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Books

When Mussolini came knocking on Hollywood’s door

A review of Mark Harris’ Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War. The brave irrational filmmakers who brought the war home

29 March 2014

9:00 AM

29 March 2014

9:00 AM

Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War Mark Harris

Canongate, pp.511, £30, ISBN: 9781847678553

John Ford was the first of the five famous Hollywood film directors to go to war. He went expecting to get given a sword, which he could then brandish. After all, he knew about swords; they were things that came out of props baskets in his cavalry epics, but that was in films.

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