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

by Mark Harris

  “raise your voice”: Telegram from John Huston to Archer Winsten, late April 1945, file 252, JHC.

  “The Army” to “what to do with it”: Archer Winsten, “Movie Talk: Lest You Forget a Film Everyone Ought to View,” New York Post, July 2, 1946.

  “Seeing it, I felt as if”: Archer Winsten, “Movie Talk: Huston’s ‘Let There Be Light’ Hidden Under Army Bushel,” New York Post, May 6, 1946.

  “I don’t know what is necessary” . . . “the glaring obvious reason”: James Agee, Nation, May 11, 1946, and January 25, 1947.

  “the whole gruesome story”: Letter from Arthur Mayer to John Huston, August 14, 1946, file 252, JHC.

  “In the Second World War”: Lawrence Grobel, The Hustons: The Life and Times of a Hollywood Dynasty, updated ed. (New York: Cooper Square, 2000), 299.

  “wanted to maintain the ‘warrior’ myth”: Huston, An Open Book, 125–26.

  “That,” he said, “was my most”: Stuart Kaminsky, John Huston: Maker of Magic (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), 43–44.

  George Stevens opened a 1946 desk calendar: All details of Stevens’s activity during his first weeks back are, unless otherwise noted, from his 1946 diary, entries dated January 1–23, file 3602, GSC.

  “the small one” . . . “it was a long time away”: Yvonne Stevens interviewed by Irene Kahn Atkins, unpublished transcript, file 3696, GSC.

  “The whole [war] became”: Frank Capra interviewed for “George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey,” unpublished transcript, file 13, FJC.

  a taxicab had run over his foot: Yvonne Stevens interviewed by Irene Kahn Atkins, unpublished transcript, file 3696, GSC. Stevens, in an interview with Bruce Petri (file 3692, GSC), claimed that his problems walking were the result of a case of frostbite he suffered while in Luxembourg, when his army boots froze and had to be cut off.

  “not made from life”: Unedited transcript of George Stevens interviewed by Robert Hughes, 1967, file 3677, GSC.

  When he dined at Romanoff’s . . . “going to put yours on?”: Gavin Lambert, ed., The Ivan Moffat File: Life Among the Beautiful and Damned in London, Paris, New York, and Hollywood (New York: Pantheon, 2004), 175–76.

  “very bitter about the people”: Marilyn Ann Moss, Giant: George Stevens, a Life on Film (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 123.

  “He didn’t look for a job”: Yvonne Stevens interviewinterviewed by Irene Kahn Atkins, unpublished transcript, file 3696, GSC.

  no offers to make a war picture: George Stevens to Hal Boyle, 1953, reprinted in Paul Cronin, ed., George Stevens Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), 14.

  “They tell me you can’t make a film”: George Stevens, characterizing his postwar frame of mind in unedited transcript of interview by Robert Hughes, 1967, file 3677, GSC.

  “I wasn’t ready”: George Stevens to James Silke, Cinema, December 1964/January 1965, reprinted in Cronin, ed., George Stevens Interviews, 40.

  a comedy script called One Big Happy Family: Herbert G. Luft, “George Stevens: The War Gave the Academy’s New President a Social Conscience,” Films in Review, November 1958.

  “I didn’t quite know what” . . . still wanted him to be part of Liberty: George Stevens to James Silke, Cinema, December 1964/January 1965, reprinted in Cronin, ed., George Stevens Interviews.

  “Our films should tell the truth”: Moss, Giant, 27.

  “After the war”: George Stevens interviewed by Patrick McGilligan and Joseph McBride, in Cronin, ed., George Stevens Interviews.

  “I hated to see him leave comedy”: Frank Capra, interviewed for “George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey,” unpublished transcript, file 13, FJC.

  “You can never be right”: Yvonne Stevens interviewed by Irene Kahn Atkins, unpublished transcript, file 3696, GSC.

  Chapter 29: “Closer to What Is Going On in the World”

  “A change is in the making”: Frank Capra, “Breaking Hollywood’s ‘Pattern of Sameness,’” New York Times Magazine, May 5, 1946.

  “Many of the men”: Ibid.

  “story value will have foremost precedence”: “New Picture: It’s a Wonderful Life,” Time, December 23, 1946.

  “One is to strengthen the individual’s belief”: Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1946.

  “if the war lasted more than a couple of years”: Mary Morris, “Stubborn Willy Wyler,” PM, February 2, 1947.

  “the Academy will replace your ersatz plaque”: Letter from Jean Hersholt to Frank Capra, May 17, 1946, FCA.

  “It’s frightening to go back”: Thomas M. Pryor, “Mr. Capra Comes to Town,” New York Times, November 18, 1945.

  “through the war in a very real sense”: William Wyler, “No Magic Wand,” Screen Writer, February 1947.

  “People are disillusioned”: Pryor, “Mr. Capra Comes to Town.”

  “People are numb”: Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1946.

  “no independent producer is big enough”: Pryor, “Mr. Capra Comes to Town.”

  To inaugurate Liberty, he wanted: Joseph McBride, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992; revised 200), 508–9.

  “about a small town guy”: Pryor, “Mr. Capra Comes to Town.”

  “This story doesn’t tell very well”: Jeanine Basinger, The It’s a Wonderful Life Book (New York: Knopf, 1986), 77–78.

  he chewed through one writer after another: Ibid.

  “horrid man” . . . “an arrogant son of a bitch”: Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett interviewed by Mark Rowland in Backstory: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood’s Golden Age, ed. Pat McGilligan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 210.

