so much war paraphernalia”: “Stenographic Notes from the Cinema Section of the U.S.S.R. Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries,” FCA.

  “throw everything up and play the harmonica”: Review originally published in Spectator, November 11, 1938. Reprinted in John Russell Taylor, ed., Graham Greene on Film: Collected Film Criticism, 1935–1940 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972), 203–4.

  his severely disabled three-year-old son John had died: Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography (New York: Da Capo, 1997; originally published 1971), 250–52. Capra wrote that his son had a massive blood clot in his brain; McBride writes that an autopsy performed on the boy revealed an undiagnosed brain tumor.

  “with a political theme. He wants to show one”: Interview originally published in Christian Science Monitor, November 9, 1938. Reprinted in Leland Poague, ed., Frank Capra Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), 20–21.

  “Capra likes American institut
ions”: Alva Johnston, “Capra Shoots as He Pleases,” Saturday Evening Post, May 14, 1938.

  the president’s “awesome aura” made his “heart skip”: Capra, The Name Above the Title, 259.

  “capitulation to Hitler”: Thomas Doherty, Hollywood’s Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 210.

  an unusual summit meeting the day of the rally: Thomas Doherty, Hollywood and Hitler, 1933–1939 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 289–90.

  “the most interesting and most pathetic city”: Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 96–98.

  he would write a hundred-dollar check to the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League: Letter from William Wyler’s secretary to Jack Warner’s secretary, March 15, 1938, file 743, WWA.

  he would donate two hundred dollars to a relief fund: Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 186.

  “because of all the terrible things happening in Europe”: Ibid., 200.

  the only guests Wyler invited to the wedding: Axel Madsen, William Wyler: The Authorized Biography (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973), 174.

  “an iron gray man in a gray flannel suit”: “Snapshots of a Movie Maker,” syndicated column by Dorothy Kilgallen, undated but ca. 1946, file 38, WWA.

  the New York Times called him “The Great Unpressed”: “A Man of Unsartorial Splendor,” New York Times, January 25, 1942.

  “Famed Nepotist Carl Laemmle”: “New Picture,” Time, June 29, 1942.

  It was Laemmle who had paid for Wyler’s emigration: Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 25–27, 32–33.

  “Willy was certainly my best friend”: Ibid., 103–4.

  “long-legged, lobster-nosed”: Ibid., 125.