America in WWII - (Page 68) A gripping account of the horrendous attack and the heroic work to replace the damaged section lifts The Pentagon: A History to a whole new level. “The common wisdom was that the World War II esprit and national purpose that built the Pentagon in seventeen months would be impossible to recreate sixty years later,” writes Vogel. “Yet the doubts had been proven wrong. The damaged building had been restored in a manner that echoed its creation.” —Tom Huntington Camp Hill, Pennsylvania The Museum of World War II, website, www.museumofworldwarii.com BOOKS AND MEDIA T HE MUSEUM OF WORLD WAR II is a 10,000-square-foot building filled with historical papers and artifacts in Natick, Massachusetts, about 20 miles west of Boston. The Museum of World War II is also a website. Though the virtual collection can’t replace the real thing, it’s intriguing in its own right. And it’s accessi- ble thousands of miles from Boston. One of the great things about virtual tours of museums is that a visitor can take as long as he or she likes in any one place without getting in other visitors’ way. Also, anybody in the world with access to the Internet can visit the museum through cyberspace. In the real world, most of us don’t have the time or money to fly or drive to visit every museum that interests us. The first thing you may notice on the website is the choice of color. The military staples of khaki and gray dominate. There are few bright hues. The site features an excellent virtual tour. Clicking on the Virtual Tour button on the left side of the home page brings up an array of more than two dozen topics to peruse. There are a section devoted to Germany in the 1920s, and how this most cul- tured and sophisticated of countries let a madman like Adolph Hitler become its dictator; items related to the war in the Pacific, including an excellent bit on General Douglas MacArthur; information about the atomic bomb; and a lot of material about the Nuremburg War Trials. The museum’s specialty is correspondence—letters written by famous and infamous personalities of the Second World War. “There are highly important letters, documents, and manuscripts ,” museum director Kenneth W. Rendell writes on the site. “Hitler, Roosevelt, Churchill, Eisenhower, Patton, Montgomery, Stalin, A THEATER OF WAR The More the Merrier. Directed by George Stevens, written by Robert Russell, Frank Ross, Richard Flournoy, and Lewis R. Foster, starring Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, and Charles Coburn, 1943, 104 minutes, black and white, not rated. during World War II. The population exploded as men and women— especially women—arrived in town to serve the ballooning government bureaucracies, putting housing in extremely short supply. The shortage of rooms provides the impetus for the romantic comedy The More the Merrier, with stalwart character actor Charles Coburn (who won an Oscar as best supporting actor) serving as an unlikely cupid. Coburn plays Benjamin Dingle, a portly, middle-aged housing expert who breezes into town to take part in some barely defined project. He can’t find a room, but he takes as his personal motto W ASHINGTON, DC, was a boom town the words of Civil War Admiral David Farragut—“Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!”—and bulldozes his way into an agreement to rent a bedroom from attractive Constance Milligan (Jean Arthur). Then, in an effort to find a suitable romantic partner for his new landlord, he brings in lodger Joe Carter (Joel McCrea) to share his room. Connie is a role tailor-made for Jean Arthur, an actress with kewpie doll looks and a voice to match, who specialized in playing somewhat prim women with unexpected fires burning beneath the surface. McCrea is gruff and understated, but a likeable leading man. After a rough start the two manage to strike some sparks. There are, of course, complications. Connie is in the middle of a very long engagement to Charles J. Prendergast (Richard Gaines), an uptight numbers guy with a bad wig, and Dingle has to destroy one romance as he creates another. The men are outnumbered in this battle of the sexes. “There are eight women to every fella,” Dingle advises Carter. The women at Connie’s work whistle at the men, and when Carter hopes to eat dinner with Connie, he finds himself the only man at a table full of very interested members of the opposite sex. Of course, true love eventually wins out—but only after the FBI becomes involved and Connie’s reputation appears to be in tatters. It’s fluff, to be sure, but fluff made palatable by its appealing leads and some snappy dialogue. “Do you think you know me well enough to lie to me?” Dingle asks Connie when she tells him the room is rented. “Yes,” she snaps back. “Well, even so, you shouldn’t do 68 AMERICA IN WWII OCTOBER 2007
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