For Conservative Movie Lovers: John Ford, John Wayne, and ‘They Were Expendable’ Part 5
by Leo Grin
“I was just the paint for the palettes of Ford and Hawks.”
– John Wayne –
John Wayne was still young in 1944, only thirty-eight years old. And yet the major elements of his inimitable style were hardening into place. Perhaps no other actor in history has been so cognizant of using his body to express grand themes and timeless mythological underpinnings. Under Ford’s direction Wayne never just stands there, he poses, in ways and with effects that conjure up famous paintings and sculpture. When he fills the frame as Lieutenant Junior Grade Rusty Ryan in They Were Expendable, he becomes every man who ever fought a losing action in a war, who faced defeat with stoicism, who sacrificed for a greater good. In the history of film, John Wayne remains nonpareil in his use of presence to project subtext.
Little of that came naturally to the Duke — in his early films he’s tall and rangy and handsome, but with little of the gravity, focus, and dramatic weight that would come to typify his prime acting years. Those skills, and they were skills, were consciously learned over fifteen years of working with Ford and his old troupe of veteran actors. He watched the way they walked and carried themselves, studied the way they were directed, and began to divine the level of nuance Ford demanded. There’s a funny story from the making of Stagecoach (1939, John Wayne’s big coming-out party as an actor), where Wayne’s character was supposed to be washing his face after a hard day, and Ford started smacking him around screaming, “Christ Duke, wash you face like a man! You’re daubing it! You’re daubing it!” He was trying to teach Wayne that, when you are an actor in front of a camera, your every movement can and should mean something deeper than what is on the surface. The act of washing one’s face can be pedestrian, or it can be a sweeping gesture that evokes strength of character, or a relaxed demeanor, or a gentleness of heart. And those deft movements will unconsciously fire off all sorts of neurons in the brain of an audience.
When you watch They Were Expendable, pay close attention to John Wayne. Look how he stands in each shot compared to others in the frame, how he inevitably comes across as more interesting than everyone else, more classically posed. Notice the way his hands are often planted on his hips, his elbows flared wide. The way his chest is thrust out like a peacock. The way he keeps his face turned down and glares out at people from under dark eyebrows. The way he wrinkles his forehead with weariness and, without blinking, gazes out into space with a thousand-yard stare that looks as if he has all the pain of the war bottled within. Other, supposedly more accomplished actors would go toe-to-toe with Duke in a scene, and he would often just mop the floor with them, blowing them off the screen with a look or a gesture.
To this day, leftists regularly embarrass themselves with the argument that the Duke’s lack of a war record disqualifies him from being an on-screen exemplar of cherished American values. The notion that an actor must actually be in real life whatever he’s portraying on screen is idiotic. Wayne was never a real-life war hero, granted. But neither was he the draft-dodging hypocrite of liberal fever-swamp fantasies. A May 1942 letter exists of Wayne almost begging John Ford to pull strings to get him into his Field Photo unit:
Have you any suggestions on how I should get in? Can I get assigned to your outfit, and if I could, would you want me? How about the Marines? You have Army and Navy men under you. Have you any Marines or how about a Seabee or what would you suggest or would you? No, I’m not drunk. I just hate to ask favors, but for Christ sake you can suggest, can’t you?. . .No kidding, coach, who’ll I see?
Meanwhile Herbert Yates, the head of Republic Pictures, continually requested deferments for Wayne in a desperate effort to keep his main action star on the lot. Studios like M-G-M could let a dozen headliners go off to fight and still have a vast stable of bankable names to draw on. A tiny second-rate outfit like Republic, on the other hand, had none to spare. Yates’ biggest moneymaker, Gene Autry, had already abandoned his contract to enlist, meaning that in 1942 and 1943 the only Republic films to become Top Twenty box-office hits starred John Wayne.
One review from the period noted, “John Wayne is a rudimentary actor, but he has the look and bearing, unusual for his trade, of a capable human male. . . he is able to make his habitual inarticulateness suggest the uncommunicative competence that men expect in their leaders.” At a time when President Roosevelt was making patriotic films a top priority (wartime theater attendance had skyrocketed from fifty million people a week to more than ninety million), Wayne was one of the only guys left in Hollywood able to pull them off and make them hits (Humphrey Bogart being another).
