Hollywood Canteen Fact and Fiction



Just got out the old laser disc of Hollywood Canteen and looked at it
again. First of all, I found myself fast-forwarding through most of Dane Clark’s scenes. Did servicemen from Brooklyn behave like this in wartime? Even William Bendix at Paramount was less irritating ,though George Tobias runs Dane a close second in terms of tiresome Brooklyn shtick. Still, we love Hollywood Canteen. When it’s good, there’s nothing better. The air of total unreality is off to a good start
when we open on the G.I.s catching a 35mm (!) screening of The Hard Way in a jungle clearing. The boys are quietly reverent when they see girl-next-door Joan Leslie on the screen --- not like actual camp screenings where the soldiers were often as not hurling profanity-laced epithets toward the players and giving the horse-laugh to phony heroics being staged (at one such unspooling of So Proudly We Hail, Veronica Lake packs a grenade into her shirt and walks into a group of Japanese soldiers, blowing the whole crowd, including herself, to smithereens -- it was at this point that one wag in the audience yelled, “Hey! I know which part I want!”). Anyway, "Slim" (nicely played by comparative newcomer Robert Hutton) falls for Joan, and from there it’s off to Hollywood for he and pal Clark, both of whom have received the kind of battle wounds that only involve a sling and/or slight limp, but don’t really hurt or anything. Immediately upon arriving at the Canteen, Hutton unburdens himself to ultimate purveyor of show-biz brash Jack Carson, confessing his love for Joan with a line that, if nothing else, reveals his appalling naivete. “I feel that she’s really just like the girls back home at heart”. Jack right away lets Bette Davis in on the secret, and this is where essential absurdity of Hollywood Canteen begins to reveal itself. First off, all the stars are presented as one big joshing fraternity, everyone on a first-name basis. Since they’re for most part Warner players conscripted to be in this movie, that may not be too much of an exaggeration, but it raised the question in my mind --- Just how well did movie stars of that day know each other? Obviously, a lot of them worked together, but what about the rest? I remember reading that when they told Clark Gable that his Soldier Of Fortune leading lady would be Susan Hayward, he confessed to never having heard of the actress, and this was 1955, years after she achieved stardom. And speaking of Jack Carson, there is kinescoped opening-night footage from the 1954 A Star Is Born premiere where Donald Crisp is greeted by Master Of Ceremonies Jack with “Hiya, Donald, haven’t seen you since Bright Leaf!” It’s a great candid moment.



The story goes that Ann Sheridan was approached to play herself in Hollywood Canteen, that is to play what became the Joan Leslie part. Sheridan loudly declared that the whole idea of a movie star entering into a successful romantic relationship with a soldier was utter nonsense, and that she would never participate in such a lie. Now, if any of this is true, you have to credit Sheridan, because the love story presented here, between lonely soldier Robert Hutton and supposed real-life “Joan Leslie”, is so patently false, so utterly outlandish in every detail, that it’s no wonder audiences began to turn away from the movies not long after the war ended. To begin with, “Joan Leslie” (who was nineteen when this picture was made) is still living at home with her parents and a sister (played by Joan’s real-life sibling). The father is standard- issue patriarch Jonathan Hale, and it’s clearly indicated that he’s master of the house, even though Joan must surely be principal breadwinner. There’s even a scene where mother and father go in to prepare the evening meal for guest Robert Hutton, saying that for this special occasion, “We’ll give Joan the night off.” Respect for elders is the order of the day, even when you’ve hit it big in movies. The dishonesty is further compounded when Joan hesitates to invite Bob in after she discovers her parents have gone to the movies. “I don’t think they’d like it very well if they came home and found just the two of us in the house.” Such was pandering to Middle American family values. Topper to this is a train station farewell where Joan pledges that she’ll wait for Bob, just like Jennifer Jones promised her Bob in Since You Went Away. The wholly ridiculous conceit might almost work if she were playing a fictional movie star, but this is Joan Leslie as herself, and asking the audience to buy a finish like this is plain breathtaking in it’s audacity. That, of course, is only part of what makes Hollywood Canteen such a delight ---


The pressbook ad shown here will give you an idea of the cast --- those that got billing, at least. Others to be glimpsed include Diana Barrymore, Robert Shayne, Julie Bishop, John Dehner, Dick Erdman, James Flavin, Dorothy Malone, Mark Stevens, Ray Teal, and many more. The “Love Conquers All” feature is a misrepresentation of what actually happens in the movie, and you can’t help wondering how much false hope was raised among servicemen when they saw the “photographs which prove that even beautiful movie stars are not impervious to the American uniform”. We won’t comment on the “doughboy’s persistence” and “individualistic strategy” beyond speculating that all of this must have caused a good deal of hardship among actresses trying to get through their shifts at the real Hollywood Canteen. The mention of Bette Davis and her “toughest assignment” was actually on the level, as we understand B.D. found it near impossible to play herself on film. Maybe by 1944, she’d forgotten who the real Bette Davis even was. There's also a shot of forlorn Joan Crawford making the best of a bad situation as she waits for Mildred Pierce, and the resumption of her stardom, to roll around. She’s about the only big name in Hollywood Canteen who never interacts with other big names. This was her first appearance in a Warner Bros. picture. Of course, the whole story is built around the gimmick of Robert Hutton being the "millionth man" to walk through the doors of the Canteen. I located the still at the top of the real millionth man, First Sgt. E.W. Bell of Rising Star, Texas, who just happened to have received a Purple Heart in the South Pacific. His reception committee includes Lana Turner, Deanna Durbin, and Marlene Dietrich. The actual Hollywood Canteen was torn down in December 1966, due to rotting wood throughout, said officials. The hand and footprints on cement outside was promised to Janis Page, whose first movie Hollywood Canteen was.