Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Harris, Mark (review)

This well-written, unpretentious book recounts the participation of five great American film directors in World War II. The directors are Frank Capra, John Huston, George Stevens, William Wyler, and John Ford. Author Mark Harris describes their reasons for deciding to serve, the films they made in support of the war effort, their frustrations and triumphs in dealing with the military bureaucracy, and the effect of their war experience on their post-war filmmaking. The book lacks a thesis, offers minimal interpretation—and is thoroughly engrossing.

Among the book’s many surprising revelations is that all five directors entered the service voluntarily and eagerly, and in some cases joined up before the United States declared war. They shared an aversion to Nazism but otherwise had varying motivations. Ford and Capra had long been attracted to military service. Ford secured a reserve Navy commission in 1934, motivated largely by the romantic allure of naval adventure. In 1939, while on a fishing trip off the coast of Mexico, he conducted some unofficial reconnaissance looking for Japanese trawlers. Capra, too, was attracted to military service, but in his case it was largely in response to his insecure identity as an American, having been foreign-born and grown up feeling something of an outsider. Wyler, who had lost relatives to Hitler’s campaign to exterminate Jews, had already volunteered to serve and was awaiting orders.

Each of the five directors entered active (as opposed to reserve) service at great risk to their careers. Huston, the youngest, was a successful screenwriter who had just made the big time as a director with The Maltese Falcon (1941). Stevens had established himself as a superb comedy director, having made Woman of the Year (1942) and The Talk of the Town (1942). Ford had recently won Oscars for The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and How Green Was My Valley (1941). Wyler was coming off The Letter (1940) and The Little Foxes (1941) and had nearly finished Mrs. Miniver (1942). Capra was the most prominent of them all, with Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and Meet John Doe (1941). The professional and financial sacrifice they each made was substantial. Capra, for example, was in line for a contract that would pay him $250,000 per movie; his salary in the Army peaked at $4,000 a year. And like everyone else, none of them could know how long the war would last.

As might be expected, a recurrent theme in the book is the clash between these creative, strong-willed directors and the government officials overseeing them. At times, they were given a free hand but they were often hamstrung by rules, regulations, obtuseness, or timidity. They produced some of their best work surreptitiously or in open defiance. The filmmakers’ main bête noir was Lowell Mellet, head of the Office of War Information. To avoid Mellet’s prying eyes, Ford sent the footage from which he would make The Battle of Midway (1942) to California with an assistant; Ford instructed the latter to hide it in his home and find a lab where he could edit it on the quiet. Wyler insisted on participating in air raids in order to get authentic footage; he impressed the crews with his willingness to take great risks to get a good shot. Fearing Wyler might be a juicy target for the Germans if they had intelligence that he was aboard, the Army (in those days, the Air Force was part of the Army) grounded him. Wyler ignored the order and went on more missions, gathering footage for The Memphis Belle (1944). Capra managed to produce Prelude to War (1942) without scrutiny, which greatly annoyed Mellet and others, but General George Marshall loved the film.

What might not be expected is that the bureaucracy often was right. Mellet, for instance, was against reenactments and wanted the...