“You should have thought about all that before you signed a new contract!” Yates said when Wayne asked to be allowed to enlist. “If you don’t live up to it, I’ll sue you for every penny you’ve got! I’ll sue you for every penny you hope to make in the future!” For the Duke — who grew up poor and ever worried about returning to those circumstances — it was a terrifying threat. He was not yet a star on the level of a Gable or Stewart or Fonda (or even a Robert Montgomery, who in 1945 got paid $170,000 for They Were Expendable compared to Wayne’s $80.000). John Ford’s grandson Dan, a veteran in his own right, later mused that
It must have weighed heavily on him which way to go. But here was his chance and he knew it. He was an action leading man, and there were a lot of roles for him to play. There was a lot of work in A movies, and this was a guy who had made eighty B movies. He had finally moved up to the first rank. He was in the right spot at the right time with the right qualities and willing to work hard. Would I have done any different? The answer is hell no.
Soon, Yates was making money with Wayne not only by starring him in Republic films, but by loaning him out to other studios, all of whom were suffering from their own leading man shortages. Wayne worked relentlessly, averaging four movies a year. At the behest of Mary Ford, he would come to the Hollywood Canteen after hours and wash dishes, bus tables, and carve turkeys. Between films in late 1943, he embarked on a three-month, two-shows-a-day USO tour across the South Pacific. The experience made a deep impression on him. “They’ll build stages out of old crates,” he reverently noted after one trip, “then sit in mud and rain for three hours waiting for someone like me to say ‘Hello, Joe’.”
The war ending without his having enlisted would haunt Wayne’s conscience for the rest of his life. In hindsight, a large part of his later career can be seen as a sincere effort to make amends by doing our troops proud via the art of filmmaking.
John Ford’s disgust with Wayne’s lack of military experience has been grossly over-exaggerated, but he did add it to his tool chest of things used to get a rise out of his protégé or, in extreme cases, bring him to tears. During the filming of They Were Expendable, after several takes of Robert Montgomery and Wayne saluting a departing general, Ford broke out with, “Duke — can’t you manage a salute that at least looks as though you’ve been in the service?” Crestfallen and shattered, Wayne walked off of a set for the only time in his life. Montgomery, who served with distinction throughout the war, walked up to Ford, put his hands on the arms of the director’s chair, and with steel in his voice said, “Don’t you ever speak to anyone like that again.” When he further insisted that Ford find Wayne and apologize, Montgomery remembers that, “[Ford] blustered at first — ‘I’m not going to apologize to that son of a bitch. . .’; then he came out with a lot of phony excuses — ‘What did I say? I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings.’ He ended up crying.”
But if the grizzled director sometimes drove the Duke to fits of despair, he far more often elevated him to the heights of cinema legend. Few anecdotes illustrate this more profoundly than the tale behind the nostalgic tune featured so memorably in They Were Expendable, “Marchéta.” Pronounced Mar-KEE-ta, it’s a 1913 “love song of Old Mexico” written by the American composer Victor Schertzinger when he was but 25 years old. Some thirty years after the song became a well-loved standard, Ford made “Marchéta” one of the emotional linchpins of his 1945 film.
