Kentucky Marine: Major General Logan Feland and the Making of the Modern USMC

15. Retirement

247 15 Retirement Major General Logan Feland undertook some major personal projects during his time on the West Coast. Although he had started writing a book about Belleau Wood before leaving Nicaragua, in San Francisco he turned his attention to writing a movie script about the battle. During the 1920s, a few Marines wrote successful novels, plays, and short stories about the Corps in World War I. In 1923 the first major artistic work about the Marine Corps in World War I appeared: the novel Through the Wheat, by Thomas Boyd. Boyd had served with the Sixth Regiment at Belleau Wood, Soissons, and Saint-Mihiel before being gassed at Blanc Mont. Invalided out of the Marines, Boyd eventually landed in St. Paul, Minnesota. While working in a bookstore there, Boyd met up-andcoming author F. Scott Fitzgerald and gave him a draft of a novel based on his World War I experiences. Fitzgerald convinced famed Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins to publish Boyd’s novel, which received critical acclaim in the New York Times and other publications. Boyd sent a copy of the book to General Feland, which the Kentuckian acknowledged in a thank-you note.1 In 1924 Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings wrote a play, What Price Glory? that became a big success on Broadway. In 1926 the play was made into a movie starring noted actors Victor McLaglen and Dolores Del Rio. Stallings, who had served in Feland’s Fifth Regiment, had been severely wounded in the leg at Belleau Wood, requiring its amputation in 1922. Another Fifth Regiment veteran, John Thomason, the “Kipling of the Corps,” wrote three books of war stories published by Scribner’s: Fix 248 KENTUCKY MARINE Bayonets! in 1925, Red Pants and Other Stories in 1927, and Marines and Others in 1929.2 Although not specifically about World War I, the 1926 film Tell It to the Marines, starring Lon Chaney Sr., boosted the image of the Corps. The film version of Erich Maria Remarque’s famous World War I novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, was released in 1930. Major General Feland believed the time was right for a realistic film depiction of the Battle of Belleau Wood. While stationed in San Francisco , he used his personal contacts to approach the RKO Company about producing the script he had written. (Created by RCA executive David Sarnoff and Boston millionaire Joseph P. Kennedy, RKO had been formed in 1928 to take advantage of new technology and produce sound movies.) Feland had read Boyd’s Through the Wheat and had complimented the author on its realism, so he suggested that RKO contact Boyd’s agent about the possibility of him working on the screenplay. In March 1931 Boyd traveled to California to meet with Feland and RKO officials. The meeting with Feland proved frustrating; Boyd felt that the general simply wanted to reminisce about the war and had no idea how to make a movie. Boyd was further disillusioned when RKO officials told him the picture needed “glamour.” Nevertheless, during the summer of 1931 Boyd worked on a script, but it was eventually rejected by RKO.3 Ever optimistic, Feland reported to James Harbord in late August 1931 that a “fresh start” was being made. RKO’s president of production, Joseph Schnitzer, was committed to the film, and Feland was encouraged about its “final success.” Unfortunately, Schnitzer was replaced in 1932 when RKO underwent a major reorganization. Feland lamented this change to Harbord, ascribing it to “jealousy and self-seeking” among Schnitzer’s subordinates. He described Schnitzer as a “fine, decent man” who had worked hard to get the Belleau Wood picture made.4 After the failed RKO experience, Feland continued to shop around his film script. In this endeavor he enlisted the aid of Major Adolph B. Miller, a Marine Corps recruiter in Los Angeles. Miller, who had good connections to the film industry, acted as a conduit for Feland’s efforts to get his film produced. They gave the script to Melville Shauer at Paramount , where his father was a vice president. Shauer critiqued the script, noting that it was more fact than fiction; it contained “narrative incident Retirement 249 but lacks thread for story purposes.” He suggested that Feland might want to turn it into a book instead.5 Thwarted at RKO and Paramount, Feland next turned to famous Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer director W. S. Van Dyke...