Posted on 05/08/2022 9:36:35 AM PDT by Rummyfan
The five year gap in Jimmy Stewart's filmography between 1942 and 1946 was the most vivid and important period in his life, if you believe what the famously reticent and reserved movie star would say later. He spent it in uniform with the U.S. Army Air Force, much of it flying B-24 bombers with the Eighth Air Force over Europe. Interviewed by writer Jonathan Coe for the biography Jimmy Stewart: A Wonderful Life, the actor was asked to compare it to his career as one of the biggest stars in Hollywood for nearly half a century. Was it greater than that, Coe asked?
"Much greater," Stewart said.
Several biographies of Stewart like to point out that he never made a war film after coming back from the war, including Jimmy Stewart: Bomber Pilot, an account of his time in the USAAF, written by Starr Smith, who served as an intelligence officer in the Eighth alongside Stewart. The actor is quoted as saying that war movies never really got the truth of war right.
It's a great factoid, but isn't really true: Stewart made two films for MGM set during the lead-up to the war before he entered the service – The Mortal Storm (1940) and Come Live With Me (1941), typical of the mixtures of melodrama and propaganda the studios made to support President Roosevelt's persistent push for American entry into World War II. After the war he would split his time between genres with a heavy emphasis on westerns, but among them was Malaya (1949), with Stewart and Spencer Tracy smuggling rubber out of Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia, and The Mountain Road (1960), as an officer fighting the Japanese in China.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Another patch showed the fist squeezing blood out of a turnip.
Jimmy Stewart is one of my all-time favorites. He was a spectacular actor, but his time away from acting 1942-1946 to fly B-24 bombers with the Eighth Air Force over Europe is just incredible.
The film that made him famous, the 1939 political comedy-drama film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” directed by Frank Capra is wonderful. Stewart was 31 years old when he starred in that film. Its story about corruption in American government that obviously resonates more than ever today. The corruption portrayed in that film is small potatoes compared to what the Biden Crime Syndicate has done and is doing.
A 60 year old man pitching baseball...Please.
Nowadays, even some conservatives call these propaganda films, instead of what they were/are, patriotic films. Propaganda connotes the promotion of a false agenda. These films didn’t do that; they gave the public a look inside their armed forces and the hard & professional work ordinary men do to meet the goals of peace through strength and readiness to win the nation’s conflicts, if called upon to do so.
But when the decisions to buy and build it there were no Mig-15s. And after the war ended and the US & Britain were developing jet aircraft, the design of the B-47 began and it was built. The B-36 became a ‘stop gap’ aircraft to fly over the artic against the USSR as the B-29 didn’t have the range.
It seems so would many pro-Putin FReepers.
You are way off base. The film takes place 1951 to 1953. Stewart was born in 1908, so he would have been 43 to 45 years old when during that period. But Hollywood license takes age off people, so he might have been portrayed as a 38 to 40 year old. That is perfectly is consistent with both his rank in the Army Air Corps and the baseball position. By the way, he was portrayed as a third baseman in the film, not a pitcher,
There were lots of older pitchers, too:
Horace “Hod” Lisenbee was a right-handed pitcher who played his last game for the Cincinnati Reds at 46 years old. Retired in 1945.
Irvin Key “Kaiser” Wilhelm was a right-handed pitcher who played his last game for the Philadelphia Phillies at 47 years old. Retired 1921.
Philip Niekro was a right-handed pitcher who played his last game for the Atlanta Braves at 48 years old. Retired 1987.
Jamie Moyer was a left-handed pitcher who played his last game for the Colorado Rockies at 49 years old. Retired 2012.
MARCH AFB,SAC 1972.
Wow, what a Long, Strange
Trip it’s been.
They did back in 1942 also. Only when Hitler attacked the USSR, his ally in invading Poland, did they do a 180 and support US entry into the War.
I’m curious what the OP commented in #1 to be removed...
Stewart’s movie wife in this film was the epitome of submissive and dutiful.
Germany (Hitler) attacked the USSR (Russia) June 6 1941 not 1942! They did their backflips when that happened. Though I grant you many are mentally slow in Hollywierd for some it could have taken 6 months to figure out what to do.
We supported the USSR, and Communism has been a longer-lasting evil than Fascism was. I believe the reason the left hates “Fascism” has nothing to do with the Holocaust. The left hates Fascism because it was in opposition to Communism.
That’s a part she was very familiar with. She just reeked of the understanding wife, and that voice...
Support? they demanded that the US fight Germany immediately and open a second front to take pressure off of the Soviets.
The Communists still ran/run Hollywood and movies like Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe depicted our Air Force inadvertently nuking the USSR and the horrors that followed. These movies coincided with the Communist-directed "Ban the Bomb" movement and supported their premise that only the US should give up "the Bomb".
In the mid-60s, the Ban the Bomb movement morphed into the "Anti Vietnam War" movement and they even kept their symbol which overnight became the "Peace symbol".
The only Command to measure with a micrometer, mark with a grease pencil, and cut with a fire axe.
That would be 22 June 1941 not 06 June.
You’re right...getting old!
True enough, but these guys are exceptions to the rule. Niekro was a knuckleballer so his arm lasted and lasted. Moyer threw a lot of junk, slow, slower, and slowest, so his arm never wore out either.
Another notable exception to aging out was Nolan Ryan, who somehow miraculously never lost his velocity and threw a no-hitter in his forties.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.