All the versions of “Marchéta” to be found on modern CDs are either overwrought ballads by male vocalists like Al Jolson and Mario Lanza, or else corny “cha-cha” dance instrumentals. However, when played in sleepy waltz-time it becomes an achingly beautiful theme. It is first played (and the lyrics quietly sung by the assembled crowd) when Rusty Ryan (John Wayne) attends a hospital dance on Corregidor, in the Philippines, and falls in love with a nurse there. Much later in the movie Bataan falls, and Corregidor (where his lover is stationed) is being bombed and starved into submission by the Japanese. As Wayne gets drunk in an island bar, a poignant reprise of the melody appears on the radio. Without a single word of dialogue or explanation, Wayne gazes off into space, and as the music plays we recognize it from before, and realize he is remembering that wonderful evening spent dancing in the darkness with a doomed woman he’ll never see again:
YouTube -- click here to watch in full-screen HD
–
The song is utilized expertly in Expendable, and would stick with John Wayne for the rest of his life. Ford, you see, had an accordionist friend named Danny Borzage, who would often play mood music to help the actors find the right emotional timbre for a scene. (In fact, Borzage can be seen on-screen in many of Ford’s films — in They Were Expendable, look for him under the floorboards of a hut providing musical accompaniment to Ward Bond’s serenade of Donna Reed.) Whenever John Ford or a member of his stock company appeared on-set for the day’s work, Borzage would also play favored themes — different for each person — to announce their arrival. Over time, his presence and these songs became a grand and well-loved tradition on Ford’s sets, creating a palpable sense of family amongst the cast and crew.
After They Were Expendable, “Marchéta” became John Wayne’s aural signature, lovingly warbled on Danny Borzage’s accordion each morning to herald the arrival of the Duke. It’s a beautiful melody, laden with nostalgia, and deserves to be remembered far better than it has been.
Next Saturday in For Conservative Movie Lovers, we focus on some of the other members of the John Ford Stock Company who appeared in They Were Expendable, along with a pair of prominent non-Fordian actors who helped greatly to make the movie special.
PAST POSTS IN THIS SERIES
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
FURTHER READING AND VIEWING
Here’s a great review/essay on They Were Expendable by an anonymous writer at eOpinions, one that adds more arguments and behind-the-scenes stories to my defense of John Wayne’s actions during the war.
The National Archives has some scans online of pages from John Wayne’s 1943 application for a commission with the OSS (scroll to bottom of page).
A kindly pianist saw fit to post a nice, full version of “Marchéta” on the Internet for all to enjoy, one that hews pretty closely to the way it sounds in They Were Expendable. I find most of the other versions lacking (Al Jolson does the best lyrical interpretation, in my opinion), but there’s a lot more examples out there on YouTube if you want to explore them.
MOVIE TRIVIA TIME: It’s a little-known fact that film director Blake Edwards (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Pink Panther series, et al.) started out in Hollywood as a young actor, with one of his earliest roles being an uncredited sailor in They Were Expendable. If you look carefully, he can be seen in both the “Marchéta” video above and in the Introductory video to Part 1 of this series. Care to guess which sailor is Edwards? Put your choices in the Comments section below, and I’ll reveal the answer in next week’s installment.
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55 Comments
The thing the left has with John Wayne and for the most part the same could be said of John Ford and Howard Hawks, is that they left a body of work that is second to none. Even the not so good ones they made are in fact a dam sight better that what they are making today. That is the real rub of it, John Wayne is gone some thirty years, He is still high on the top ten list. Ford and Hawks, ever director since has tired to copy them. These men and they were men have with stood the only test, time. So as long as these three are held up as the Gold Standard, yea the lesser ones are going to say well Wayne didn't serve in WW-II, so every thing he stood for didn't count. John Wayne did serve just in a different way, Making for movies a year is tough hard work, and the country needed the moral boosts those movies provided. Sure Ford ragged on him, because that was Ford, and he gotten some of Dukes best because of it.
Funny I just finished getting off The Drudge Report the lead article is "Obama Bows to Japan's Emperor". Now I've read this article and the 4 proceeding ones. Everyone of them I must say were excellent. All I can think about is, that we've come a long way from They Were Expendable and The Sands of Iwo Jima. I wonder what the Duke would say? What say you.
I think the soldier next to the radio.. unless he one of the children
30 some years ago when I was early in my teens. A prospective girlfriend asked me if i was going to grow up and be like my step-dad. "Hell NO!" I said.
I told her I thought the Duke was a MUCH better model for manhood.
Seems my opinion is standing the test of time.
This series has me seriously hankering for some John Wayne movie fest times back on the old homestead.
How about you do one on "The Quiet Man"…
As for John Wayne not serving in the military in WWII, I recall that my own grandfather was deferred because he was in his late 30's and had three children. John Wayne was the same age and had four children. I don't remember anyone calling my grandfather a coward for not serving, and in fact, he did volunteer work for the war effort (just like John Wayne), as well as working in the oilfields. There are many kinds of service, after all.
