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Old 04-09-2017, 10:19 PM   #1607
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Originally Posted by CliffFletcher View Post
Watched Five Came Back this week. Really well done look at five directors (John Ford, John Huston, Frank Capra, George Stevens, and William Wyler) who left their careers in Hollywood at the top of their game to make documentaries for the U.S. military. These were larger-than-life figures, for the most part, with big personalities and quintessentially American life stories. They gave up a lot to support the war effort, leaving families, losing their places on the ladder of a ferociously competitive movie industry, and putting their lives and health at risk. Members of their crews were killed, and several were marked physically and mentally by the experience (Wyler lost his hearing, Stevens suffered from depression, and Ford's descent into alcoholism accelerated).

They made some remarkable documentaries during the war: Ford's Battle of Midway, Huston's The Battle of San Pietro, Capra's Why We Fight Series, and Wyler's Memphis Belle. Perhaps most importantly, it was Stevens and his crews who captured much of the footage we have of the Nazi extermination camps, footage that was instrumental in the Nuremberg trials.

Despite - or maybe because of - their suffering in the war, most went on to make their greatest films immediately after returning stateside. Capra made It's a Wonderful Life (which was a bomb and bankrupted his new independent studio), Huston made the Treasures of the Sierra Madre, and Wyler made The Best Years of Our Lives, the classic movie of soldiers' struggles to integrate back into civilian life after the war. Ford made They Were Expendable, where he humiliated leading man John Wayne on set for being unable to salute "like someone who has served knows how" (Wayne didn't enlist). Stevens went from being the king of the light-hearted comedy, to one of Hollywood's dramatic heavyweights (A Place in the Sun, Giant).

This documentary is extremely well done, with each of the old directors paired with a modern counterpart (Steven Spielberg does Wyler, Paul Greengrass does Ford, etc.), who walks us through their films and their war experiences. Everyone is tremendously insightful and engaged in the subject. Merryl Streep narrates. Highly recommended.
Someone should do a documentary on the Actor Jimmy Stewart, flew a bomber over Germany from 43 to 45, pulled every string he could to get into active service in one of the most dangerous commands in the war.
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