Hollywood Canteen

Wish fulfillment 1940s style is at its peak in “Hollywood Canteen” (1944). Movie stars are just regular folk, eager and helpful to entertain the soldiers at the Canteen, and it’s possible, just possible, that a Marine corporal could meet the movie star actress of his dreams and have her fall in love with him.

Writer-director Delmer Daves lays on the corn a little too thick here for my taste, but it’s not detrimental to the film. It must have pleased his bosses at Warner Bros. however, as the film is a love letter to the studio’s stars, and it became one of the highest grossing films of 1944.

Joan Leslie plays herself, or an idealized version of herself, who is the object of rapt adoration of Marine Corporal “Slim” Greene (Robert Hutton). Recovering from wounds, he is on leave in Hollywood and wants to see movie stars. A friendly short-order cook recommends the Hollywood Canteen, open only to servicemen, where he can see all the movie stars he wants.

The Canteen was a real place, founded by Bette Davis and John Garfield, where members of the armed forces could enjoy a meal, hear live bands and mingle with movie stars, all without costing them a penny. All the studios backed the idea, and many of Hollywood’s top stars could be found dancing with the troops, chatting with them about their girls back home, or serving coffee and donuts.

The movie “Hollywood Canteen” celebrates the place, but since this is a Warner Bros. movie, the stars Slim and his pal, Sgt. Nowland (Dane Clark) meet are mainly Warners stars. That’s too bad. Having stars from other studios sharing screen time would have made it a star gazers delight. We do get musical numbers from non-Warners stars The Andrews Sisters (Universal) and Roy Rogers and Trigger (Republic Pictures), but that’s about it. Oh, and Kitty Carlisle sings a reprise of “Sweet Dreams, Sweetheart” in the film, introduced by Joan Leslie earlier in the film.

I’ve often wondered why Rogers and the Andrews Sisters appeared in the film, but stars from other studios didn’t. I wonder if the Andrews Sisters performed so often at the Canteen that it was a natural they should be in the movie. Rogers sings the Cole Porter song “Don’t Fence Me In” which is later reprised by the Andrews Sisters. Republic must have been thrilled to have one of its stars appear in a Warner Bros. movie. I wonder what those negotiations were like?

There’s much to enjoy in the film, music-wise. Dennis Morgan and Joe E. Brown perform “You Can Always Tell A Yank”, a rousing number and Carmen Cavallaro and his band play “Voodoo Moon.” Jimmy Dorsey and his band play a few numbers as well. Classical violinist Joseph Szigeti does a duet with the “noted American violinist” Jack Benny, who is chagrined that Szigeti does not know “Love in Bloomioso.”

Warner Bros. stars are portrayed as pretty swell types. When it’s learned Slim has a crush on Joan Leslie, Bette Davis, John Garfield and Jane Wyman conspire a plan for her to give him a special kiss. Later, when Slim becomes the Millionth Man to enter the Canteen, he is practically given the key to the city, as well as the chance to have any actress in town as his date for the weekend. Naturally he chooses Joan Leslie. (I would have picked Rita Hayworth, but with my luck I would have been the Millionth and One Man).

I think the film would have worked much better if Joan Leslie played a fictional actress, and not herself. Dramatically it would have worked better. Here, it’s kind of odd and off-putting. Slim goes to Joan’s house to pick her up and he meets her parents. Dad is played by Jonathan Hale (Mr. Dithers in the Blondie movies). All moviegoers knew who Jonathan Hale was, so all pretense of this really being Joan Leslie is thrown out the window.

Hutton and Leslie do play well together – indeed they could not be more All-American – but I wish she had played a fictional, up-and-coming actress. After all, Janis Paige doesn’t play herself, but Angela, a studio messenger who catches the eye of Sgt. Nowland.

I always enjoy Golden Age movies set in Hollywood and we get to see the backlots of the studios, and “Hollywood Canteen” is no exception. Naturally Warner Bros. gets to show off their backlot, and its here we get to a musical number that stops the show dead in its track, a dreadful number called “Ballet in June” performed by Joan McCracken and company. We do get to meet dance director LeRoy Prinz, and I was amused to note that he somewhat resembles Busby Berkeley. Prinz routines were often the bane of Warners musicals (“Yankee Doodle Dandy” (1942) being the exception), and “Ballet in June” does nothing to dispel that notion.

Enough carping. There’s other good comedy on display here, notably Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet lampooning their sinister screen images. Their scene together is one of the highlights of the film.