  By June 30, 1946: Liberty Films financial statement, June 30, 1946, file 3753, GSC.

  “Jesus Christ”: Unedited transcript of George Stevens interview with Bruce Petri, file 3692, GSC.

  Goldwyn had earmarked the role: Cast list, file 4111, SGC.

  “You can’t have a Jew”: Axel Madsen, William Wyler: The Authorized Biography (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973), 90.

  “So you’re gonna make a movie”: Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 282.

  “I got [my injury] on D-Day”: Diary of a Sergeant (1945).

  “I didn’t try to teach him to act”: Thomas M. Pryor, “William Wyler and His Screen Philosophy—And They All Had Big Heads the Next Morning,” New York Times, November 17, 1946.

  “It was more work”: William Wyler to Kantor, Blacker, and Kramer, reprinted in Gabriel Miller, ed., William Wyler Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), 41.

  He also broke with studio tradition: William Wyler to Ronald L. Davis, reprinted in ibid.

  “It’s very important”: Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 283.

  “the veteran could not be isolated”: Wyler, “No Magic Wand.”

  “You pass stuff like that”: Leonard J. Leff and Jerold L. Simmons, The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001), 140, 155.

  “The war should be over between us”: Herman, A Talent for Trouble, 228–29.

  “I didn’t hire an actor!”: Ibid., 288.

  “When I say my lines”: A. Scott Berg, Goldwyn (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), 411.

  On April 9: Ibid.

  “When I come to a set”: William Wyler in George Stevens Jr., Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age at the American Film Institute (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 208.

  “I am writing you”: Letter from Samuel Goldwyn to William Wyler, May 29, 1946, file 177, SGC.

  “I want to make one last effort”: Telegram from William Wyler to Robert Sherwood, June 6, 1946, file 177, SGC.

  “He used to go overboard”: Lester Koenig, “Gregg Toland, Film-Maker,” Screen Writer, December 1947.

  “I shot most of the scenes”: Pryor, “William Wyler and His Screen Philosoph
y.”

  “I knew these [characters]”: Hermine Rich Isaacs, “William Wyler: Director with a Passion and a Craft,” Theatre Arts, February 1947.

  “whatever extra trouble was necessary”: Wyler, “No Magic Wand.”

  “I hated that”: Joseph McBride, “AFI Salutes William Wyler Who Can Say ‘Auteur’ Like a Native,” Variety, March 17, 1976.

  “in order to win his personal battles”: Wyler, “No Magic Wand.”

  “lose himself in the dream”: William Wyler in Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

  After a wildly successful test screening in Long Beach: Berg, Goldwyn, 417.

  “with something important to say”: Mason Wiley and Damien Bona, Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards, 10th anniversary ed. (New York: Ballantine, 1996), 160.

  “William Wyler has always seemed to me”: James Agee, “What Hollywood Can Do, Parts 1 and 2,” Nation, December 7, 1946 and December 14, 1946.

  “not only . . . superlative entertainment”: Bosley Crowther, “The Screen in Review,” New York Times, November 22, 1946.

  “the best-directed film I’ve ever seen”: Mason and Bona, Inside Oscar, 167.

  “the greatest of all Capra pictures”: Hollywood Reporter, December 11, 1946.

  “hysterical pitch” . . . “moralizing”: Manny Farber, “Mugging Main Street,” New Republic, January 6, 1947.

  The New York Times called it quaint and sentimental: Bosley Crowther, “‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ with James Stewart, at Globe,” New York Times, December 23, 1946.

  “oldtime craft” . . . “taken the stride forward”: Variety, December 25, 1946.

  “Frank, I’m worried”: Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography (New York: Da Capo, 1997; originally published 1971), 384.

  Their gambit failed: Liberty papers from GSC and WWA.

  “the most gentlemanly way of going broke”: 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), 85.

  “Somebody should be on fire”: Dorothy Kilgallen, “Snapshots of a Movie Maker,” undated, file 38, WWA.

  “The trouble with Hollywood”: Pryor, “William Wyler and His Screen Philosophy.”

  Epilogue

  “I got cold feet”: 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), 85.

  “All we had to do was hang on”: Frank Capra in George Stevens Jr., Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age at the American Film Institute (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 82–84.

  “It was the beginning of my end”: Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography (New York: Da Capo, 1997; originally published 1971), 402.

  “making decent people afraid”: Transcript of radio address by William Wyler, October 26, 1947, file 596, WWA.

  “sickness [had] permeated the country”: John Huston, An Open Book (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), 135.

  Capra did not join them: Lee Mortimer, “Hollywood in Gotham,” syndicated, April 26, 1948.

  “a great man and a great American” . . . “director in the world”: Introduction to Capra, The Name Above the Title, xvii–xviii.

  A threadbare flag: Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001), 682, 719.

  His memorial service: Jan Herman, A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 467.

  He never stopped petitioning the government: Memos from John Huston, file 251, JHC.

  “As time went on”: Marilyn Ann Moss, Giant: George Stevens, a Life on Film (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 180.

  “a Western, but really my war picture”: Joe Hyams, “Making ‘Shane,’” New York Herald Tribune, April 19, 1953, reprinted in Paul Cronin, ed., George Stevens Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), 116.

  “I just loved the man”: Unedited transcript of interview with Frank Capra, file 13, FJC.

  Stevens packed up all of the color footage: Correspondence and memos from George Stevens Jr., March 10, 1961, and March 21, 1961, file 3629, GSC.

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