This series has been great! Terrific work!
you are exactly right on why Wayne didn't serve. He was in his late 30's, with kids- and because of his age did not qualify for officer status. Not being a big name he couldn't get the rules changed like Gable did- and being an enlisted man at 36 isn't a very good deal. Wayne talked openly of his negotiations with the military and his reason(s) not to serve.
Most veterans have NO problem with the Duke's contributions to this country…
The thing this leftie has with John Wayne is that he couldn't act his way out of a paper bag.
IMHO, no John Wayne fan has lived until he's seen "The Conqueror," one of the unintentionally funny movies ever made. The Duke is Genghis Khan with stenciled eyebrows and his trademark swagger…and Agnes Moorehead as his mother! There's a scene in the movie where the Duke says to her, "You did not suckle me to be slain by Tartars…" Try watching that scene without picturing Anges Mooreland suckling John Wayne!
GJP,
Blake Edwards is one of the soldiers, not one of the children. But which one will have to wait until next Saturday. Thanks for playing.
David,
I love THE QUIET MAN (in my top-ten all-time movies for sure) but in this series I'm only picking a single movie from each year, and anyone who saw the montage video in the FOR CONSERVATIVE MOVIE LOVERS introductory post knows which film has garnered the 1952 slot.
I'm sure I'll write about THE QUIET MAN in some context at some point. One of my all-time most wonderful experiences at the movies was seeing it on the big screen with a packed Good Friday audience at The Egyptian Theater here in Hollywood. Constant bursts of monstrous laughter exploded from the appreciative audience, and many sly and subtle bits of Fordian humor could finally be perceived, things that one misses when watching the poor quality DVDs floating around. I've got a great Victor Young story I need to share at some point, too.
Bittersweet to read about Wayne, and his sincere caring about what he thought he did or didn't do during the war. Then one looks at the current crop – Clooney, Penn, Burton, etc.- of pathetic excuses currently inhabiting Hollywood, and it makes one's stomach turn.
Good we have Wayne, Ford, Hughes, and all those Hollywood stars, men and women, of that day who served active duty or as morale boosters in USO and such when this country needed them most, to remember. They give us a great gift — pride in our United States, and pride in their patriotism.
John Wayne was a marvelous screen actor. He was a type- and knew it. Within the parameters of that 'type' he showed amazing range and texture.
You need to seriously revist his body of work…
tobytylersf, dcase,
I feel for what you're trying to do, but these excuses for Wayne's non-service are every bit as lame as the Left says they are. I've read all the literature and heard all the excuses: age, kids, old football and stunt injuries. All bogus — if homeboy could rise a horse all day and keep in fighting trim for his movies, he was fit enough to serve. (Of course, libs have all of their bogus accusations too, such as that Wayne didn't enlist because of cowardice. If that were so, he could easily have weaseled his way into some non-combat role (like Reagan working in Washington), ensuring that he would get credit for enlisting without the worries of getting shot or blown up. But he didn't. He also had attempted, like Ford years earlier, to enter the U.S. Naval Academy, but like Ford didn't make the cut.)
John Wayne was embarrassed as hell that he didn't serve in later years, and at different points he gave different excuses, kind of trying them on for size. But the truth is that he wasn't yet a big star, he wasn't yet rich, ha hadn't yet "made it" in Hollywood terms. He was merely one of the top stars at a second-rate studio always a few flops away from bankruptcy. The only good movies he had been in were because John Ford had hand-picked him, and in neither movie was he the ostensible star. And even after those two movies (STAGECOACH and THE LONG VOYAGE HOME) Ford used Henry Fonda for other (many would say superior) movies.
Herbert Yates at Republic (and I believe this is true, it makes perfect sense) threatened Wayne with Armageddon if he abandoned Republic to serve the way Gene Autry had. That might have finished Yates and his studio — Wayne was the only guy left making them decent money. Records show it wasn't Wayne but Republic who lobbied to keep his draft status at 2-F (fit to serve, but needed on the homefront for other important wartime matters, in this instance movie production that helped the war effort, a top priority in President Roosevelt's mind).
