Hollywood Canteen
Director: Delmer Daves
Year: 1944
Rating: 6.0
The Hollywood Canteen was produced by Warner Brothers
in 1944 in order to bolster morale, sing the praises of Hollywood and to
help fund the real Hollywood Canteen. It is an orgy of Warner Brother’s stars
doing cameos with a silly plot that just gets in the way. A year earlier
they had released Thank Your Lucky Stars that also contained a plethora of
Warner Brothers stars for the war effort. Both have numerous musical numbers
that pop up every few minutes. In this one we get Jimmy Dorsey, Eddie Cantor,
Roy Rogers (and Trigger), The Andrew Sisters, Jack Benny, Joe E. Brown, Joan
Leslie and others while Stanwyck, Lorre, Greenstreet, Ida Lupino, Joan Crawford,
Bette Davis, John Garfield, Alan Hale, Paul Henreid, Jane Wyman, Alexis Smith
among others show up to dish out food. It is a challenge keeping up and identifying
them as they whiz by, but a fun one if you like these Golden Oldie actors.
Now the Hollywood Canteen was a real thing during WWII to give the soldiers
a place to come when on leave in Los Angeles to relax, eat and be entertained
by movie stars. The stars really did show up to sing, to wait on tables,
cook, to dance with the soldiers and other assorted duties. It was formed
by Bette Davis and John Garfield in 1942 and they raised money and brought
in actors for the rest of the war. The two stars were adamant that the club
be integrated at a time when the armed services were not. One of the events
in the film was based on some truth as well when the one millionth soldier
who came through the door was kissed by Betty Grable and escorted in by Marlene
Dietrich.
In the film the lucky customer is played by Robert Hutton and the prize is
a weekend with Joan Leslie playing herself. They weirdly fall in love. You
have to wonder if soldiers seeing this film went into the Canteen hoping
they would get lucky that night with a big star! Kind of the wrong message
to send. So this plot is annoying really, but watching all these famous stars
as themselves is pretty cool – Barbara Stanwyck being my favorite though
the duo of Lorre and Greenstreet playing off their characters from The Maltese
Falcon is classic.
