John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [134]
“But when Capra told me what was happening, I realized this was going to be a typical John Wayne movie which was wonderful for his fans, but I would simply be superfluous. And I was right. Lloyd Nolan got my part, and it wasn’t much of a part.”
The part in question was that of Wayne’s second-in-command, and Niven was right; it was a minor role. Lloyd Nolan had little joy making it. He said, “That was a terrible way to make a movie. And it turned out terrible. It wasn’t all bad. We had some fun making it.
You can’t work with Duke and not have some fun. He wanted the film to be good, Hathaway wanted the film to be good, Sam Bronston wanted the film to be good, but it was just full of problems that nobody could solve.”
Hathaway conceded: “Capra was right about the script. Grant was an alcoholic and a great friend of Duke’s, and I liked him too. But he 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 251
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was . . . on his way out. He was past his best workwise, and past his best in all respects. So I had Ben Hecht come in and work on the script. But we were stuck with a lot of what was already written because Bronston had gone ahead and had sets built and props acquired. We had a ship that we could overturn. We had a big top. We had circus performers from all over Europe. We had the beautiful Claudia Cardinale. We had a Wild West show. We had wild animals. We had everything but a good ending, and I don’t care how great a film might be—and this wasn’t great—nobody’s gonna go home happy if you don’t give ’em a good ending. A showstopper.
“And worst of all, we had Rita Hayworth. Duke became increasingly frustrated with her. She’d turn up not knowing her lines. She’d drink and insult people. And Duke had to play love scenes with her, and he just had no rapport with her. He loved working with Claudia.
She was young and full of life, and he treated her like she was one of his daughters.”
The director of photography on this one was not Clothier but British cinematographer Jack Hildyard, whom Clothier described as “one of the best in the business.” When I had the chance to meet Hildyard, on the set of The Beast Must Die in 1973, I asked him about his work on Circus World. He told me, “There’s a story that goes something like this. For the scene where the big top catches fire, Duke insisted on doing his own stunts. That’s true. He worked close to the flames. That’s true. The fire got a little out of control.
Also true. The blaze became dangerous. Yes, true. Duke carried on working, fighting the fire and turned around to find everyone—the director, the cameraman, the crew—had all gone and left him to nearly die in the flames and smoke. Not true. What happened was, when it got bad, Hathaway told everyone to clear out. Nobody left Duke behind. But he was in danger, and he emerged from the smoke coughing badly and his eyes all red. It made for a great scene, but that’s not how films should be made. Duke had a bad cough and smoked all the time, and the smoke in the fire scene just made it worse. He was always coughing after that. We’d have to wait before we could shoot sometimes until his coughing had subsided.”
Apart from the hazards of filming the fire scene and having a hacking cough, Wayne’s biggest problem was Rita Hayworth: 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 252
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“I tried to make Rita feel comfortable, and we took her to dinner: Pilar, Aissa, and myself. She hadn’t drunk much and already her speech became slurred. She was rude to the waiters, which was just goddamn embarrassing, so I gave them all big tips and handed out autographed cards. I said to Aissa, ‘Never think anyone is better than you, and never think you’re better than anyone else. You