INDIANAPOLIS — Film historian Eric Grayson will screen Diary of a Sergeant, a 1945 training film for the U.S. military starring Harold Russell, at the Garfield Park Arts Center, 2432 Conservatory Drive, on Sat., Nov. 14, at 7 p.m. The lead actor had lost his hands because of defective dynamite on D-Day in June 1944. The film explores the challenges a wounded soldier will need to overcome to adjust to civilian life.
“Although the U. S. Army thought Russell was such a lousy actor that they overdubbed his voice,” Grayson said, “he won an Oscar the next year for The Best Years of Our Lives.”
Diary is one of the most famous training films, added Grayson. “It is vastly different from the standard films that covered mundane topics like cooking and wood chopping, accompanied by a flat narration reminding everyone of the obvious.”
Admission is $5 and concessions are $1. For more information, visit www.gpacarts.org or call 317-327-7135.