Of course, Wayne could have manned-up, told Yates to do his worst, and appealed his 2-F status and tried to get it changed to 1-F — fit to serve. But he didn't. Why? I think the answer is common sense — Wayne did what very few of us wouldn't have done ourselves. After ten years of slaving away, thinking he was never going to make it, he was finally tasting the first bits of success at exactly the right time (when many of the other big actors had left, leaving the playing field for leading roles wide open). It was a choice between possibly throwing away everything he had worked toward just so he could say he was in a foxhole or on the deck of a ship, or enduring the shame of not serving in exchange for setting himself up as a bonafide star for the rest of his (and his family's) life.
For awhile, it seems he was fully planning on signing up after spending a year or so making enough movies to secure his spot as a rising star. But then inertia took over. Picture followed picture, month followed month, and before he knew it 1942 had become 1945. Somewhere along the way, he realized that the moment had passed, that he wasn't in fact going to be in uniform in this war (think of the field day his detractors would have had if he had signed up in 1945, after the bulk of the fighting was done!).
We also have to remember that he was a young guy in Hollywood just tasting stardom, and it was only belatedly that he comprehended what not serving would mean to his life and reputation. He wasn't JOHN WAYNE — AMERICAN back then. He was a young star with his marriage breaking up, with gals like Marlene Dietrich throwing themselves at him. As he would ruefully say later, “I destroyed my first marriage. I was a different man back then. I was much more selfish.” Decades on he would call getting divorced his single worst mistake in life, along with not enlisting in WWII.
Wayne knew, and we as conservatives should know, that not enlisting was a mistake. I agree with liberals that he shouldn't be seen as a war hero, the way guys like Jimmy Stewart deservedly are. Wayne doesn't deserve a medal for not serving, for sure. But where I disagree vehemently with liberals is when they opine that his not serving makes him out to be a coward or a two-faced hypocrite.
He was an ACTOR, and a damn good one. And in his personal life he was a PATRIOTIC, CLASSICALLY LIBERAL AMERICAN, and a damn good one. He used the latter to inform the former, and he made great sacrifices to keep the faith with the American people on-screen. It would have been really easy for him to abandon Ford, chase Oscars, play villains, and star in APOCALYPSE NOW type roles rather than THE GREEN BERETS. He stayed true to our side at a time (the 1960s and 1970s) when it was really hard to do so. His kindnesses to fans and to the military are legion. he fully earned his place in the hearts and minds of the majority of Americans.
But at the end of the day, I see Wayne as an ACTOR, and a damn good one.
Unfortunately in today's world, Way too many Obama boys and not near enough John Wayne Men….'nuff said!
Thnunumber6,
Have to agree on THE CONQUEROR — Harold Lamb is rolling over in his grave. A problem the most popular actors like Wayne have is that even their duds get replayed and remembered, making them out to be worse actors than they are. Every actor who works a lifetime has movies like THE CONQUEROR on their resume, but in most cases they are politely forgotten. Not so with Wayne, who even has his worst 1930s singing cowboy programmers floating around out there on DVD. That level of fame is a blessing and a curse.
One of the key tenets of good criticism is that an actor or director must be judged by his BEST work, not his worst. Never trust a critic who holds up someone's worst films and then uses them as a bludgeon with which to club their reputations. Such tactics say far more about the critic than the actor.
Leo I truly appreciate the straight talk. I'm a combat veteran and always loved the Duke and sorely miss his persona and what he stood for. Thanks for all the excellent articles and the ones to come.
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growing up in the 60s i think i watched every john wayne movie made he was and still is one of my big heros and hes a big reason i joined the navy .he did more for our troops as did bob hope by not bein gin the service he boosted their moral brought laughter and hope that the people of america cared about them not like thses low life stars from the hippie years too today
Leo, could you give a link to the opening montage of For Conservative Movie Lovers.
It's killing me not knowing what movie you chose for 1952 (mentioned in comment above).
Isn't Blake the sailor in the blue shirt?
