The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-06-19
War Is Not
 Like Movies
By ROBERT MUSEL

neither a 3,OOO-a-week movie di- rector nor man who'd shoot his way through a German road block, sat on a jeep fender digging sar- dimes out of can with a broken cracker. He unused about the dif- ference between war and Holly woods idea of war.
 A little more than two years ago, Stevens gave up glittering Holly wood career because Washington needed someone to supervise the filming of pictorial record of the war for the national archives.
 Last night, his battered eep and motorcade of movie trucks pulled up in front of this correspondents quarters in Bremen, enroute from Denmark to Paris-and, Stevens hopes, home.
 Stevens wore colorful bandanna around his neck and had an auto- matic strapped to his side, but his tanned, alert face was too friendly appearing for the tough fighting man he has turned out to be.
 Some of the extra friendliness came from the fact that he had just received copy of special com mendation from Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower for his war movie work
 The commendation said Stevens unit frequently in disregard of personal danger" had accompanied combat units to secure historically important films.
 This achievement is most praise worthy" the citation read
 Stevens has filmed lot of war pictrues or watched them being filmed, but it took this assignment to show him how wrong the brass hats the war departments film section actually were.
 If our guys back home would only learn what have, I'd have lots less trouble" Stevens said, dig ging mournfully into his sardine can.
 For instance, they kept asking for more shots of soldiers being blown out of windows by grenades- for hand-to-hand fighting sequence eS.
 They never realized that war is mostly waiting, eternally waiting. War is sweating 1t out.
 TO me, the greatest war shot is tense soldier squatting in a fox hole putting intently on a cigarette because that's what war most of the time looks like.
 And Stevens knows what war is. With his camera crews he has cov- cred the African campaign, Egypt, Persia, the Caspian sea, and Rus- sa. And on D-Day, he and his men were on the Norman beaches, just as they were in Paris early on the day of the French capitals liberation.
 From Paris, they went on with the combat troops across France and Germany to the link-up with the Red Army on the E1be river at Torgau.
 One of Stevens assistants, Sgt. William Hamilton, a former Holly wood studio worker, knew all about that job on the Elbe.
 The Colonel and I were so anx- ious to get that link-up pictured" he said, that we took a short cut through German-held territory and had to shoot our way out through a road block with 50-caliber ma chine guns.
 But the Colonel still was amazed at what he had found out about war.
 Funny about me and the war;" he interrupted. I used to be vio- lent pacifist-a subscribed to peace organizations. But now I can see there is some reason to this war"
 Stevens said he old his super iors in the War Wepartment the kind of war shots they wanted could be made on Hollywood movie lot, but that he'd stick to reality.
 The reality" has been all fight ing, either.
 We were in the Dachau concen- tration camp for ten horrible days when there were 5000 typhus cases and the place was so tightly quar- antined that even the medics weren't allowed in.
 Tt had a terrific effect on my crew. They seemed like men in a daZe."
 Stevens in his peacetime career directed and produced The More The Merrier," "Gunga Din," Talk of the Town," Penny Serenade," and Woman of the Year." among others.
 But now he was sitting wearily on jeep fender. concentrating on prying more sardines out of that can with broken cracker. That's . picture Hollywood would never be able to beat.