John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [114]
“Every morning Duke and I would get up early and have breakfast, and then we’d go out on the set or to a location, and we’d discuss and plan every shot we were going to use that day. Duke knew the entire script, and we were able to plan each shot, so when we began work with the cast and crew, we knew exactly what we were going to do. Duke would even tell me what kind of natural light he wanted, so we were able to plan which shots to start with to get the morning light, and which shots we’d do in the afternoon so the light would be right. He learned that from Ford. And he knew in his head what he wanted.
“I’d say the biggest problem he had was that during a take, he’d mouth the other actors’ lines, like he was willing them to get it right first take. And I’d make a motion to him, and he’d suddenly realize what he’d been doing, and he’d get mad at himself.
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“A week or two after we started, John Ford arrives on the set.
He wasn’t invited. He didn’t ask if he could come down. He just turned up. Now, that would have been okay if he hadn’t brought his director’s chair with him and set it up next to me. He’d sit there watching Duke direct, and this intimidated Duke which didn’t help his concentration. Ford would loudly say, ‘Jesus Christ, Duke, that’s not the way to do it.’ Duke was very patient with Ford who began telling him how to make the film. Duke just didn’t want to hurt the old man’s feelings, but he said to me, ‘He’s gonna take over the whole goddamn picture. What the hell am I gonna do?’
“I said, ‘I got an extra first cameraman and we got plenty of crew we can do without for a while. Give the old man a second unit.’ Duke said, ‘Bill, why didn’t I think of that?’ I said, ‘Because you’ve got enough to think about.’ ”
Michael Wayne told me, “When JW decided Ford could direct a second unit, he gave me the job of watching over him. That was a pretty rough situation to be put in, trying to keep John Ford in line.
My father said to me, ‘Whatever you do, don’t let him near any of the principal actors.’ I said, ‘Why me?’ He said, ‘You’re not afraid of him.’ Well, there were still some rough moments between Ford and myself because he’d keep asking if I could bring over Richard Widmark or Laurence Harvey, and I’d have to think of excuses for them not being available.”
Clothier recalled, “Ford shot a lot of stuff, most of it expensive wastage, just because Duke didn’t want to upset him. There are one or two moments in the film that Ford directed. Like the two guys who are always saying, ‘Do it mean what I think it do?’ ‘It do.’ Ford shot their death scene during the final battle, and that’s in the film. But so much of what he shot wasn’t used that he was furious at Duke. For a long time after, he was rough on Duke.”
When the critics panned Wayne’s direction, he didn’t try to blame others but took it all on the chin. However, when he had someone like me who liked the film, he was free to share the credit. He told me, “I had sole credit as director but I couldn’t have done it without Bill Clothier and Cliff Lyons [second-unit 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 214
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director]. I’d tell Bill what I wanted, and he got what I wanted.
The critics think they know it all and write about how well I directed the big battle scene. But I left Cliff to direct that as second-unit director. So while he was directing the action, I was directing the principal actors in the scenes that were dialogue scenes, and Bill Clothier was correcting my mistakes. And then I worked with Stuart Gilmore on editing it all together, and Gilmore did a damn fine job. If you’ve got good stuff on film, the editor makes it all come together. He can even correct mistakes in the process. So I can’t take all the credit for the battle scenes. Shows how much the critics know.”
Ken Curtis recalled a scene from the film that was eventually cut: “There’s a scene where Joan