As can be seen by the still above, we have, left to right, Jack Carson, Jane Wyman, John Garfield and Bette Davis signing autographs and visiting with the men. Was it like this every night? Probably not. I don’t doubt that many stars put in many hours at the Hollywood Canteen – and its East Coast counterpart the Stage Door Canteen, also the subject of a movie a year earlier – but this film posits that the place was crawling with stars every night of the year.

My dad served in the Navy in World War II and visited the Hollywood Canteen on leave one night. He didn’t remember the band that was performing there – odd, as his memory for such details was remarkable – and that night there were no stars there. He did remember getting served coffee and donuts by an exceptionally pretty girl there. After the war he went to the theater and saw “Holiday in Mexico” (1946), an M-G-M musical, and noticed one of the cast members. He remembered her as the girl who waited on him at the Canteen.

She turned out to be Linda Christian, probably best known today as the second Mrs. Tyrone Power. She had a short-lived acting career. I remember her fondly from the gloriously absurd “Tarzan and the Mermaids” (1948). It was Johnny Weissmuller’s last appearance as the Ape Man, and boasts a grand Dimitri Tiomkin score, beautiful on-location photography in Mexico and George Zucco as a high priest of a pagan cult. Co-starring in a movie where George Zucco plays a high priest trumps appearing in a Best Picture winner anytime, but that’s just my opinion.

Rating for “Hollywood Canteen”: Three stars.

A Missed Opportunity for Warner Home Video

I was very pleased to read that Warner Home Video (WHV) will be releasing in July a box set called “Home Front Collection” featuring “Thank Your Lucky Stars” (1943), “Hollywood Canteen (1944) and “This is The Army” (1943). Pleased, but also thinking that a better collection could have been offered featuring the first two titles. Let me explain.

“Thank Your Lucky Stars” and “Hollywood Canteen” are Warner Bros. contributions to the all-star musical genre. These movies were a studio’s showcase of their biggest stars and contract players in musical numbers or comedy skits. There might be up two dozen (or more) stars in each movie.

Paramount did it with “Star Spangled Rhythm” (1942), M-G-M offered “Thousands Cheer” (1943), United Artists contributed “Stage Door Canteen” (1943) and Universal gave us “Follow the Boys” (1944).

They’re all hugely enjoyable, if incredibly corny. They show that Hollywood’s biggest stars are really just regular folks, ready to drop everything and help our armed forces by staging an elaborate show or benefit.

The Warner Bros; contributions are among the most enjoyable, especially “Thank Your Lucky Stars”, which is loaded with great songs and comedy, and showcases stars like Errol Flynn and Bette Davis as surprisingly capable song and dance performers. It’s one of my favorite movies. In fact, when WGN ran it one night against the 1975 Oscars, I passed on the annual ceremony and opted for “Thank Your Lucky Stars” instead. (I never did see Jack Nicholson or Louise Fletcher pick up their Oscars for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”)

So I’m glad to see these titles coming out, but wish WHV had included them instead in an all-star musical box set. Besides the aforementioned “Hollywood Canteen” and “Thank Your Lucky Stars”, the set could include “Thousands Cheer” and two Warner Bros. entries that came after World War II, “It’s a Great Feeling” (1949) and “Starlift” (1951).

I thought such a box set was what WHV may have been planning, since they have already released most of Doris Day’s musicals, but “It’s a Great Feeling” was not among their earlier two box sets of Day titles. That’s another marvelously entertaining film, with gorgeous Technicolor and most of action taking place on the Warner Bros. back lot. We get to see such directors as Michael Curtiz, Raoul Walsh and King Vidor in amusing cameos, and fun glimpses of the studio back lot. What a marvelous time capsule of sights. Edward G. Robinson has a funny scene, and there’s a riotous Errol Flynn cameo. For film music fans, it’s a treat to see a sequence filmed on the Warner Bros. soundstage, where all those glorious musical scores of Korngold, Steiner and Waxman were recorded. We even get glimpses of the orchestra members. Look, there’s cellist Eleanor Slatkin, who performed the Korngold Cello Concerto in “Deception” (1946).

“Starlift” has not been seen anywhere, to the best of my knowledge, in decades. It’s one of the very few James Cagney screen appearances I’ve never seen. I don’t know if there are rights issues involved with this title, but a lot of film buffs would love to see “Starlift” and would spring for the box set just to get that title.

Kudos to WHV for at least releasing two of these all-star musical gems. It will also be nice to a see a restored “This is the Army”, which has been languishing in public domain hell for too long.

Still, I hope they will eventually get around to releasing “Thousands Cheer”, “It’s a Great Feeling” and “Starlift”, but what a lost opportunity to include a marvelous collection of all-star musicals in one box set.