Movie Monday: A Walk in the Sun

Movie Monday: A Walk in the Sun

Released on December 3, 1945, A Walk in the Sun is based on a novel of the same name by Portland, Maine native, Harry Brown, a writer for Yank magazine. The story was serialized in October 1944 in Liberty Magazine. Robert Rossen wrote the screenplay which closely followed the novel. Rossen would later recommend Brown as a screenwriter which led to an award-winning career.

The film which takes place in 1943 and tells the story of a platoon that lands in Salerno, Italy with a mission to blow up a bridge, was initially produced by Samuel Bronston at the request of his friend, actor Burgess Meredith. Unfortunately, there were financial issues, and production closed down for a period of time before being taken over by Superior Productions. Bronston later sued and was awarded a portion of the film’s profits.

Because it was a war film, a technical advisor was brought in to ensure accuracy. The man selected was Colonel Thomas Drake who’d risen in the ranks from private to sergeant during the first world war, then commanded an infantry division at the Battle of Kasserine Pass. He was captured during the battle and eventually returned to the US as part of a prisoner exchange with the Germans.

Hollywood had to “make do,” and experts will notice an American half-track painted as a German half-

track and P-51s standing in for German aircraft among other “discrepancies.” Once complete, the film had to be shown to the Army for approval. Authorities requested two changes which I found quite interesting:

• The addition of a briefing scene that explained the platoon’s mission. According to Wikipedia, the army “believed the film gave the impression the platoon meandered about without an objective.” Ultimately, the platoon sergeant reminds his men about the briefing while in the landing craft.
• The addition of a remark in the beginning of the film explaining why the bazooka was not used during the attack on the farmhouse. Would the general public really have noticed that?

The movie stars Dana Andrews who is perhaps most well-known for his part as the detective in the 1944 noir film, Laura. A Walk in the Sun was his twentieth picture, and over the course of his career he appeared in over fifty as well as dozens of television shows. Additional cast members include Richard Conte, John Ireland, Lloyd Bridges, and Sterling Holloway. Burgess Meredith narrated the film.

Have you seen this classic?

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The American World War II Home Front in 29 Objects:

Unlike Europe the American mainland escaped physical devastation during World War II as it was not subjected to full-scale invasions. However, that didn’t mean the United States wasn’t impacted by the war. The ramifications of large economic, cultural, and societal changes forced Americans to reconsider entrenched beliefs and traditions.

Artifacts collected from across the nation tell the stories of the American people whose lives were shaped by this second “war to end all wars,” World War II.

Purchase link: https://books2read.com/u/47pLxR

Photo Credits:

Movie Poster: By Illustrator unknown. "Copyright 1945 Twentieth Century–Fox Film Corp." - Scan via Heritage Auctions.  Public Domain.

Movie Stills: Twentieth Century Fox

Movie Monday: The Clock

Movie Monday: The Clock

Released on May 25, 1945, The Clock was actress Judy Garland’s first starring role in which she didn’t sing. It was also her last black and white film. Fred Zinneman was the initial director when production began in August 1944, but he was soon replaced by Vincente Minnelli, after both Zinneman and Judy went to producer Arthur Freed and indicated they couldn’t work together. By the end of the film, Minnelli and Judy were in love and would head to the altar on June 15, 1945. The movie had a production cost of just over one million dollars, and more than recouped the investment with initial box office earnings of $2.8 million.

Reportedly, Judy approached the executives at MGM and asked that she be cast in a straight dramatic role. Once source commented that “musical stars of the era were not considered to be on the same par as dramatic stars because most musicals made were light, fluffy entertainment.” Did Judy decide it was time to be taken seriously, or did she want to see if she had what it took to be a dramatic actress? No matter the reason, the studio agreed, and she was given the script for The Clock by Freed who had purchased the rights to the short unpublished story written by Paulione and Paul Gallico.

Robert Walker tried his hand in Hollywood in 1939 and managed to get a contract with MGM, securing

a few bit parts. He finally got his chance at stardom in 1944 when he was given the main role in Since You Went Away, one of the most financially successful films that year. His next movie, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, was also box-office hit, and he was quickly cast in The Clock.

The plot is simplistic (from IMDB): Joe Allen (Robert Walker) is on a two-day leave in New York City and meets secretary, Alice Mayberry (Judy Garland) when she trips over him and breaks the heel on her shoe. They hit it off, and she decides to show him around the city. As they tour the sights, they begin to fall in love. The pair meet a milk deliveryman whom they befriend and help finish his route. The next morning, Joe and Alice decide to marry before he must return to duty.

