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Five Came Back

A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War

Mark Harris

$39.99

Paperback

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English
Canongate
25 February 2015
Before the Second World War the Hollywood box office was booming, but the business was accused of being too foreign, too Jewish, too 'un-American'. Then the war changed everything.

With Pearl Harbor came the opportunity for Hollywood to prove its critics wrong. America's most legendary directors played a huge role in the war effort: John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra, and George Stevens. Between them they shaped the public perception of almost every major moment of the war.

With characteristic insight and expert knowledge Harris tells the untold story of how Hollywood changed World War II, and how World War II changed Hollywood.

By:  
Imprint:   Canongate
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Edition:   Main
Dimensions:   Height: 214mm,  Width: 135mm,  Spine: 40mm
Weight:   539g
ISBN:   9781847678560
ISBN 10:   1847678564
Pages:   560
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Mark Harris is the author of Scenes From A Revolution: The Birth of the New Hollywood, which was a New York Times notable book of the year and was named one of the ten best non-fiction books of the decade by Salon. An editor-at-large for Entertainment Weekly, a columnist for Grantland and a contributing editor for New York Magazine, he has written about pop culture and film history for many other publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, and GQ. A graduate of Yale University, he lives in New York City with his husband, Tony Kushner.

Reviews for Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War

* The bombs fall on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and Hollywood rolls up its sleeves and swaps the diplomatic velvet glove for the patriotic steel fist ... A story well worth telling Observer * A captivating history ... makes you want to revisit many of the films Daily Telegraph * Mark Harris conducts a fastidious investigation into the five top filmmakers who put their careers on hold to help the war effort ... Fascinating Total Film * Harris deftly threads the story of each man into the wider canvases of Hollywood and the war Scotland on Sunday * Gripping ... reveals how an elite squad of Hollywood's greatest directors recorded the bravest - and bloodiest - actions of World War II Mail on Sunday * Tough-minded, information-packed and irresistibly readable New York Times * Can't-put-it-down history of the World War II propaganda film San Francisco Chronicle * Harris has a huge story to tell, and he does so brilliantly ... an inspirational, if cautionary, tale of the triumph of the individual over the collective, of personal vision over groupthink, and ultimately of art over propaganda Wall Street Journal * Harris is a lively commentator, and a master weaver of multifarious threads Empire * Impeccably researched and irresistibly entertaining Belfast Telegraph * Full of colourful anecdotes about the golden age of Hollywood as well as unflinching descriptions of what the directors faced on the frontline, the 500-plus pages just fly by. This would make a great movie... Aberdeen Evening Express * This is as epic an undertaking as those historical Hollywood sagas of the '30s and '40s, including anecdotes from this golden age of film Good Book Guide * I enjoyed the honesty of this book. It opened my eyes The Truth About Lies


  • Short-listed for Longman-History Today Award 2015
  • Short-listed for Longman/History Today Book of the Year Award 2015 (UK)
  • Shortlisted for Longman/History Today Book of the Year Award 2015.

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