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

by Mark Harris

  when MGM asked Bill Donovan: Proposed telegram from Eddie Mannix to Captain L. P. Lovette, and letter from Frank Wead to John Ford, both March 9, 1943, JFC.

  “I guess we might just as well”: Letter from John Ford to Mary Ford, July 19, 1943, JFC.

  “I pray to God it will soon be over”: Letter from John Ford to Mary Ford, June 26, 1943, JFC.

  He was earning just $4,000: Scott Eyman, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 270–71.

  John Wayne had made and broken: Letters from John Wayne to John Ford, ca. May 1942, JFC.

  At the end of 1943, Wayne: Randy Roberts and James S. Olson, John Wayne, American (New York: Free Press, 1995).

  Ford and two Field Photo colleagues: Andrew Sinclair, John Ford (New York: Dial, 1979), 115.

  make a visual case for the usefulness of Donovan’s new intelligence agency: Tom Moon, This Grim and Savage Game: The OSS and U.S. Covert Operations in World War II (New York: Da Capo, 2000; originally published 1991), 165–66.

  made his first and only parachute jump: Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001), 389.

  Intelligence Documentary Photographic Project: Dan Ford, Pappy: The Life of John Ford (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979), 185.

  complained to him that the organization: Letter from Mary Ford to John Ford, December 8, 1943, JFC.

  the Fords’ son Patrick expressed disgust that Jews: Letter from Patrick Ford to John Ford (“this Ghetto called Public Relations . . . is too full of Jew boys and sons of the rich”), February 12, 1944. JFC.

  “we’ve got to win”: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 374 (“The Yid”), 370–71 (Mary Ford), 369 (Patrick Ford); letter from John Ford to Harry Wurtzel, January 12, 1942, JFC.

  “Dear Christ-Killer”: Eyman, Print the Legend, 261.

  soon turned from “a charming man”: Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930–1960 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 209.

  Motion Picture Alliance: Ibid., 210–11.

  Ford wrote a forty-dollar check: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 371.

  Know Your Enemy—Japan: William Blakefield, “A War Within: The Making of Know Your Enemy—Japan,” Sight and Sound, Spring 1983.

  “the real rulers of Japan”: Hans Schoots, trans. David Colmer, Living Dangerously: A Biography of Joris Ivens (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2000), 174–76.

  when Capra submitted Ivens’s completed film: Ibid.

  “only . . . as a tool of Japanese militarists”: Thomas Doherty, Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 135–36.

  “totally unsophisticated when it came to political thought”: Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992; revised 2000), 498.

  “From FDR to General Marshall” to “toward the Japanese”: Blakefield, “A War Within.”

  “I nearly vomited”: Letter from Frank Capra to Alexander Surles, December 14, 1943, FCA.

  Christmas Day promotion: Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography (New York: Da Capo, 1997; originally published 1971), 357–58.

  straitened financial circumstances: Ibid., 353.

  “and I hope that will be soon”: Letter from Harry Warner to Frank Capra, January 11, 1944, FCA.

  Ernie Pyle’s report: Ernie Pyle, “This One Is Captain Waskow,” Scripps Howard wire copy, January 19, 1944. Reprinted in Reporting World War II, Part One: American Journalism, 1938–1944 (New York: Library of America, 1995), 735–37.

  “What a welcome the people”: John Huston, An Open Book (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), 110–13.

  “When I made San Pietro”: John Huston interviewed in “The Triumph of the Good Egg,” by Ezra Goodman, undated and unidentified newspaper clipping ca. late 1940s, San Pietro clipping file, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

  an extensive and confidential written account: “Operations in Italy December 1943, 143rd Infantry Regiment,” compiled by William H. Martin, 143rd Infantry, Commanding, file 504, JHC.

  “Greater clarity needed” to “they are retreating”: “Notes on San Pietro,” handwritten memo apparently by John Huston, undated, file 501, JHC.

  Fourteen unedited reels: All notes on Huston’s unused footage come from the author’s viewing of his unedited film reels dated January 3–February 22, 1944, National Archives, College Park, Maryland.

  “I had never before seen dead”: Huston, An Open Book, 120.

