Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War
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Wyler and Huston cemented their comradeship: Lawrence Grobel, The Hustons: The Life and Times of a Hollywood Dynasty, updated ed. (New York: Cooper Square, 2000), 147. The film Wyler and Huston were researching, Wild Boys of the Road, was made by William Wellman for Warner Bros. in 1933.
he was branded a spoiled, irresponsible wreck: Ibid., 155–61.
“The experience seemed to bring my whole miserable existence”: John Huston, An Open Book (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), 63–64.
“Whatever I turned my hand to”: John Huston interviewed by Bill Moyers for the TV series Creativity with Bill Moyers, 1982, available on the Criterion Collection DVD of Wise Blood.
“never amount to more than an awfully nice guy”: James Agee, “Undirectable Director,” Life, September 18, 1950.
“He was a good writer”: 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), 82.
“apparently knows Huston personally”: Rudy Behlmer, Inside Warner Bros. (1935–1951) (New York: Viking, 1985), 41.
“the dialogue, as far as it is political and ideological”: Paul J. Vanderwood, ed., Juárez (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), 20.
“by way of being dialectic” to “those of Benito Juárez”: Huston, An Open Book, 73.
“Our task is to fight the tyrant”: Script with handwritten annotations, JHC.
“The first thing Muni wanted”: Bernard Drew, “John Huston: At 74 No Formulas,” American Film, September 1980.
“Hecht and MacArthur had written a beautiful screenplay”: Grobel, The Hustons, 201.
“I made Wuthering Heights”: Ethan Mordden, The Hollywood Studios: House Style in the Golden Age of the Movies (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), 191.
Warner Bros. immediately cut twenty-five minutes: Bernard F. Dick, Hal Wallis: Producer to the Stars (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004), 51.
“in the contest between dictator and democrat”: Frank S. Nugent, “The Screen in Review: The Warners Look Through the Past to the Present in ‘Juarez,’ Screened Last Night at the Hollywood,” New York Times, April 26, 1939.
“I knew that if I’d been the director”: Drew, “John Huston: At 74 No Formulas.”
“The Picture That Calls A Swastika A Swastika!”: Bernard F. Dick, The Star-Spangled Screen: The American World War II Film (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993), 51–60.
Chapter 2: “The Dictates of My Heart and Blood”
“unchallenged political” . . . “one of the most lamentable mistakes”: 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), 27–30.
“I want to do that for my people”: Rudy Behlmer, Inside Warner Bros. (1935–1951) (New York: Viking, 1985), 82.
“The world is faced with the menace of gangsters”: “Little Caesar Waits His Chance,” New York Times, January 22, 1939.
“Hitler’s pledge of non-aggression”: Frank S. Nugent, “The Screen in Review: The Warners Make Faces at Hitler in ‘Confessions of a Nazi Spy,’” New York Times, April 29, 1939.
Variety wondered about its “bearing on”: Variety review, signed by “Land.,” May 5, 1939.
Time called it: “Cinema: Totem and Taboo,” Time, May 15, 1939.
When Stevens urged Schaeffer’s lieutenant Pandro Berman: Marilyn Ann Moss, Giant: George Stevens, a Life on Film (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 62–63.
“do first-rate pictures” that were “comparable in quality”: Ibid., 63–64.
In February, when the Academy presented him: Mason Wiley and Damien Bona, Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards, 10th anniversary ed. (New York: Ballantine, 1996), 88–90.
“it is probable that the industry has never faced blacker days”: Douglas W. Churchill, “Hollywood Jitters: The War Jeopardizes $6,000,000 Worth of New Films,” New York Times, May 26, 1940.
Buchman . . . said that Capra was: Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992; revised 2000), 412.
“He was a very simplistic man”: Ibid., 414.
“Are you a Fascist?”: Ibid., 415.
“the mob is so lazy”: Ibid., 256.
“graft could rear its ugly head”: Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography (New York: Da Capo, 1997; originally published 1971), 281–83.
“silly and stupid”: New York Times, October 24, 1939.
