Hollywood-Kantine

The film is an excellent period piece... one of those Hollywood wartime spectaculars that sort of carries out that sense of wartime thrift -- use just enough plot to glue the songs lightly together, and make sure you wave the flag enough to produce some enthusiasm for the "Buy War Bonds" trailer. The plot's thin, the music's good, the dancing OK, and it's actually pretty cool to see stars being "themselves." Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet are hilarious in a two-minute gag that evokes "The Maltese Falcon."

I am a great fan of the late John Garfield. If you are a Garfield buff, it may surprise you to learn that anyone would consider Hollywood Canteen a great Garfield film since he's on screen for such a very short time and since he did so many more "substantive" vehicles like "Body and Soul", "Gentleman's Agreement", "The Breaking Point", and "Force of Evil".

But you'd have to understand that the idea for the real Hollywood Canteen originated with Garfield, supposedly after he paid a visit to the famous Stage Door Canteen in New York. He got together with Bette Davis, and between them they persuaded all the major studios to support a similar place in Hollywood where servicemen could relax, have fun, and mingle with movie stars.

The movie's plot is utterly preposterous, but that makes no difference. The chemistry between stars Joan Leslie and Robert Hutton is wonderful. Joan's role was originally to have been played by Ann Sheridan, but she turned it down because she, too, thought the idea of a soldier on leave falling in love with a movie star at the Canteen and actually getting a chance to spend some with her was ridiculous.

In my opinion, Joan turned out to be absolutely perfect. She was quite young when the movie was made (only 18 or 19), but one of Warner Brothers' most popular actresses of the early 1940s.

Formal reviews of Hollywood Canteen at the time it was released tended to pan the movie, even though it was a commercial success. But for today's audiences it's two hours of great fun. There are terrific song and dance numbers by some of Hollywood's best.

The great irony of this movie has to do with what happened to John Garfield. Declared 4-F because of a heart condition, Garfield repeatedly tried to enlist but was turned down. He gave tirelessly of himself, entertaining troops in USO shows stateside and in Europe. Even Bette Davis acknowledged that he was the driving force behind the Canteen.

So it is inconceivable to me that someone who gave so much of himself to the war effort could have been blacklisted as a communist sympathizer. His career and his life were ruined, and he died suddenly in May, 1952.

As the great playwright, Clifford Odets, wrote in his letter to The New York Times the Sunday after Garfield died, "Despite any and all gossip to the contrary, I, who was in a position to know, state without equivocation that of all his possessions Garfield was proudest of his American heritage, even rudely so."

Anyway, enough of this heavy stuff. If you get a chance to see Hollywood Canteen, don't miss it. It's great entertainment.

Hollywood Canteen (1944)

*** (out of 4)

The Hollywood Canteen club was started by Bette Davis and John Garfield as a way for Hollywood to show support to U.S. Troops who were heading overseas. The club offered the service people a chance to meet, dance and be waited on by various celebrities from Hollywood. This movie here gathers up some of the biggest people in the business and we're given a side story of a soldier (Robert Hutton) getting a three day pass and spending it at the club where he meets and falls in love with Joan Leslie. If you're looking for a film with a story then you're not going to find it here. Many people have attacked this film for being stupid and I understand that but at the same time this thing offers up a chance to see the actual club and we also get some of the biggest stars every put together for a film. A lot of the cameos are rather silly and of course everyone is introduced by name but it's still quite fun seeing so many people in one film. Not only do we get Davis, Garfield and Leslie but there's dozens of other stars including the likes of Crawford, Stanwyck, Lorre, Greenstreet, Rogers (and Trigger), Benny, Parker, Alexis Smith, Ida Lupino, Henried, Brown and countless others. Seeing these stars in one picture is reason enough to check it out and there are also some musical numbers to keep you entertained. I think the film works best during the first hour when we're inside the club and the various stars are just making cameos. Once the love story kicks in things gets extremely silly and obviously staged but both Hutton and especially Leslie are charming enough to keep you slightly entertained. At 124-minutes the film does run out of gas before it's over with but film buffs should still enjoy it.

"Hollywood Canteen" is the story of the actual organization that fed and entertained soldiers during World War II, started by Bette Davis and John Garfield, both of whom appear in the film. Actual female movie stars served as hostesses and danced with the lonely soldiers. In this story, Slim (Robert Hutton) meets his fantasy woman, Joan Leslie, at the Canteen, and when he later becomes the one millionth man to enter the Canteen, he's allowed to choose her as his date for the weekend. Dane Clark plays his buddy.

If you were at Warner Brothers in the '40s, you were in this movie, with very few exceptions. There was some wonderful musical performing as well, tops in my book being Carmen Cavallaro and Jack Benny's duet on the violin with Joseph Szigeti. You can also hear the Andrews Sisters, Roy Rogers and Trigger, Eddie Cantor, Benny Goodman and many others.

All of the women looked stunning, including Davis, Alexis Smith, Eleanor Parker, Jane Wyman, Joan Leslie, Barbara Stanwyck, Ida Lupino, Joan Crawford, and an unbelievably young and gorgeous Janis Paige. There were also appearances by Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, Sidney Greenstreet, Helmet Dantine, Paul Henried, and Peter Lorre.

It was all very interesting but some of the numbers went on a bite long. However, if you're of that era, it will bring back some tremendous memories. Hutton (Barbara Hutton's cousin) was an interesting actor, likable and very reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart. He continued to work in Hollywood for another 30 years but never achieved stardom. Most fascinating to me was seeing and hearing Kitty Carlisle as she performed "Once to Every Heart," realizing that this film was made 62 years ago - and Kitty just performed her nightclub act, at 95, in New York City. God bless her.

By the way, female servicewomen were not allowed in the Hollywood Canteen. I can't remember who it was, but eventually someone started tea dances for the women soldiers to give them someplace to go on leave. For shame.

Be ready to sit back and be gloriously entertained for 2 hours. The Hollywood Canteen was a real place that was the idea of John Garfield who enlisted the help of Bette Davis and they took it from there. Bette got Jules Stein (head of Warner Brothers) involved and it really took off from there. Then they made the movie, the bulk of the proceeds went to the Hollywood Canteen. The stars just keep on coming and they all put on a show. Here is your chance to see them virtually in their prime or heading into their prime. Nothing boring here. Then there is the love story between Joan Leslie and Robert Hutton (there was a tremendous chemistry between them on the screen). Sure it would never happen in real life but it certainly would be every soldier's fantasy that it could happen. And that would keep a lot of spirits up in cold fox holes. I can see why it was such a success when it came out. The Hollywood Canteen closed after V-J day. It had $500,000 left in bank account. That was used to set up a foundation to fund projects for the armed services and it is still going today!