Interestingly, all the scenes with Judy and Robert were filmed on MGM soundstages and backlots, not on the actual streets of New York. The most famous set in the film is the meticulous recreation of Penn Station including escalators. Despite the relative success of the movie and Judy playing a dramatic role, it would be sixteen years before she would make another non-musical drama with Judgment at Nuremburg (1961).

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A Lesson in Love

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after most of the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Then her friend Margery talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, raven-haired leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

Pre-order Link: https://amzn.to/3YHgUb0

Movie Monday: Hotel Berlin

Movie Monday: Hotel Berlin

As WWII progressed, Hollywood continued to release a combination of fluffy, “escapism” films and wartime dramas. Hotel Berlin is one of the latter and based upon the 1929 novel Menschen im Hotel (People at a Hotel) written by Austrian author Vicki Baum (no relation to L. Frank Baum of Oz fame) as a WWI story. The novel was published in English as Grand Hotel, then made into a film with the same name three years later starring Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, and Wallace Beery.

Born January 24, 1888, Ms. Baum had a difficult childhood with a mother who suffered from mental illness and a father, who according to Wikipedia was a “tyrannical, hypochondriac” man. She played harp and played in the Vienna Concert Society where she met and married Max Prels, a journalist. In addition to her music, she enjoyed writing and published her first short story under her married name. She continued to write and found a job as a journalist with the magazine Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. The marriage didn’t last, and the couple divorced four years later, but she continued with her writing career, and married her second husband, conductor Richard Lert in 1916.

According to the Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women, Ms. Baum sold her harp after the

birth of first son in 1917 to concentrate on her writing career. She published her first novel in 1920 and subsequently published a book a year. Eight years later her book Stud. chem. Helene Willfüer, a story about “the New Woman,” did quite well and sold more than one hundred thousand copies in three years. Then came Menschen im Hotel, which brought her international success.

She traveled to the US in 1931 and remained for seven months. Upon her return to Germany, she realized what was happening, and after the 1932 elections for chancellor, she packed up her family and emigrated to America where they settled in Los Angeles. She found a job as a scriptwriter, and Richard was appointed conductor of the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra. Many of her novels written after this time involve the situation National-Socialist Germany.

Hotel Berlin was filmed between November 15, 1944 and January 15, 1945, then rushed into final production so it could be released on March 2, 1945 to coincide with the Russian and Allied drives in Berlin. The plot summarization from IMDb says it best, “in 1945, a strange mix of Germans, military personnel and civilians, pro-Nazi and anti-Nazi, celebrities and escaped prisoners, converges as a lavish hotel in heavily bombed Berlin.”

The movie features Faye Emerson, an actress who did well during the 1940s then transition to television in the 1950s; Helmut Dantine, an Austrian who spent three months in a concentration camp before being released and emigrating to the US; Raymond Massey, a Canadian actor who served in both WWI and WWII in the Canadian forces; and Peter Lorre, a Hungarian-Jew who left Germany after Hitler came to power and became a mainstay in mystery and crime films.

Earning nearly three million dollars on a $940,000 budget, Hotel Berlin received mixed reviews. A fun fact: Elliott Roosevelt (son of President Franklin Roosevelt) married Faye Emerson during the filming which supposedly led to a change giving her top billing. It’s all in who you know!

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The American WWII Home Front in 29 Objects

Unlike Europe the American mainland escaped physical devastation during World War II as it was not subjected to full-scale invasions. However, that didn’t mean the United States wasn’t impacted by the war. The ramifications of large economic, cultural, and societal changes forced Americans to reconsider entrenched beliefs and traditions.

Artifacts collected from across the nation tell the stories of the American people whose lives were shaped by this second “war to end all wars,” World War II.

Project Link (Be sure to click "Notify me on launch": https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lindashentonmatchett/the-world-war-ii-home-front-in-29-objects-illustrated-book

Photo Credits:

Vicki Baum: By Max Fenichel - Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Bilddatenbank., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42391177 

Movie Poster: Public Domain

Movie Scene: Courtesy IMDb/Warner Bros.

Movie Monday: Christmas in Connecticut

Movie Monday: Christmas in Connecticut

In late 1944 and into the early months of 1945 as it became apparent to Hollywood that World War II would soon be over, writers began to plot stories that featured returning servicemen. Some of the films were dramas, others such as Christmas in Connecticut, comedies. In fact, some critics have called the movie a “screwball comedy.”