  “The re-enactments in most cases are done so poorly” to “in Indio or Palm Springs”: Memo to Colonel Curtis Mitchell from Second Lieutenant James B. Faichney, “Subject: North African Re-enactments,” January 28, 1944, file 1443, JHC.

  outrage from Huston: Memos from John Huston to Colonel Kirke B. Lawson, chief, Army Pictorial Service, March 4 and March 26, 1944, file 1443, JHC.

  “far superior in over-all quality” . . . “easily recognizable”: Memo from Faichney to Mitchell, March 4, 1944, file 1443, JHC.

  Huston received a promotion: John Huston army records, record of promotion dated April 14, 1944, file 1719, JHC.

  he “couldn’t take”: Lawrence Grobel, The Hustons: The Life and Times of a Hollywood Dynasty, updated ed. (New York: Cooper Square, 2000), 258–59.

  “He was in a uniform”: Ibid., 254.

  “But Astoria,” Huston wrote: Huston, An Open Book, 187–88.

  “Dear John Welcome home”: Telegram from Frank Capra to John Huston, file 1443, JHC.

  He would work at Astoria all day: Grobel, The Hustons, 255.

  Chapter 19: “If You Believe This, We Thank You”

  “We suffer . . . a unique and constantly intensifying” to “the root of the disaster”: James Agee, “So Proudly We Fail,” Nation, October 30, 1943.

  out of 545 feature films: OWI memo, October 8, 1943, Ulric Bell/W. S. Cunningham correspondence files, Records of the Office of War Information, NA.

  “Hollywood has finally thrown up its hands”: Mildred Martin, “Hollywood Producers Have Jitters About War Films,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 30, 1944.

  Oscar ceremony held in the spring of 1944: Mason Wiley and Damien Bona, Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards, 10th anniversary ed. (New York: Ballantine, 1996), 138.

  “deficient,” “inaccurate”: Bosley Crowther, “‘Tunisian Victory,’ Picture of the Allies’ Cooperation, at the Rialto,” New York Times, March 24, 1944.

  “all a bit too much like other guns and planes”: “The Current Cinema: Chapter Two,” New Yorker, March 25, 1944.

  including the “unfortunate”: “The New Pictures,” Time, April 17, 1944.

  “the continuity has been chopped”: New Republic, April 3, 1944.

  “The film,” he wrote in The Nation: Nation, April 25, 1944.

  “This is the price we have to pay”: Bosley Crowther, “Element of Time: Observations on War Documentaries as Inspired by ‘Tunisian Victory,’” New York Times, April 2, 1944.

  “I feel like a big loafer”: Letter from Geoge Stevens to Yvonne Stevens, March 21, 1944, GSC.

  “You are all a lot of big shots”: Letter from George Stevens to George Stevens Jr., April 6, 1944, GSC.

  While he and his team waited: Letter from George Stevens to George Stevens Jr., April 14, 1944, GSC.

  “Hello my pal”: Letter from George Stevens to George Stevens Jr., February 14, 1944, GSC.

  “What’s this D in Gym?”: Letter from George Stevens to George Stevens Jr., March 26, 1944, GSC.

  “Third in his class of many boys”: Letter from George Stevens to George Stevens Jr., April 3, 1044, GSC.

  “For Jeep’s sake be careful”: Letter from George Stevens to George Stevens Jr., April 14, 1944, GSC.

  “These have been dreary months”: Marilyn Ann Moss, Giant: George Stevens, a Life on Film (Madison: University of Wiscon
sin Press, 2004), 108.

  “You know that I find much”: Ibid.

  “The fellows in our work overseas”: Letter from George Stevens to Yvonne Stevens, February 13, 1944, GSC.

  “How the audience . . . enjoyed”: George Stevens journal entry, January 6, 1944, GSC.

  “[They] have been taboo in Hollywood”: Letter from Charles Feldman to George Stevens, May 27, 1944, cited in Moss, Giant, 113.

  “the lousiest crap imaginable”: Ibid.

  “We ran the first print”: George Stevens journal entry, April 18, 1944, GSC.

  “The makers of this film wish”: Unused introduction to Memphis Belle, box 20, file 12, WWUCLA.

