Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War in Golden Age of Hollywood Book Club

Apr 02, 2014 David rated it liked it

Very well reported with extensive detail. For the first time I am able to figure out how the WWII film units worked (or in some cases didn't).

I do get the feeling that the author doesn't really know which civilian films were great, which were good and which were neither as he relies exclusively on contemporary film reviews to describe the receptions the films received and almost no mention of which films have survived the test of time.

The movies made by these men must be seen to appreciate the b ...more

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Nov 06, 2015 Tom Stamper rated it it was amazing

Shelves: film, biography

The brilliance of this book is in how well it's told. I had shied away from it until I saw Mark Harris on Turner Classic Movies in October and watched some of the films discussed here. Even then I read Harris's other book Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood thinking that a mediocre treatment of 1967 cinema would be easier to swallow than a weak job on World War II. It turns out that both are instant classics.

What makes the book a cut above is that you come a The brilliance of this book is in how well it's told. I had shied away from it until I saw Mark Harris on Turner Classic Movies in October and watched some of the films discussed here. Even then I read Harris's other book Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood thinking that a mediocre treatment of 1967 cinema would be easier to swallow than a weak job on World War II. It turns out that both are instant classics.

What makes the book a cut above is that you come away with distinct portraits of the five directors and how the war changed them professionally and personally. Why did they go to war? What were they leaving behind.

Frank Capra was the most heralded of the men in this story before the war, but he saw the least combat action, and his output was straight ahead propaganda. He would outlive the others but his Hollywood career would end first. The failure of It's a Wonderful Life broke him economically and spiritually. Luckily he lived long enough to see it become heralded as the best film he ever made. Despite retiring first he outlived the other four men in the story.

John Ford was at the Battle of Midway and won a Purple Heart for his work there. He made one Hollywood movie while in uniform about the war, but mostly made westerns afterwards. Harris doesn't tell us that the pro New Deal and World War II hawk was also pro-Vietnam and was thought of as a reactionary by younger Hollywood folks in the late 60s.

John Huston was the least distinguished before the war but would have the longest postwar career of the men. He never acknowledged his re-enactments on the Battle of San Pietro in life or in his autobiography. He even wrote a few Hollywood scripts while in uniform under pseudonyms.

William Wyler lost nearly all of his hearing shooting footage on bomber missions. The author doesn't mention that his documentary Memphis Belle would adapted into a Hollywood film after his death produced by his daughter. His postwar output was diverse. He made westerns, and comedies and biblical epics, and musicals. His first film upon returning The Best Years of Our Lives was a big Oscar winner and blue chip classic.

For my money the most interesting of these characters was George Stevens. A man known for light comedy that witnessed the holocaust in person and was never the same again. His string of classics in the 1950s are so different from his pre-war output that it's like he was two entirely different people. Let me recommend George Stevens: A Filmmakers Journey, a documentary produced by his son in the 1980s. It explores his work in depth. The only biography of Stevens I have been able to find is out of print. I would love to see Harris tackle Stevens as a solo project. ...more

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Apr 11, 2017 Magnus Stanke rated it it was amazing

Shelves: film

Like Mark Harris' other book (about the beginnings of New Hollywood) this was a delight to read, insightful, entertaining and well written. I'd never thought I'd care that much about what John Ford, John Huston, William Wyler, Frank Capra and George Stevens did in the war. I'd read individual biographies about Ford and Capra beforehand, but found Stevens' and Wyler's stories much more interesting in the end.
Mark Harris manages again to juggle a five-stranded storyline with much clarity and luci ...more

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