For Conservative Movie Lovers: John Ford, John Wayne, and ‘They Were Expendable’ Part 4

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“Close-ups, affectionate or noble, are held at leisure; long shots are sustained long after their narrative role has been performed. A marginal figure is suddenly dwelt on, lovingly enlarged to fill the center of the screen. Informed with heightened emotion, a single shot, unexpectedly interposed — a ragged line of men marching into nowhere, one of them playing a bugle-call on his harmonica — assumes a deeper significance than is given by its function in the story. This is one of the properties of poetry. They Were Expendable is a heroic poem.” – Lindsay Anderson

The wondrous shots about which Mr. Anderson writes were masterminded by John Ford, but they were brought to life on film by Joseph H. August (1890-1947), one of the great cinematographers of the age. It was August who memorably crafted the hauntingly beautiful images of night-fog and shadows for Ford’s The Informer (1935), which won Oscars for both Best Picture and Best Director. He also lensed now-classic movies like Gunga Din and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (both 1939), and during the war served as a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Naval Reserves. (more…)

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Tags: American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), Breen Office, cinematography, Donna Reed, General Douglas MacArthur
Posted Nov 7th 2009 at 10:43 am in Classic Hollywood | 25840633 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2009/11/07/for-conservative-movie-lovers-john-ford-john-wayne-and-they-were-expendable-part-4/For+Conservative+Movie+Lovers%3A+John+Ford%2C+John+Wayne%2C+and+%27They+Were+Expendable%27+Part+42009-11-07+18%3A43%3A17Leo+Grin

For Conservative Movie Lovers: John Ford, John Wayne, and ‘They Were Expendable’ Part 3

“That bold buckaroo with the cold green eyes.”

– General Douglas MacArthur, describing his savior John Bulkeley –

In March 1942, facing imminent capture by the Japanese, America’s commander in the Far East was ordered to slip away to safety in Australia. The Empire of the Sun controlled both air and sea, and only a precious few Allied planes and ships remained in-theater, skulking through the night fog like pirates to avoid capture and running on little more than spit and baling wire. “Overhauling those motors without any replacement parts was a terrible job,” one of the few to escape that nightmare later remembered. “For instance. Any tank-town garage which overhauls a flivver back in the States always replaces the gaskets with new ones. Only we didn’t have any. Or any sealing compound. So those old gaskets had to be carefully removed, handled as gently as though they were precious lace, and laid back in place when the motors were reassembled.”

When MacArthur arrived at the dock with his family and key commanders, he found waiting for him a trio of tiny, dilapidated motor torpedo boats crewed by dirty, emaciated men with long, unkempt beards and wild eyes. Their skipper was a thirty-year-old U.S. Navy Lieutenant named John Bulkeley, who for months had held his disintegrating squadron together by scrounging like a rat among the islands for gasoline, torpedoes, and other basic supplies. His boats were little more than plywood matchboxes, but Bulkeley had kept them active long after the rest of America’s Navy and Air Force had been destroyed or driven off. He made sneak assaults against transports, cruisers, destroyers, airplanes, landing parties — anything to frustrate the pace of the overwhelming Japanese invasion. Every time he attacked it was a fearsome David-versus-Goliath mismatch, but Bulkeley had done so time and again, sinking many enemy vessels. (more…)

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Tags: Air Mail (1932), Bataan, Beulah Greenwalt, Caroline Islands, D-Day
Posted Oct 31st 2009 at 11:01 am in Classic Hollywood, Military | 24727830 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2009/10/31/for-conservative-movie-lovers-john-ford-john-wayne-and-they-were-expendable-part-3/For+Conservative+Movie+Lovers%3A+John+Ford%2C+John+Wayne%2C+and+%27They+Were+Expendable%27+Part+32009-10-31+18%3A01%3A22Leo+Grin

For Conservative Movie Lovers: John Ford, John Wayne, and ‘They Were Expendable’ Part 1

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“[John Ford] was the only one of the Hollywood directors who fought who did not forget his men.”

– Captain Mark Armistead, USN –

Thus quotes Joseph McBride in his masterful biography Searching for John Ford, at the head of the chapter dealing with the director’s wartime activities. It is usually seen as lamentable when a genius is pulled from the practice of his art for any extended period, but here we must make a special allowance. As filmmaker Lindsay Anderson (1923-1994) explains in his essential critical volume About John Ford (which, like the McBride book, should be sitting proudly and dog-eared on the bookshelf of every conservative film fan): “War service took Ford away from the making of films for some three years when his powers were at their height. One would regret this interruption more had it not led directly to the making of a masterpiece.” (more…)

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Tags: "John Ford's Navy", About John Ford (book), Bette Davis, bob hope, Charles Trowbridge
Posted Oct 17th 2009 at 11:09 am in Classic Hollywood | 24699460 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2009/10/17/for-conservative-movie-lovers-john-ford-john-wayne-and-they-were-expendable-part-1/For+Conservative+Movie+Lovers%3A+John+Ford%2C+John+Wayne%2C+and+%27They+Were+Expendable%27+Part+12009-10-17+18%3A09%3A04Leo+Grin