THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 7, 1996 TAG: 9607080186
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY JOHN DAILEY
LENGTH: 83 lines
SAILING ON THE SILVER SCREEN
Hollywood and the U.S. Navy
LAWRENCE SUID
U.S. Naval Institute Press. 328 pp. $45.
In Sailing on the Silver Screen, Lawrence Suid explores the U.S. Navy's relationship with the filmaking community in Hollywood. Though interesting, the Navy in the movies is a rather lightweight subject that will generate little interest among a mainstream readership. This is unfortunate.
Suid does a nice job of explaining why this generally smooth but sometimes stormy marriage exists in the first place: symbiosis at the survival level. Hollywood needs the Navy's ships and planes for realistic movies that attract large audiences, and the Navy needs recruits and Congress to staff and fund its global fleet. It is image-making of the highest order, and the stakes are not inconsequential. To succeed, each camp pursues its own agenda. Every now and again those agendas intersect in the form of a finished motion picture.
For the Navy, image isn't everything, it's the only thing. Sailors and officers in movies need to be clean-cut, respectful of their elders, unwavering in their sense of duty and generally seen traveling around the world in ships having the adventure of a lifetime. When danger comes, they must act bravely, as a team, and, if they die, they must do so heroically and with humility. Any producer who deviates from this norm can anticipate major script revisions in exchange for Navy assistance.
Film makers, on the other hand, want as much raw excitement as they can pack into two hours. They need tension, conflict, passionate romance and, if all else fails, plenty of action in the form of screaming jets and exploding bombs. Done correctly, all of these can translate into massive box office receipts.
The Navy, of course, doesn't always agree with the director's vision, and the resolution of these differing positions forms the heart of Suid's book.
Suid traces the Navy-Hollywood relationsihp chronologically, beginning with the years between the world wars, when both Hollywood and the global Navy we know today were in their respective infancies. The era began with mostly love stories in military settings (``Shipmates Forever,'' ``Midshipman Jack''), moved to pre-war preparedness themes (``Wings of the Navy,'' ``High Command'') and closed out during the post-World War II period with nostalgia vehicles (``They Were Expendable,'' ``The Enemy Below,'' ``Run Silent, Run Deep''). At that juncture, flush from victory in the war, Navy cooperation came pretty easily to Hollywood.
The unsatisfying truce in Korea and the humiliating defeat in Vietnam changed all that, probably forever. ``The Bridges of Toko-Ri,'' a story about carrier pilots in Korea that was laced with anti-war sentiment, received surprisingly extensive assistance from the Navy. But by the early 1970s, with the country's anti-Vietnam sentiment showing up in its movies, Navy assistance to Hollywood virtually dried up. Movies such as ``The Americanization of Emily,'' ``The Last Detail'' and ``Cinderella Liberty'' represented the antithesis of what the Navy imagined itself to be like.
The process has finally come full circle now, with the Navy enjoying a rising reputation, at least on the screen. After the wildly successful ``Officer and a Gentleman,'' which did not receive Navy support because of its explicit sexual scenes, the service threw its full weight behind ``Top Gun,'' completing the final stage in its cinematic rehabilitation.
Suid traces a seemingly endless series of negotiations as one faceless screenwriter/producer after another horse trades with Navy or Pentagon public affairs officers about what will stay in a script, and what will not. After about 150 pages of this, the book becomes rather tedious. There are also some minor inaccuracies and unexplained acronyms, but they don't distract from the reader's focus.
Fortunately, interesting anecdotes occasionally break up the tedium. The carrier landing by a blinded pilot in ``A Wing and a Prayer'' actually happened - but on land - and JFK's heavy hand on ``PT-109'' may disappoint some fans of Camelot. The pink submarine full of nurses described in ``Operation Petticoat'' also actually happened, but was aggregated from several unrelated incidents. A few more gems like these would have made for an easier read.
Suid has put together a fine book full of good information, all of it solidly researched. As a Naval Institute Press book, however, it will draw little public attention, and will be read mostly by a narrow assortment of Hollywood junkies and Navy public affairs types. Too bad. As long as movies remain the dominant art form in popular American culture, the Navy will continue to try to influence their production. MEMO: John Dailey is a Navy captain stationed in Norfolk. by CNB