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Coming Home Veteran Readjustment, Postwar Conformity and American Film Narratives, 1945-1948

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Coming Home Veteran Readjustment, Postwar Conformity and American Film Narratives, 1945-1948 Coming Home Veteran Readjustment, Postwar Conformity and American Film Narratives, 1945-1948 By Ian Brookes UNIVERSITY LIBRARY NOTTINGHAM Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, May, 2002 Contents Contents 11 Abstract III Acknowledgements IV Introduction 1 Part One: The Sociology of Veteran Readjustment 57 1. 'The Most Orderly Society in the Modern World' Military Culture and Society 58 2. 'Like the Orphan and the Prisoner' The Problem of Veteran Readjustment 74 3. When Dreams Came True Marriage and Family on the Postwar Home Front 89 4. Democracy at War Enemies, Allies and Others 104 5. Between Two Worlds The Veteran and The Stranger 121 Part Two: Readjustment and Film Narrative 136 6. 'Am I Really Home?' Veteran 'Readjustment' and The Best Years ofOur Lives 137 7. The Battle of Bedford Falls and the Suburban Ideal Postwar Suburbanisation and It's A Wonderful Life 156 8. ' Awful Cheap Material' Veda's Dress, Consumer Culture and Mildred Pierce 175 9. Decor and RecoUection: Fin-de-Siecle Vienna and American Cultural Readjustment Letter From an Unknown Woman and The Emperor Waltz 193 10. Big Business and Little People The Organisation and Force ofEvil 210 11. 'In Harper, there's nothing to be afraid of ••• ' Renascent Fascism and The Stranger 227 Conclusion: 'The Uniform of the Day' 245 Bibliograpby 248 Film Index 266 11 Abstract The aftermath of World War II witnessed large-scale military demobilisation and. in its wake, a vast influx of returning servicemen. Their homecoming signalled a transition from military to civilian life which was often described as 'readjustment.' The term is usually taken to imply a process of homogenisation which engendered a condition of conformity in ex-servicemen and, by extension, in society at large. This thesis argues against this view and demonstrates that 'readjustment' wasn't intended to reproduce conformity but, on the contrary, was to provide the means for the reconversion of the 'conformist' ex-serviceman into the independent, autonomous citizen necessary for the functioning of a democratic society, especially in contradistinction to the conformism associated with the totalitarian Other. It was assumed that servicemen had become habi­ tuated to the military's authoritarian regimen of regulation and command which sub­ sumed individuality. Hence, 'readjustment' was concerned with the 'nonconformist' in­ dividual who would become indispensable to a postwar' Americanism' which was being defensively constructed against totalitarianism and, moreover, against the 'totalitarian' implications of a conformism often seen as endemic in America as a mass society. This study recontextualises postwar film narratives (1945-48) in relation to the discourse of 'readjustment' and, by treating 'conformity' as a complex, contradictory and unreliable term, it problematises 'readjustment' and its role in the construction of postwar 'conformity.' The thesis draws methodologically on Michel Foucault's work on discourse theory, and Dana Polan's approaches to 1940s' narrative and social his­ tory. The study comprises two principal areas of research: part one analyses the socio­ logical construction of 'readjustment,' and part two examines how 'readjustment' and its ramifications were refracted through film narrative. The film readings acknowledge the incoherence and instability implicit in the title's key terms through an approach which highlights narrative inconsistency, ambivalence and contradiction, and which works to disturb the notion of postwar social history as a stable, coherent narrative. iii Acknowledgements I have accumulated several debts in undertaking this study and I am grateful to all those who, in various ways, have helped me along the way. This is a truly collaborative project. I am obliged to the Arts and Humanities Research Board for the funding which made this project possible, and to the Institute of Film Studies and the School of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham for their support in my research. First and foremost, I must thank my supervisor, Mark Jancovich, for the indispens­ able role he has played throughout the gestation of this project, for his indefatigable sup­ port, and for the critical acuity he has brought to bear on the development of my study. lowe a very special debt of gratitude to Dana Polan for providing me with critical commentaries on all the chapters. Dana's generous enthusiasm, gracious encouragement and, not least, his critical acumen have been inspirational for me and his contribution to my study has been quite incalculable. My research took me to several libraries and I would like to thank the many members of library staff who assisted with my enquiries, often into some of the more obscure aspects of 1940s' Americana: the Hallward Library at the University of Nottingham and, in partic­ ular, to Katherine Beers, and especially to Alison Stevens at the inter-library loan depart­ ment