  “This is a superb picture”: Memo from Brigadier General L. S. Kuter for the chief of the Air Staff, February 2, 1944, file 326, WWA.

  In 1942, the committee’s vice chairman: Letter from Francis Harmon, vice chairman of the War Activities Committee, to Henry Stimson, February 18, 1944, file 326, WWA.

  “persons in active duty”: Thomas Doherty, Hollywood’s Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 157–58.

  “the wisdom of making these”: Letter from Francis Harmon to Henry Stimson, February 18, 1944, file 326, WWA.

  April 15, 1944, a date that Wyler came close to spending in an army jail: Wyler’s account of this incident, with slight variations, appears in Axel Madsen, William Wyler: The Authorized Biography (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973), 240–42, and Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 266–68.

  “one of the finest fact films”: Bosley Crowther, “Vivid Film of Daylight Bomb Raid Depicts Daring of Our Armed Forces,” April 14, 1944, and Bosley Crowther, “The Real Thing,” April 16, 1944, New York Times.

  “ought to go a long way”: “The Memphis Belle—A Life Story,” Cue, April 1, 1944.

  “best feature” was “the conversation”: David Lardner, “The Current Cinema: More of the Same,” New Yorker, April 15, 1944.

  “could not guess which shots”: Nation, April 15, 1944.

  “shrewd but somewhat plushy war poster”: “The New Pictures,” Time, April 17, 1944.

  “postwar planners should work out”: Nation, April 15, 1944.

  “says everything I’ve got to say”: “The Memphis Belle—A Life Story,” Cue, April 1, 1944.

  “I want to make more documentary films”: Cable from William Wyler to Moss Hart, February 20, 1944, cited in Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 265.

  Chapter 20: “A Sporadic Raid of Sorts on the Continent”

  “We are a democracy”: W. L. White, They Were Expendable (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1942), vii.

  “In a war” . . . “I’ve been back”: Ibid., 3–4.

  “Every congressman in America”: Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001), 381–82.

  “the thing will probably be ske-rewed up”: Ibid., 403–4.

  in March 1944, the navy told him: OSS memorandum, April 6, 1944, JFC.

  orders came through for him to report to London: OSS memorandum, March 24, 1944, JFC.

  “I understand that there is to be”: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 392.

  Bulkeley was summoned: Scott Eyman, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 274.

  Ford, still naked, then crawled back: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 393–94.

  The Negro Soldier: Thomas Cripps and David Culbert, “The Negro Soldier (1944): Film Propaganda in Black and White,” American Quarterly, Winter 1979.

  “It is undoubtedly a powerful script”: Letter from Frederick Osborn to Frank Capra, September 2, 1942, FCA.

  Who is going to see the Negro picture?: Letter from Frederick Osborn to Frank Capra, September 23, 1942, FCA.

  belief that the army’s 875,000 black soldiers: Cripps and Culbert, “The Negro Soldier.”

  “apparently the big problem here”: Letter from Sam Spewack to Lowell Mellett, September 4, 1942, Mellett files, box 1446, Records of the Office of War Information, NA.

  In 1943, black characters were depicted: 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), 179.

  “films in which there is reference to racial minorities”: “Operational Guidance on OWI Documentary Film,” November 21, 1944, reiteration of April 21, 1944, guideline, Ulric Bell/W. S. Cunningham Files, Records of the Office of War Information, NA.

  “I’ll say this for him”: Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992; revised 2000), 492–93.

  A scene showing a white physical therapist: Memo from Lyman T. Munson to Anatole Litvak, October 1943, cited in Cripps and Culbert, “The Negro Soldier.”

  an invited audience of African Americans: Invitation to press screening from Major General A. D. Surles, February 14, 1944, in Special Collections file on The Negro Soldier, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

  actors who had been hired for $10.50 a day: Cripps and Culbert, “The Negro Soldier.”

  Richard Wright: “Negro Film Pleases Novelist,” Brooklyn Eagle, March 1944 (exact date unavailable).

  “distinctly and thrillingly worthwhile” and “Who would have thought”: Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography (New York: Da Capo, 1997; originally published 1971), 359 and 262.

