Hollywood Canteen (1944)

(On Cable TV, May 2019) Here’s what you need to know about Hollywood Canteen: During WW2, Hollywood celebrities got together and paid for a club in Los Angeles exclusively reserved for servicemen on leave where they could get free drinks and meals. Adding to the appeal, glamorous movie stars donated their time by actually bartending and waitressing for patrons of the place. This is all true—although accounts of the place usually underplay the considerable Pro-Hollywood publicity value in this arrangement. Further adding to the mystique is this film, not a great one but a fascinating time capsule of propagandist wish fulfillment that shows WW2 soldiers enjoying a few days in Los Angeles and spending time at the Hollywood Canteen where they get a chance to rub shoulders with movie stars. (Lost to twenty-first century audiences is the idea that when this film was shown to servicemen overseas, they could have been these guys.)  The film itself, once past the bare-bones setup, is a series of performances by Hollywood then-stars at the Canteen, effectively turning the film is a series of variety show sketches while the film’s protagonists kiss Hollywood starlets, empty sandwich trays or watch the acts with mouth agape. If some scenes make you somewhat queasy at the way the actresses are offered to soldiers for kisses, then you do have a good grasp at the hierarchy of values presented here, elevating the fighting soldier on a special pedestal. Hollywood Canteen remains both a wartime propaganda film, and a revue of who was who in Hollywood at the time—some of them featured in the movie, others referenced through dialogue. Many of the jokes are obscure now that the stars are gone—Jack Benny gets a laugh from the characters just by showing up, for instance, leaving twenty-first century audiences puzzled for a few moments. It’s fun to see some Hollywood stars in a far more relaxed environment, though—especially Bette Davis in a more comic role. The Canteen acts as a pretext, as the characters have adventures around town, our protagonist gets to romance a movie star and we tour the Warner Bros studios of the time. It’s actually quite a fun movie even with the propaganda material … but it works far better as a reminder of a bygone era.