Christian Blauvelt

I decided to take a short break from my usual reads to snack on another Turner Classic Movies title--this time "Hollywood Victory: The Movies, Stars, and Stories of World War II.

Written by Christian Blauvelt, an entertainment and culture journalist who spent his COVID-19 isolation writing this work, "Hollywood Victory contains 464 pages in my Kindle edition. Organized into five parts, each part contains several unnumbered chapters. The parts are arranged chronologically, with Part I covering the run up to Pearl Harbor and the story of the country's deep isolationism, a fact that caused the major Hollywood studios to tread carefully about how they treated Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich. Part II is about the early war period of 1941 and part of 1942, where defeat for American and British forces seemed almost a daily event. Part III speaks to the several turning points in the war that spanned from the spring of 1942 to the spring of 1943, while Part IV is about the new normal that wartime America experienced in the wake of significant victories over the Axis powers and victory became more of a probability rather than a possibility. Finally, Part V reveals the new United States as it emerged as the dominant world power along with a new Hollywood that had changed along with the country. The author provided a bibliography and endnotes to finish the book.

"Hollywood Victory" is not a history per se, but rather a collection of stories that have Hollywood and World War II as common threads. There are figures who appear periodically in the chapters throughout the book, such as actors Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Henry Fonda, Robert Montgomery, and others who experienced significant combat time during the war. Those who are looking for more details about Hollywood stars' service should look at the Naval Institute Press titles "Stars in Blue" and "Stars in Green" for those actors who served in the Navy and Marine Corps respectively. Some actors served in uniform as noncombatants, either working in the training establishment or as service entertainers, not too far removed from their Hollywood jobs. The book also speaks of the actors who remained in their civilian clothes, either as a part of the United Services Organization (USO), Stage Door Canteen, and Hollywood Canteen or on fund-and morale-raising tours. Two actors, American actress Carole Lombard (wife of Clark Gable) and English actor Leslie Howard both perished in the war effort due to aircraft crashes or shootdowns.

Blauvelt also detail how the USO came about along with the story of its reluctant leader, Bob Hope, roles both fulfilled for decades after World War II. He also speaks of the impact of Hollywood's producers and directors on the war effort. Directly commissioned by the Army and the Navy, the directors and producers focused on three kinds of film during their uniformed service--the war documentary, training films, and morale films aimed at motivating both troops and civilians. In this latter category, Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series serves as the best example.

Well written in an easy-going style, "Hollywood Victory is a quick read. While the prodigious miracles of industrial production had much bearing on America's success in World War II, Blauvelt's work reminds us of what total war meant on the nation's home front.… (mais)