  “ignore what’s wrong with the Army”: McBride, Frank Capra, 492.

  “the dignity and expertness”: Dorothy Norman, “A World to Live In,” New York Post, March 6, 1944.

  “Are you going to show this” . . . “will change their attitude”: Time, “The New Pictures,” March 27, 1944.

  “America’s Joe Louis Vs. The Axis!”: Promotional material, Special Collections file on The Negro Soldier, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

  “the real sleeper of the season”: John McManus, “McManus Speaking of Movies,” PM, July 12, 1944.

  “Why don’t you go to some” to leaving the country: Carlton Moss interviewed by McBride, Frank Capra, 494.

  He claimed that Moss was a hothead: Capra, The Name Above the Title, 358.

  fourth and most unlikely creative team: William Blakefield, “A War Within: The Making of Know Your Enemy—Japan,” Sight and Sound, Spring 1983.

  Capra had recently pulled Theodor Geisel off: Judith Morgan and Neil Morgan, Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1995).

  “the lack of general information”: Letter from Frank Capra to General Osborn, February 25, 1944, FCA.

  “limping along under reduced staff”: Memo from Frank Capra to Alexander Surles, June 9, 1944, FCA.

  “It is the gloaming when the train pulls out”: George Stevens journal entry, May 1, 1944, GSC.

  Chapter 21: “If You See It, Shoot It”

  John Ford . . . didn’t talk about D-Day for twenty years: “This is the first time I’ve ever talked about it.” John Ford in Pete Martin, “We Shot D-Day on Omaha Beach (an Interview with John Ford),” American Legion Magazine, June 1964. Except as noted, all direct quotes from Ford and descriptions of his D-Day experiences in this chapter are from this interview.

  George Stevens . . . leaving three weeks almost blank in his diary: George Stevens notebook #12, GSC.

  Ford made no mention at all: John Ford to Mary Ford, June 8, 1944, JFC.

  Five hundred 35-millimeter cameras: OSS report cited in Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001), 395.

  fifty cameras were placed in the first wave: Thomas Doherty, Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 242.

  American cameramen and almost two hundred still photographers: Ibid.

  Stevens was an “artist”: John Ford to Walter Wanger, in Wanger, You Must Remembe
r This (New York: Putnam, 1975).

  “in motion pictures the only medium”: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 179.

  Ford was running Field Photo: Martin, “We Shot D-Day on Omaha Beach.”

  Ford would owe him “two bottles of booze”: Andrew Sinclair, “John Ford’s War,” Sight and Sound, Spring 1979.

  with his own 16-millimeter camera: George Stevens Jr., in George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin (1994), written and produced by George Stevens Jr.

  Before they landed, the Belfast’s captain: George Stevens’s unedited color and black-and-white World War II footage. Except where noted, all subsequent descriptions of what Stevens and his SPECOU unit shot derive from the author’s viewing of this footage at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  With more than half a million American and British soldiers: Stephen E. Ambrose, D-Day: June 6, 1944; The Climactic Battle of World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994).

  By the end of the first day of fighting to exposed and unretrievable: Ibid.

  But most of the film for which Ford had planned: Doherty, Projections of War, 242.

  Stevens was fond of telling a story: Scott Eyman, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 274–75.

  “George had no right to be in the Army”: Irwin Shaw interviewed by Susan Winslow, October 14, 1981, file 66, FJC.

  “yes, I was one of the first men ashore”: John Ford to Axel Madsen, 1966, reprinted in Gerald Peary and Jenny Lefcourt, eds., John Ford Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001), 90.

  “Dear Ma—My darling, I miss you terribly”: John Ford Goes to War (originally aired 2002 on Starz), produced and directed by Tom Thurman, written by Tom Marksbury.

  Less than seventy-two hours after D-Day: Martin, “We Shot D-Day on Omaha Beach.”

  Much of the footage was blurry: The footage is shown in the British documentary D-Day in Colour (2004), produced by Kim Hogg.

  what they captured would not be shown: It was not until the fictional recreation of D-Day at the beginning of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan in 1998, some shots of which were virtual recreations of long-suppressed images, that the moviegoing public saw an approximation of what D-Day had looked like to some of the men who filmed it.