Despite being a holiday film, producers released the movie in August 1945, benefitting from the “post-war euphoria that gripped America,” (IMDB), and it grossed between three and four million dollars on a budget of $864,000. Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, and Sidney Greenstreet, the movie is the brainchild of Aileen Hamilton, a jack-of-all-trades who was a screenwriter, dancer, singer, actress, and costume designer. Bette Davis was originally cast as the female lead, and Reginald Gardiner as the male lead. Gardiner was eventually given the role of the owner of the farm and the lead given to Morgan.

The plotline described by Rotten Tomatoes:

“While recovering in a hospital, war hero Jefferson Jones grows familiar with the Diary of a Housewife

column written by Elizabeth Lane. Jeff’s nurse arranges with Elizabeth’s publisher for Jeff to spend the holiday at Elizabeth’s bucolic Connecticut farm with her husband and child. But the column is a shame, so the publisher hastens to arrange a publicity ploy by setting up single, non-domestic Elizabeth on a country farm.”

Foibles, misunderstandings, and confusion combine to create a rom-com worthy of Nora Ephron or Garry Marshall. Stanwyck and Morgan have great on-screen chemistry and by the time they filmed Christmas in Connecticut had dozens of movie roles under their belts. As a contract player Morgan was cast in both supporting and headliner roles. Stanwyck who would eventually appear in nearly one hundred movies, got her start in entertainment early in life when she became a chorus girl in speakeasies as a teenager. She eventually became a Ziegfield girl and was given her first stage role by Willard Mack, and at some point, moved to Hollywood where she picked up bit parts. Being cast as the lead in Frank Capra’s Ladies of Leisure was her breakout role. In the 1950s she added television roles to her busy film career.

Have you seen this feel-good holiday movie?

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A Lesson in Love (The Strength of His Heart Limited Edition Anthology)

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after most of the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Then her friend Margery talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, raven-haired leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

Purchase link: https://amzn.to/4f9iLKO

Movie Monday: The Homecoming

Movie Monday: The Homecoming

In the years immediately after WWII, Hollywood continued to produce movies about the war, but more than a few were about returning GIs, and The Homecoming is one of those films. Based on a short story titled “The Homecoming of Ulysses,” the movie stars Clark Gable, Lana Turner, Anne Baxter, and her real-life husband John Hodiak. Similar to So Proudly We Hail covered in a recent post, The Homecoming is told in a series of flashbacks.

While sitting on the transport ship, Ulysses Johnson (Gable’s character) is asked by a reporter about his experiences during the war. Gable’s performance is so gripping throughout the film one wonders if he is reliving his own experiences. Johnson tells his story beginning in 1941 when he is a hospital chief surgeon, a man without emotional attachments to his patients. He joins the army, and before leaving holds a party during which a colleague (played by Hodiak) accuses him of being “unsentimental, a hypocrite, and joining the army out of purely selfish motives.” Things get heated, then the scene shifts to Johnson’s last night with his wife, Penny (Anne Baxter).

On the ship overseas, Johnson meets Lt. Jane “Snapshot” McCall (Lana Turner). The typical enemies

to love plot comes into play, and the two don’t get along, until they do. The pair discovers they have a lot in common and become friends. There are stressful moments, and the friendship is tested. Ultimately, they fall in love. Meanwhile, Johnson talks about McCall in his many letters home, and Penny begins to wonder if she has to worry about losing her husband.

War intervenes, and McCall is reassigned to a different unit. They reunited in Paris, but war again intervenes, and they must leave to rescue a division wounded during the Battle of the Bulge. Fast forward to the present, and we see Johnson’s/Gable’s war-weary self, “a ghost of his former self.” When he gets home, he admits to having fallen in love with McCall, but indicates she died as a result of shrapnel wounds. Before fading to black, the film leaves viewers assuming the husband and wife get past the events and get a second chance at a happily ever after.

Directed by Mervyn Leroy, The Homecoming is the third movie Gable made after the death of Carole Lombard, and his second “soldier in transition” film. (The first being The Hucksters with Deborah Kerr). Well worth a viewing.

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War’s Unexpected Gift

Love and war don’t mix. Or do they?

Eager to do even more for the war effort, nurse Gwen Milford puts in for a transfer from a convalescent hospital outside of London to an evac hospital headed across Europe. Leap-frogging from one location to the next, nothing goes as expected from stolen supplies to overwhelming numbers of casualties. Then, there’s the handsome doctor who seems to be assigned to her every shift. As another Christmas approaches without the war’s end, can she find room in her heart for love?

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/u/4jG2wl