Hollywood and the entertainment industry, now thoroughly prisoners of ideological capture, have been pushing anti-military propaganda for decades. I was looking for appropriate Veterans Day movies that didn’t treat our returning soldiers as victims: there are almost none. Even in World War II, the actors who managed to stay out of the war through various deferments prospered by taking the roles, and sometimes the careers, of their colleagues fighting in Japan and Europe. “Call Me Mister” was a hit 1946 musical revue on Broadway with comic sketches by Arnold Auerbach and words and music by Harold Rome. It was about WWII soldiers returning triumphantly to civilian life. Although the revue was a success and had a successful national tour, Hollywood adapted it into a move musical that wasn’t true to its positive spirit, essentially using the title to sell tickets and chucking the rest.

[Digression with a little boasting: My now defunct professional theater company, which was dedicated to reviving important American stage works no longer regarded as “relevant” (or profitable) by the live theater community, produced a staged concert version of “Call Me Mister” in 2006. Understandably, the original show was instantly rendered anachronistic as soon as the brief period of GIs returning from the war expired, and it was never revived after its national tour. The American Century Theater production, which I directed (with musical direction by Tom Fuller), was “the “Call Me Mister’s” first professional production of any kind since 1946, 60 years earlier. The video of one of our performances is also the only existing record of any performance of “Call Me Mister,” and is archived for that reason at the Yale’s Haas Arts Library. So I haven’t lived in vane after all…]

Even the most acclaimed movie about veterans returning home from a war emphasizes how their service has handicapped and scarred them, though without denigrating the importance of their service. That is “The Best Years of Our Lives,” directed by William Wyler after he returned from a traumatic mission abroad to film the war effort in Europe. At least it ends happily with hope for the three returning servicemen.

I’ll watch that one again, and to remind me of what our veterans endure and accomplish in service to our nation, I’ll re-watch “Hacksaw Ridge,” the incredible story of Desmond Doss whom I last wrote about here.