I think the Duke would say "We're burnin' daylight." Not a day goes by that Obama moves our country closer to the edge of cliff, and seems no one can stop him.
I served in the Marines and it never bothered me that John Wayne avoided the service. Any military person who views the film "Flying Tigers" sees a squadron commanding officer who is a very competent leader. John Wayne, here, is sometimes hard or soft, but always with the goal of keeping the guys alive and the planes flying. The actor, John Carroll, plays a loose cannon and it is a real treat when they do scenes together.
A lot of online liberal posters consistently squeal about ad hominem attacks. That is in fact what they do with John Wayne. They can't really attack some of the values he stood for so they attack the man instead.
For a guy that couldn't act according to you was that he was the biggest box office star for thirty plus years and now after he has been dead for 30 years he is still in the top ten. He had to do something right because the so called great actors of today won't be remembered in 60 years but John Wayne will still have a following.
WHo really cared if John Wayne, Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck, Thomas Mitchell, and many many more didn't put on a uniform and go into a fox hole. These guys still made films that help with the war effort and year later continued to make films that honored and saluted this country and all the people who fought in all her wars. This is nothing more the a bunch of leftist malcontents attack the biggest American icon in the history of film. The fact that John Wayne didn't fight with the Marines is that he can't play one? The man was a box office star in those days.
Where are all the so called big leftist anti-war malcontents during Vietnam, the Gulf war or this war on terror? Why isn't Sean Penn in uniform or Clooney? They could do their part, it is perfectly ok for them to make 20 million a picture and turn around and make films that piss on America and her troops and they are considered heros and speaking the truth. At least John Wayne didn't protest WWII as a lot of people did and felt we have no business fighting in Europe our fight was with the Japanese. But we can't bring that up because FDR the liberal God could do no wrong.
John Wayne will be around in 100 years when no one will remember Sean Penn, Clooney, Tim Roobins, and a lot of the stars from the 50s. Who remembers today Monty Cliff? This idea of you have to wear a uniform to pass the leftist litmus test, to play war heros, when they themselves never join and on top of that they insult the veterans in film and on TV. If one has to have the experience in life to play a certain character then how can Kirk Douglas play Sparatcus or Heston play Ben Hur after all when did Chuck ever drive a Roman Chariot. This is all liberal logic which is illogical.
As far as John Wayne as an actor, no one could do what he did on screen that is why he is listed where he is. He was a great actor and he had the best teacher John Ford. As much as I love and admire Ford he was a lousy son of a bitch and had a mean streak in him. John Wayne should have knocked him on his ass in the 50s. John Wayne could do more with a look on screen then all your actors like Pacino, DiNiro, Penn chewing the furniture.
John Wayne was one hell of a film actor and probably the greatest American patriot America ever had. He sure is hell better then every lousy leftist cult member of malcontents that attack him. Who really cares what these mad dogs liberals think their opinion is nothing, for he that does nothing, gets nothing and for he that dares nothing deserves nothing. We have a bunch of whining nothings.
In those days John Wayne was under contact and he had to make the films he was told to or he was a memory. John Wayne made his bones in those films and they are enjoyable if you watch them knowing this was before 'John Wayne' as we know him. Look at the early stuff with Bogey playing the upscale social climber, then the bad guy in who gets killed in all of Edward G's and Cagney's films. They all had to go through this stage. The only one who never did was Errol Flynn, He came out of nowhere and made Captain Blood and exploded to a level of fame no one has duplicated and all the bullshit about him that people believe is all lies. These guys from the 30s and 40s were men and they never had the method form of acting which ruins many actors, but today its a religion. Like Robert Mitchum said, 'acting school is impossible, its like going to school to learn how to be tall"
You guys have to put THE CONQUEROR in the right frame of mind. This was the 50s, they were making these costume epics of all types. To get these stars in a film was a coup for the producer. Just as it was for us in the 80s at the AFM to have Tony Curtis, William Smith, Tab Hunter, Cameron Mitchell making these low budget schlock films straight to video. I remember seeing THE CONQUEROR in the theater as a kid and we all loved it! You had the Duke is a sword fighting film with Susan Hayward it can't get better then that for a 10 year old. I remember seeing Steve Reeves as Hercules opening week and thinking this was HERCULES ! These were great films for their day, looking back through the prism of The Godfather, Star Wars and all the CGI films today with their huge budgets, sounds FXs sure they look look like crap. However, they had real solid stories then and actors that can pull off a film they all knew they were all miscast in. But for them it was a job and they did their job and made the best of it and give it their all. Unlike the pros today who would walk off a film or scream at a DP for moving in his 'moment' its called ACTING
Displaced Chedhead,
It's the one in the opening post of this series:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2009/10/1...