Republican senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.: “Mr. Smith Riles Washington,” Time, October 30, 1939.
anti–block booking legislation: Ibid.
“one of the most disgraceful things”: David Nasaw, The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy (New York: Penguin Press, 2012), 421.
“to show this film in foreign countries”: Capra, The Name Above the Title, 292.
“With all those things they’ve got to do”: McBride, Frank Capra, 422.
“that unwritten clause in the Bill of Rights”: Frank S. Nugent, “The Screen in Review: Frank Capra’s ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ at the Music Hall Sets a Seasonal High in Comedy,” New York Times, October 20, 1939.
“the Senate and the machinery of how it may be used”: Otis Ferguson, “Mr. Capra Goes Someplace,” New Republic, November 1, 1939. Reprinted in The Film Criticism of Otis Ferguson (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1971), 273–74.
in the words of the New Yorker: Geoffrey T. Hellman, “Thinker in Hollywood,” New Yorker, February 20, 1940.
“My dear Frank”: Letters from Lionel Robinson to Frank Capra, October 2, 1939, and October 31, 1939, FCA.
“I am glad your wife and children”: Letter from Frank Capra to Lionel Robinson, November 21, 1939, FCA.
“I never cease to thrill”: Hellman, “Thinker in Hollywood.”
he and the Academy’s Research Council met: McBride, Frank Capra, 439.
street scenes were dressed with army recruiting posters: Michael S. Shull and David Edward Wilt, Hollywood War Films, 1937–1945 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1996), 120.
“In the film”: Unedited transcript of George Stevens interviewed by Robert Hughes, 1967, file 3677, GSC.
“heavy and stolid”: Variety, February 7, 1940.
“The world’s most famous doctor”: Marilyn Ann Moss, Giant: George Stevens, a Life on Film (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 67.
“after several weeks of friction”: New York Times, March 5, 1940.
“You make a picture here”: Hughes interview with George Stevens, 1967, file 3677, GSC.
If a war or national emergency: Letter from William B. Dover to George Stevens, file 3550, GSC.
While in Tijuana, they ran into Franz Planer: Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 204.
“I don’t know of anything that will breed”: Letter from Harry Warner to William Wyler, January 19, 1940, file 743, WWA.
“swarming with refugees”: Senator Gerald Nye, speech reprinted in Vital Speeches of the Day 8, no. 23 (September 15, 1941).
he had already planted an item: Jimmie Fidler, “Fidler in Hollywood: Hollywood’s Community Chest Drive Has Caused Trouble,” St. Petersburg Times, January 15, 1940.
acknowledging that it wasn’t the “real generous contribution”: Letter from Willam Wyler to Harry Warner, January 26, 1940, file 743, WWA.
“I know your heart has been disturbed”: Letter from Harry Warner to William Wyler, January 29, 1940, file 743, WWA.
at a salary of $6,250 a week: Production file on The Letter, Warner Bros. Archives, University of Southern California.
“Mein Lieber Willy”: Sarah Kozloff, “Wyler’s Wars,” Film History 20, no. 4 (2008).
“We were stunned”: Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 208.
most of them were ultra-low-budget: “Cinema: New Westerns,” Time, March 13, 1939.
tested the limits of the Production Code: Letters from Joseph I. Breen to Walter Wanger, October 28, 1939 and November 8, 1938, JFC.
“Why are you moving your mouth”: Scott Eyman, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 200.
proclaiming at a press conference that: Matthew Bernstein, Walter Wanger: Hollywood Independent (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 140.
“one of the best directors of the day”: John Russell Taylor, ed., Graham Greene on Film: Collected Film Criticism, 1935–1940 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972), 241–32.
“leap at the chance”: Letter from John Ford to Darryl Zanuck, July 17, 1939, JFC.
“the best cussed pitcher I ever seen”: Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001), 313.
“If the conditions which the picture tends”: Eyman, Print the Legend, 224.
“Pinkos who did not bat an eye”: “The New Pictures,” Time, February 12, 1940.
“resoluteness of approach”: Frank S. Nugent, “The Screen in Review: Twentieth Century-Fox Shows a Flawless Film Edition of John Steinbeck’s ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ with Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell, at the Rivoli,” New York Times, January 25, 1940.
