Hanks, Hollywood and History

News today that Tom Hanks (Saving Pvt. Ryan, could we forget?) has lent his talents to a new production debuting this November at The National World War II Museum in New Orleans. Beyond All Boundaries promises to be a cinematic experience using high tech wizardry and historical footage to tell the story of Americans involvement in World War II. Should be great. More from the AP. More from the museum.

Taking It Off At The Stage Door Canteen

Gypsy Rose Lee (1911-1970), the famed burlesque stripper, charms her audience in 1943's Stage Door Canteen. Compared to today's tramp-stamped pole dancers, Lee is both more charming and more erudite - dropping allusions to Cezanne and Oscar Wilde while dropping her drawers. What's more, servicemen and women in the 1940s understood the humor and appreciated her act. We've come a long way, baby. And it might not be an improvement.

Star Tissue

Brad Pitt looking less than pretty in this poster from Quentin Tarantino’s new WWII movie Inglorious Basterds. Pitt plays Aldo Raine, an Army Lieutenant with gristle for a soul and a previous pain in the neck, if his throat-spanning scar is any indication. Raine's task: recruit a squad of Nazi-killing soldiers and drop them in occupied France to wreak havoc. You can see what happens when the movie storms ashore this August. More pictures at the Vanity Fair site. As for Brad's hickey, take a poll: gross or no? Vote at right.

News Flash From the Front

We've gotten a lot of questions about why we aren't covering contemporary WWII films. We did not, initially, preferring to limit our coverage exclusively to wartime Hollywood. But several of you made a good case for expanding our coverage to include modern productions (and TV) to broaden our appeal - and, importantly, expose new or younger people to the classic stars and movies. So we're retooling. Look for more contemporary coverage as well as clips from your favorite wartime stars.

Nurses Front and Center

With a pandemic flu threatening the nursing profession is in the news these days. So Proudly We Hail celebrates the sacrifices of US nurses in the Philippines during the early days of WWII. The 1943 film stars Claudette Colbert, Veronica Lake and Paulette Goddard with Lake's character becoming a suicide bomber of sorts - holding a live grenade and walking into a group of Japanese soldiers so the rest of her colleagues can escape them.

"So They Bombed Pearl Harbor, Did They?"

That question, uttered by taxi-driver-turned-Asian-adventurer Joe Tracey (Barry Nelson) in 1942's A Yank on the Burma Road, was the first mention of the attack in a Hollywood film. Today, with TV transmitted instantly from around the globe, we've forgotten how long images once took to reach audiences. There were weekly newsreels, but with long lead times, topical events made it into the movies much later. This utterance was recorded in post-production and the movie rushed into release in January, weeks after the Japanese assault on Hawaii. The New York Times panned the picture, calling it "a five-and-dime fiction." TCM has the trailer. Nelson's later claim to fame: the first James Bond. He played the agent in a 1954 made-for-TV version of Casino Royale.

Benny Goodman Swings

The Gang's All Here is a Busby Berkeley Technicolor musical featuring fruit-bearing Brazilian sensation Carmen Miranda (who sparked a censorship fracas with the position of her bananas), and below, bandleader Benny Goodman surrounding himself with energetic jitterbuggers. America, protected by two vast oceans, would never experience the horror of war on the Home Front, which made some citizens a bit guilty. Most, however, were just grateful, and the country's undamaged, youthful exuberance is present in this clip.