If you ever need to navigate back to my older posts, you can do so from my contributor page:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/author/lgrin/
Leo
PKAmmoTroop says:
> Isn't Blake the sailor in the blue shirt?
Seeing as how the movie's in black-and-white, I assume you're joking.
Leo
Yardbird,
The review I quote in the post (Wayne looks competent, et cetera) was for FLYING TIGERS (TIME magazine, October 12 1942).
Leo
"I've got a great Victor Young story I need to share at some point, too."
I love Victor Young. Genius.
I didn't realize the QM was one of his.
Flynn had done some film in Australia, IIRC. Possibly some small roles at Warners, but I am not sure. IMDB would have them listed.
The guy who came out of 'nowhere' and starred in everyone of his films from the beginning and until he decided to do some supporting work very late in his career was Gregory Peck.
Sylvester Stallone, Steven Segal and Arnie have all been wildly successful and they couldn't act either.
I'm not attacking the man, I'm not attacking his character, I'm just saying he wasn't a great actor. Leo goes on about him like he's Lawrence Olivier.
My Father was turned down by all the military services and it caused him great humiliation. Both of his brothers served, one an infantry Lieutanant in the ETO and the other a Marine Captain flying Corsairs in the Pacific and later in Korea. Most of his male friends had enlisted or were drafted, but my Dad was married with two boys and pushing 30 when the War started. They classified him 4F, but he was determined to get into the action…and my Mother told us one of his reasons was he didn't want my brother and I to have be ashamed if we were asked, "What did your Dad do in the War?" After trying everything he could think of, he was finally accepted into the Merchant Marines, which to this day most folks I know never even heard of. These were some of the guys along with civilian crews that manned the unarmed ships taking supplies to England, Russia and every theatre of the war. For a taste of merchant sea life during WWII watch Bogart and Raymond Massey in "Action in the North Atlantic" released in 1943.
Thanks, I believe this is a fair appraisal of his lack of war service. I have the read the book John Wayne: American by Randy Roberts and James S. Olson which reaches a similar conclusion.
I think Edwards is the last soldier, the young one who comes to the bar last, on the far right.
Besides Ford's profound effect on developing his talent, I think Wayne learned a lot on how to use his body because he came up during the silent days, at the very end, it's true, but that's where he got his first film appearances. And then John Ford took him under his brutal, magnificent wing. One of Wayne's most interesting performances came soon after his big superstar debut in "Stagecoach" (though hardly his first movie — he had some 70, mostly forgettable pictures behind him at Republic before "Stagecoach") was as a Swedish farmboy turned sailor in "The Long Voyage Home." He didn't want the role, but Ford insisted, and Wayne was tutored and you can see how well he picked that up, as well as getting in touch with his own Midwestern roots.
As for his war service, well, it was a hard place was in, just having broken into the bigtime after long, horrible years in the movie mills, and with a family; I need to learn more about it but feel he just wasn't ready for it psychologically, and then afterwards he suffered psychologically for his "failure." However, in the process, he gave us some of the best movies and most wonderful performances by any actor in 20th century America.
Thank you for this series, again. I hope to see "They Were Expendable" soon. The clips here are just unbelievably beautiful.
This is a LOL poster about a certain "Marion Morrison" that I've got bookmarked as a favorite and have to share here:
http://roflrazzi.com/2009/09/06/celebrity-picture...
L.B. "Oscar" Meyer says:
> I didn't realize the QM was one of his.