for her alacrity in pursuit of the unattainable; the British Film Institute National Li­ brary; the British Library; the Film Study Centre at the Museum of Modem Art; New York Public Library; the Valley Library at Oregon State University; and the Firestone Library at Princeton University. I am also obliged to several of the luminaries in our outstanding School for their ad­ vice, support and criticism. Thanks in particular to Richard King, Sharon Monteith, David Murray, Douglas Tallack and Graham Taylor. Special thanks also to Jonathan Munby and, once again, to Douglas Tallack for their 'post-production' critical appraisal: I especially value their involvement in my study. Thanks, too, to my fellow students and their contributions to my study through the Institute's work-in-progress seminars. A great debt of gratitude is due to friends who, in countless ways, helped to support my project (and sustain me), especially Sarah Stubbings, Anne Elliott and Jeongmee Kim. Special thanks go to Sarah Stubbings for undertaking the most scrupulous reading of the final draft version; and to Caroline Robinson for reading, and endlessly rereading. all the successive drafts throughout their tortuous development. Thanks also go to Richard Maltby for kindly providing me with invaluable resource materials, and to Antonio Lazaro-Reboll for his astute observations on early drafts. I am especially grateful to friends who have provided support and encouragement, of­ fered advice. tolerated my distractedness, and readily indulged my obsessive preoccupations with the postwar period and its films. Thanks especially to Tony Bond, Clint Brown, Cheryl McLean, Gill and Dave Murray, Nick Saunders and, not least, to Andy Thomas (who took care of the bodywork). Cornell Woolrich dedicated one of his 1940s' novels to his writing technology (a Re­ mington typewriter) and, like him, I acknowledge mine (an iMac) for the sheer beauty of its technological efficiency and dependability in the service of this project. I am aware that 'Coming Home' would never have got to its present destination with­ out my wonderful partner, Caroline Robinson. My deepest gratitude is due to her for untold reasons of which I mention here only her sublime forbearance, her grace under pressure, and the shared pleasures of seeing together any number of films from the 1940s. iv Odysseus stirred and woke from sleep in the land of his fathers. Not that he knew his whereabouts. Partly he had been absent for so long; but in part it was because Pallas Athene had thickened the air about him to keep him unknown while she made him wise to things. She would not have his wife know him, nor his townsmen, nor his friends . ... So to its King Ithaca showed an unaccustomed jQce, the pathways stretching far into the distance, the quiet bays, the crags and preCipices, the leafy trees. He rose to his foet and stood staring at what was his own land, then Sighed and clapped his two palms downward upon his thighs, crying mournfully, "Alas! and now where on earth am I? Shall I be spurned and savaged by the people of this place, or find them pious, hospitable creatures?" Homer, The Odyssey, Book XIII Trans., T. E. Shaw (Colonel T. E. Lawrence), 1935 v Introduction Manhattan. Glistening modern giant of concrete and steel, reaching to the heavens and crad­ ling in its arms seven millions. .. Happy beneficiaries of the advantages and comforts this great metropolis has to offer. Its fine wide boulevards facilitate the New Yorkers' carefree, orderly existence. A transportation system second to none in passenger comfort. Quaint lit­ tle sidewalk cafes make for leisurely, gracious living. For its nature-lovers, the peace and privacy of a day in the sun. Bill Cole (Melvyn Douglas), Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) You know, Betty, when you're lying in a foxhole in Okinawa, you've got plenty of time to think things out. ... Betty, do you know what a fellah thinks about when he's lying out there in the mud with the shells bursting all around him? ... He thinks about the funda­ mental things, the things that really count, the basic things. ... Darling, I've bought a chicken farm. It's the most wonderful place you can possibly imagine. It's situated high up in the mountains, miles from everywhere. Forty beautiful fertile acres. Bob MacDonald (Fred MacMurray), The Egg and 1(1947) Bill Cole's voice-over narration is a paean to city life, but the city we actually see in the film's opening montage is a visual contradiction of his advertising-copy description. A series of establishing shots depicts narrow, gridlocked streets with traffic brought to a frustrated standstill, horns blaring in exasperation; the subway teems with thousands of commuters, desperately attempting to board trains already full; crowded lunch counters are packed with customers eating with frenetic haste. At home, Jim Blandings (Cary Grant) and his wife Muriel (Myrna Loy) live with their two daughters in a cramped, cluttered, 'cracker-box' apartment in which the rituals of everyday life must be continu- ally negotiated within the confines of a domestic space so ridiculously small that it can scarcely accommodate them.
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