Five Came Back, Mark Harris
Five Came Back, Mark Harris
List: $29.99 | Sale: $21.00
Club: $14.99

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

Author: Mark Harris

Narrator: Andrew Garman

Unabridged: 20 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 02/27/2014


Synopsis

One of The Hollywood Reporter’s 100 Greatest Film Books of All Time

Now a Netflix original documentary series, also written by Mark Harris: the extraordinary wartime experience of five of Hollywood’s most important directors, all of whom put their stamp on World War II and were changed by it forever

Here is the remarkable, untold story of how five major Hollywood directors—John Ford, George Stevens, John Huston, William Wyler, and Frank Capra—changed World War II, and how, in turn, the war changed them. In a move unheard of at the time, the U.S. government farmed out its war propaganda effort to Hollywood, allowing these directors the freedom to film in combat zones as never before. They were on the scene at almost every major moment of America’s war, shaping the public’s collective consciousness of what we’ve now come to call the good fight. The product of five years of scrupulous archival research, Five Came Back provides a revelatory new understanding of Hollywood’s role in the war through the life and work of these five men who chose to go, and who came back.

About Mark Harris

From 1990 to 2006, Mark Harris worked as a writer and editor covering movies, television, and books for Entertainment Weekly, where he now writes the Final Cut back-page column. He has written about pop culture for several other magazines as well. He lives in New York City with his husband, Tony Kushner.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Biblio

Five Hollywood directors volunteered for active duty after Pearl Harbor. They ranged in age from mid-thirties to late forties and had families to support. They were in no danger of being drafted at their age, and taking an indefinite leave from their careers was risky. They took huge cuts in pay to......more

Goodreads review by David

Very well reported with extensive detail. For the first time I am able to figure out how the WWII film units worked (or in some cases didn't). I do get the feeling that the author doesn't really know which civilian films were great, which were good and which were neither as he relies exclusively on c......more

Goodreads review by Kevin

I’m a big fan of Mark Harris, who writes for Entertainment Weekly and who wrote my favorite book of 2008, PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION: FIVE MOVIES AND THE BIRTH OF NEW HOLLYWOOD. His first book was about the five films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in 1967 (BONNIE & CLYDE, THE GRADUATE, IN THE H......more

Goodreads review by Michael

I don't give many books 5 stars, but this was an exceptional pop culture history about five Hollywood directors and their adventures and misadventures working for the government producing propaganda films during WWII. Clearly structured, well written, and full of interesting things I'd never heard b......more

Goodreads review by Denny

A great Hollywood book about 5 important directors. Of the 5 it was Mr. Stevens I was most impressed with. An honorable man that had to take on something horrific. The care he took of men he was with during the war and his letters home show him to be a man of courage and dignity.......more