“a shocking visualization”: Variety, January 31, 1940.
“There is no country”: The Film Criticism of Otis Ferguson (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1971), 282–85.
“The Grapes of Wrath is possibly”: “The New Pictures,” Time, February 12, 1940.
“when they threw the people off”: Peter Bogdanovich, John Ford, revised and enlarged ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), 23.
he named the Araner, as a tribute: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 200–201.
“Drinking,” said John Wayne: Dan Ford, Pappy: The Life of John Ford (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979), 112–19.
“The Japanese shrimp fleet”: Report from John Ford to Captain Elias Zacharias, December 30, 1939, and reply from J. R. Defrees, January 16, 1940, JFC.
“green with envy”: Ford, Pappy, 151.
letters from friends in England: Letter from Lord Killanin to John Ford, January 12, 1940, JFC.
“over-age and rich”: Eyman, Print the Legend, 251.
“show that a Democracy can”: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 320–22.
told to recruit up to two hundred volunteers: Memo from the chief of the Bureau of Navigation to the 11th Naval District commandant, September 7, 1940, JFC.
They combed lists of employees: Field Photo application file, box 10, folder 30, JFC.
The men would meet on Tuesday: Ibid.
“all the officers were going to wear swords”: Ford, Pappy, 151–52.
Chapter 3: “You Must Not Realize That There Is a War Going On”
Capra, who was there to represent the Directors Guild: Thomas Brady, “Films for Defense,” New York Times, December 1, 1940.
Warner promptly had his speech printed: Warner Bros. Archives, University of Southern California, and WWA.
mailed not just to his colleagues and rivals: Michael E. Birdwell, Celluloid Soldiers: The Warner Bros. Campaign Against Nazism (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 83.
a year later Jack Warner would loan Davis: A. Scott Berg, Goldwyn (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), 357–58.
she kept it a secret and had an abortion: Ed Sikov, Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis (New York: Henry Holt, 2007), 167.
“I should have married Willy”: Whitney Stine, “I’d Love to Kiss You . . .”: Conversations with Bette Davis (New York: Pocket, 1991), 126.
“I did it his way”: Bette Davis, The Lonely Life (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1962), 204.
“You are a very good director”: Warner Bros. daily progress report, June 26, 1940, and letter from Jack Warner to William Wyler, June 27, 1940, file 252, WWA.
he had started to send packets of cash: Sarah Kozloff, “Wyler’s Wars,” Film History 20, no. 4 (2008).
“Please be assured that I have no intention”: Handwritten drafts of William Wyler’s response to Jack Warner, file 252, WWA.
Martin Dies had rarely missed an opportunity: “Reply of Dies to President,” New York Times, October 27, 1938, and “Ex-Rep. Martin Dies Is Dead,” New York Times, November 15, 1927.
Among the biggest names on his list: “Film Stars Named in ‘Red’ Inquiry,” New York Times, July 18, 1940.
Dies announced that he intended to hold hearings: A. M. Sperber and Eric Lax, Bogart (New York: William Morrow, 1997), 131–33.
Ford, whose real name was Sean Aloysius O’Feeney: Last Will and Testament of John Ford, October 30, 1940, JFC.
make a statement against Fascism: Matthew Bernstein, Walter Wanger: Hollywood Independent (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 167.
“You’re a thorny guy”: Letter from Dudley Nichols to John Ford, ca. April 1940, JFC.
“With their foreign market already lost”: “Cinema: Unpulled Punches,” Time, October 28, 1940.
“the highest pitch of realism”: Variety, October 9, 1940.
he borrowed $750,000: Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992; revised 2000), 430.
“The ‘Capra-corn’ barbs had pierced”: This and all subsequent quotations from Capra in this chapter are from Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography (New York: Da Capo, 1997; originally published 1971), 297–303.
“a barefoot fascist”: Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929–1968 (New York: Dutton, 1968), 87.
“the most effective film expose to date”: Variety, June 12, 1940.