Yep, along with SCARAMOUCHE and THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, all in 1952 — how's that for a great year in movie music!
Anyone who fondly remembers the lush score for THE QUIET MAN needs to pick up a copy of the great re-recording performed by the "Dublin Screen Orchestra" in 2000 under Kenneth Alwyn:
http://tinyurl.com/y9acyay
It's as good as the QUIET MAN "Collector's DVD" is bad. If anyone is of the opinion that old movie music was too brassy and tinny sounding, and that modern movie music is by definition much superior, have a good listen to this CD and be prepared to be blown away. The old masters were much better than they are given credit for, classically trained and immensely talented.
I'm one of the guys who found INGLORIOUS BASTERDS a moral abomination and further proof of the sad decline of Quentin Tarantino, but one of the things I like about his style is how he has no problem re-using old movie music the way other directors re-use Bach or Orff or Ravel.
you watched 243 movies?
Average Joe,
You remind me of I guy I once heard opining about music, where he was sniffing around the edges of some modern piece and said, "Well, that was ALMOST Beethoven worthy." Whereupon the pal of mine I was with — 89 years old and having seen and heard it all as a music editor in Hollywood — said, "Oh, come on! Dum-dum-dum-DUMMMMMM! Big deal!"
The problem with being a snob is the same as with being a bully: there's always a bigger one out there waiting to piss on YOUR faves. . . .
And just wait until I go on about Lawrence Olivier, and guys come out of the woodwork to say, "Geez, Leo goes on about him like he was John Wayne!"
How many guys reading this are at all ashamed about not being in Afghanistan or Iraq right now?
I am.
If in twenty years the mood of the country changes and people start asking "Where were you in 2001-20?? when your country needed you?", what will you tell them?
We all have our different lives, reasons, motivations. Things that seem inconsequential now become terribly important later, and vice versa. Wayne made his choices then, some of which he bitterly regretted later. Not a hero, not a villain, just an actor who — unlike most — became a better man as he aged, and who did our country the favor of serving as a cultural life preserver for the great Silent Majority of Americans who felt lost at sea in the cultural maelstrom of the 1960s and '70s. It is for that late action in the culture war that he became a heroic icon to a generation of Americans.
Memo to any actors out there wanting to improve their reputations with the American public: go on a USO tour. You'll remember the experience fondly for the rest of your life, as will the thousands of soldiers whose lives you touch.
Sean Penn wins two oscars and the duke has one Enough said about this time of celebrated cowards we now live in Hugo Chavez and Penn God, make this nightmare end
I agree with Grin, this is a great "war" movie. It ranks up there with another favorite "Battleground" with Van Johnson, John Hodiak, George Murphy, Ricardo Montalban and James Whitmore. Interestingly, Marshall Thompson and Leon Ames appeared in both movies. John Ford made great movies, many of them classics, and he did it with or without Wayne, but having Wayne always added that extra dimension which audiences have always recognized, applauded and appreciated. The man could react to others and situations better than any actor I remember. He would have been star in the silent era as well.
I am thoroughly enjoying this series and have copied and pasted it for future enjoyment. Can't wait for the next installment…thanks.
How average of you, Joe.
My post seems to have gone astray. I'll try it again.
Blake Edwards is the sailor on the right of three as Ward Bond is toasting "Doc".
US Marine (In Repose)
*laughs*
I never said you did. I was responding to George's comment, not yours.
yep ive seen all of his movies wasnt crazy about all his ealier ones i must confess but seen everyone thats been on tv over the years
My post about Wayne and Kyser went missing and I didn't keep a copy. Much not like.
Absolutely, toby and dcase, John Wayne served his country with honor.
I long for celebrities who unabashedly revere the USA like he did.
Thank you for your service, AllAmerican.
Thank You Brother.
You are most welcome and respected.
You're pretty good with the name calling. A bully and a snob. The fact is, The Duke just wasn't that great an actor. He had no range, he played the same character in all his movies. Conservatives like you love him because he represented what you think America is or should be, strong, noble etc. Compared to other actor's of his generation like Henry Fonda and James Stewart, he wasn't much of a thespian.
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