In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

5 Stars Los Angeles, November 22, 1945 ■ Hollywood Canteen Best Years ■ 114 On November 22, 1945, more than three months after V-J Day, the front page of the Los Angeles Times was still filled with coverage of the war: tallies of the dead worldwide (22,060,000 according to the Vatican) and of Victory Loan sales (Southern California had met only 46.2 percent of its quota), revelations that the Japanese had plotted to assassinate Stalin in 1939 and that Roosevelt had been informed, as early as 1940, well before Pearl Harbor, that the U.S. fleet was “unmanned” and “unready.” November 22 was a Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. Bullock’s department store had taken out a full inner page for its ad showing an angelic little boy and this caption: “For you, son . . . your first peacetime Thanksgiving. Thousands of fathers and brothers fought their way half ’round the world to make this day a reality.” The war was still very much on everyone’s mind. The enlistment and conscription of so many movie personalities in the war effort had been, along with government oversight and restrictions on materials, crucial factors in the conversion of the film industry. This chapter logs the return of the stars and their reconversion, some through the retooling of their careers. A sevenmonth -long strike, in which actors took opposing sides, had major consequences for the industry’s power relations. The discourse on stardom also raises the question of how it is measured. The Hollywood Canteen, a highly visible sign of star commitment to victory, shut its doors on Thanksgiving 1945. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the canteen/variety movie, where the studios put this commitment, their patriotism, and their rosters on proud and profitable display. Hollywood Heroes Return The return of the stars was big news in fall 1945. The November 22 issue of the movie industry’s hometown paper carried an article on Tyrone Power’s reunion with his actress wife, Annabella. The Los Angeles Times reported that Power had made a splashy entrance. As if in character, he had jumped the ship’s rail onto a Portland, Oregon, dock. “One veteran yelled, ‘Take it easy, Jesse James’ [a well-known Power role] as the bronzed Marine Corps lieutenant embraced and kissed his wife.” The photo caption quipped, “This love scene is not meant for the screen.” But, in fact, the screen was what the fuss was all about. Returning stars won free publicity for Hollywood. Fans had long been deprived of their favorites; they could not wait to see them again. During Clark Gable’s three-year furlough from MGM, his public had had to content itself with the secondhand thrill of the rereleased 1935 Call of the Wild. Gable’s popularity was of such magnitude that it suffered only a slight dip during his middecade absence. The tag line for Adventure, his first postwar film, “Gable’s Back and Garson’s Got Him,” hails the return of the star, here teamed with the studio’s most popular actress. The movie did excellent business despite its mostly negative reviews. Gable had requested that the bosses “spare him from war pictures”; Adventure makes only limited reference to the war.1 Gable’s character, Harry, is a tough merchant seaman with a girl in every port. By movie’s end, he is redeemed through love and the birth of his child. For Gable Adventure is something of a replay. At the end of Somewhere I’ll Find You (1942) he makes a similar turnabout.2 In its odd mixture of romance and spiritual awakening, Adventure also recalls San Francisco (1936) and Strange Cargo (1940). His public rediscovered the Gable they knew and loved. Alan Ladd, who had enlisted in the Army Air Corps, was honorably discharged for medical reasons.3 His war record, shorter and less distinguished than Gable’s and those of many others through no fault of his own, was in need of a positive spin. One fanzine article recounts Ladd’s embarrassment “because everyone is in” and his futile efforts to reenter the service.4 An ad for his first postdischarge movie, And Now Tomorrow, foregrounds his stint in the military: “Alan Ladd Is Back! Alan Ladd, the young star who became an overnight sensation, is back from war service and in his first film in two years.”5 Another ad shows Ladd surrounded by cartoon women and their ballooned reactions.6 James Stewart’s record spoke for itself...

Share