“that can be considered of any major consequence”: John Mosher, “The Current Cinema: A German Story,” New Yorker, June 22, 1940.
Paramount had cautiously insisted on shooting “protection takes”: Kevin Lally, Wilder Times: The Life of Billy Wilder (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), 94.
“Films are fast assuming the role”: Bosley Crowther, “Propaganda—Be Prepared: ‘The Ramparts We Watch,’ ‘Pastor Hall,’ and Other Current Films Provoke Thought upon an Inevitable Trend,” New York Times, September 22, 1940.
Chapter 4: “What’s the Good of a Message?”
“for as long as the fish are biting”: Mason Wiley and Damien Bona, Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards, 10th anniversary ed. (New York: Ballantine, 1996), 109–11.
“all had to slink back to their tables”: Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 216.
“Awards are a trivial thing”: Wiley and Bona, Inside Oscar, 111.
many small-circulation papers: Brooklyn Citizen, March 22, 1941.
Ford himself had little use for the movie: Ford interviewed by Claudine Tavernier, 1966, reprinted in Gerald Peary and Jenny Lefcourt, eds., John Ford Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001), 101.
“Darryl F. Panic”: Dan Ford, Pappy: The Life of John Ford (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979), 97.
“Zanuck . . . said to me”: Peter Bogdanovich, John Ford, revised and enlarged ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978).
In January, he drew up a budget proposal: Letter from John Ford to Merian C. Cooper, January 24, 1941, JFC.
quasi-spy mission for the Araner: Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001), 274.
Wyler had written to him: A. Scott Berg, Goldwyn (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), 289.
“the only . . . people in the Goldwyn asylum”: Ibid., 269.
Zanuck offered Wyler $85,000: Contract memo from 20th Century Fox to William Wyler, September 26, 1940, file 221, WWA.
“into a labor
story”: Story conference memo by Zanuck, May 22, 1940, reprinted in Rudy Behlmer, ed., Memo from Darryl F. Zanuck: The Golden Years at Twentieth Century–Fox (New York: Grove, 1993), 40.
Wyler went through a hardcover copy: Wyler’s personal, hand-annotated copy of the novel How Green Was My Valley, file 202, WWA.
“The little English refugee”: 20th Century Fox memo from Lew Schreiber to William Wyler and Wyler’s handwritten notes, file 217, WWA.
was horrified when Dunne turned in a 260-page first draft: Drafts of Philip Dunne screenplays, August 23, 1940, and November 11, 1940, file 207, WWA.
“Willy couldn’t write a line”: Philip Dunne, Take Two: A Life in Movies and Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980), 93.
“It is going to be a very simple job”: Memo from Darryl Zanuck to William Wyler, November 14, 1940, file 222, WWA.
“smooth—even—and dull”: Memo from Freda Rosenblatt to William Wyler, November 18, 1940, file 210, WWA.
“The lack of suspense is still felt: Memo from Freda Rosenblatt to William Wyler, December 28, 1940, file 214, WWA.
“so far failed to achieve”: Letter from Darryl Zanuck to Philip Dunne and William Wyler, December 6, 1940, file 222, WWA.
“I must ask that in matters of taste”: Handwritten draft of letter from William Wyler to Darryl Zanuck, December 1940 (undated), file 221, WWA.
he ran into an executive: Memo from William Wyler to Darryl Zanuck, December 20, 1940, file 222, WWA.
Philip Dunne was called into a meeting: Dunne, Take Two, 97.
A special Oscar was awarded: Wiley and Bona, Inside Oscar, 109–11.
Its young star, John Justin: Andrew Moor, “‘Arabian’ Fantasies,” supplement to Criterion DVD release of The Thief of Bagdad.
“The Great American Letdown”: Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography (New York: Da Capo, 1997; originally published 1971), 304.
“You just don’t kill Gary Cooper”: Capra interviewed by Richard Glatzer, 1973, reprinted in Leland Poague, ed., Frank Capra Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), 119.
he was nearly broke because the government: Capra, The Name Above the Title, 299.
“the director is more zealot than showman”: Variety, March 19, 1941.