Editing John Huston (section)

===1942–1946: Army years during World War II===
[[File:John-Huston-uniform-cropped.jpg|thumb|Huston in U.S. Army uniform]]
[[File:The Battle of San Pietro (1945).webm|thumb|thumbtime=2:00|''The Battle of San Pietro'' (1945)]]
In 1942 Huston served in the [[United States Army]] during [[World War II]], making films for the [[Army Signal Corps]]. While in uniform with the rank of captain, he directed and produced three films that some critics rank as "among the finest made about World War II: ''[[Report from the Aleutians]]'' (1943), about soldiers preparing for combat; ''[[The Battle of San Pietro]]'' (1945), the story (censored by the Army) of a failure by America's intelligence agencies that resulted in many deaths, and ''[[Let There Be Light (1946 film)|Let There Be Light]]'' (1946), about psychologically damaged veterans. It was censored and suppressed for 35 years, until 1981.<ref name=NYTobit/>

Huston was promoted to the rank of major and received the [[Legion of Merit]] award for "courageous work under battle conditions."<ref name=NYTobit/> All of his films made for the Army were "controversial", and were either not released, were censored, or banned outright, as they were considered "demoralizing" to soldiers and the public.<ref name=Morsberger/> ''[[Let There Be Light (1946 film)|Let There Be Light]]'' was the most controversial as the Army banned the film from public viewing due to the ethics of filming the soldiers' recovery and the lack of written permission supplied by Huston.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lowe |first=Bryce |date=2012 |title=film essay for "Let There Be Light" |url=https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/let_light.pdf |access-date=April 18, 2023 |website=Library of Congress}}</ref> Years later, after Huston moved to Ireland, his daughter, actress [[Anjelica Huston]], recalled that the "main movies we watched were the war documentaries."<ref name=Tracy>Tracy, Tony; Flynn, Roddy. ''John Huston: Essays on a Restless Director'', McFarland (2010).</ref>{{rp|10}}

Huston performed an uncredited rewrite of [[Anthony Veiller]]'s screenplay for ''[[The Stranger (1946 film)|The Stranger]]'' (1946), a film he was to have directed. When Huston became unavailable, the film's star, [[Orson Welles]], directed instead; Welles had the lead role of a high-ranking Nazi fugitive who settles in New England under an assumed name.<ref name=":0">{{cite web |url=http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=24989 |title=The Stranger |website=[[AFI Catalog of Feature Films]] |publisher=[[American Film Institute]] |access-date=May 10, 2015}}</ref>