Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1945)

HEART-THROB SELLING OF SCREE! SERVICE TO THE CAUSE OF WAI MOVIE LOT TO BEACHHEAD, by the editors of Look. Foreword by Robert St. John. Preponderantly illustrated, more pictures than text. 292 Pages. Cloth binding. Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., New York. $3.50. By TERRY RAMSAYE the story of the war is too big for telling. And yet there is a telling. It is about the motion picture and the war. The camera and the screen together cut a cross-section of all there is about living and dying. That is, however, something that never the screen can say for itself, to its own people — the people who look. Sgt. Victor W. Groshon, picturing a landing, takes cover under fire in handy foxhole. Now it is being said, by a book, to the people who read — and also" look. The book is one of the most remarkable manifestations of reactions in the crucible of war, a book of words to be read and pictures to be looked at, and between those purposes achieving, not only a sort of motion-pictureon-paper, but a document of destiny. The book is entitled "Movie Lot to Beachhead," formally published this week, April 12, by Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. It has the worst title and the best content of any endeavor to put the flowing art of the screen into the static form of type and picture on the printed page. What gets across is the war and its thrills, ordeals, tragedies and problems, through, with and because of the motion picture and the camera. The book is "by the editors of Look" and it is copyrighted by Cowles Magazines, Inc. Look, which means just now the authorship of this "Movie Lot to Beachhead," is born of the heart of this America, out in Des Moines in Day of debacle — Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. Official Nary P iii|)iii.BUlHil v ~LJ m 4 Photo by Acme Col. James Stewart, onetime screen hero, receives the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery on a bombing mission, one of 20 he has completed in the European theatre. His promotion to colonel was announced by Army headquarters this week. Iowa where the tall corn grows, and where the Des Moines Register and Tribune is published by the Cowles family. The book confers credit on the House of Cowles. The opulent volume in all its special excellence of book-rnaking, from letter press to illustration to end-papers and smart binding, is all well done, and is done con amore, meaning beyond commercial necessity. A swift foreword comes from Mr. Robert St. John, formerly of the Associated Press, war correspondent, survivor of desperate venture down the coast of stricken Greece, a now a commentator with the National Bro; casting Company. He opens the book with: "There was a day when it was considered be smart to be cynical aboui Hollywood. "That was before the war." Then the book plunges into action. It tre first of those tense pre-war days, when all, least all except a few, could see what was ahe It has a pass at exposition of the gala days Hollywood, some as mad as a Pompeian it It traces FBI pre-war pursuit of spies and trigue. It records the debacle of Pearl Harb the desperate haste of preparation, and then plunge to combat on the Seven Seas and all Continents; and carrying the war through chapters, it comes at last to a summary built that screen collaboration which Mr. Cecil DeMille stranded together under the title "Land of Liberty." To the multitudes it will be a picture be of compelling interest. It demands. It insi; It tells in tears and smiles. Sometimes it ironic, in a subtle way, unconsciously, may It documents today's paper and tomorro forecasts. All in all, here is an astonishingly compet telling of the story of the motion picture I what it means, compelled in a fashion by force of war. The circulation of this book will be v calculated to add to the status of the mot picture and its theatre in the mind of reader. And the reader is likely to be impel to give word-of -mouth circulation to impressions. 12 MOTION PICTURE HERALD, APRIL 14,