John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [150]
I’m retired.’ He said, ‘We’ve got six million dollars riding on this picture, and I don’t think Wayne is coping well.’ Actually, Warner Bros. didn’t have six million invested. They put up a proportion of the film’s six-million-plus budget, and Batjac put up the rest, although what the actual breakdown was, I couldn’t say. Anyway, so Warner says to me, ‘I think he could do with our help.’ I said,
‘Has he asked for my help?’ He said, ‘No. I’m asking on his behalf.’
“So I turned up at Fort Benning, and I could see Duke wasn’t too happy about it. We’d got on well way back when we made Without Reservations, and we’d always stayed friends. So I think he tolerated me, and in the end of what was a very tough production for both of us, he said, ‘Thanks, Merve. You got me through this.’ I said, ‘Good. I’ll send you my bill so you can pay for my stay at the home for old movie directors who are getting too old for all this shit.’ He laughed and said, ‘You’re not too old.’ I said, ‘Duke, we’re both too old for this. Take my advice. Forget directing and give your fans what they want. John Wayne on the screen beating the shit out of the bad guys.’ And I think he took my advice.”
Wayne admitted he was initially unhappy about the studio sending a director to take over his production. “Mervyn arrived and said, ‘I’m sorry about this, Duke, but Warner insisted I come down here and help you out. I thought I’d directed my last film, so give me the easy scenes, would ya?’ And I said to Mervyn, ‘You can direct the scenes I’m in and I’ll direct the rest of the picture.’
He said, ‘I’ve looked at the script and you’re in virtually all of the scenes.’ I said, ‘Then you won’t sit around getting bored.’ ”
David Janssen, who played an cynical newspaper reporter who learns what the American soldiers are facing when Wayne’s colonel invites him over to Vietnam, told me, “Nobody rides roughshod over John Wayne. Duke tried to forget he had another director there and 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 281
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he’d get on with giving the orders. I’d watch as Mervyn LeRoy would walk over and make some suggestion about something which I couldn’t hear, and Duke would nod his head, but I could see he wasn’t paying any attention, and then Duke would get the scene the way he wanted it. I think Mervyn LeRoy just went through the motions to keep Warner happy. And, anyway, he didn’t want his name on the credits.”
The film’s production values are certainly its strongest points. The special effects and stunt work that went into the battle scenes make for exciting viewing.
There is also a fine score by Miklos Rozsa, best remembered for his music during the 1950s and 1960s for epics such as Ben-Hur, El Cid, and Quo Vadis? I had the rare privilege of meeting and interviewing Rozsa (my favorite of all film composers) when he visited London in 1980. Talking about his unlikely collaboration with John Wayne, he told me, “I think it was Mervyn LeRoy who persuaded Wayne to use me. Not that he did me any favors. I disliked the film, but I’ve written for many other films I didn’t like.
“I watched the film when it was finished. Wayne sat there holding an empty 35mm film can into which he spat tobacco. Not the most pleasant way of watching a film with someone chewing tobacco and spitting it out.
“There was a popular record of the time called ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’ and Wayne said he wanted it as his theme. I have always hated songs in films, and I never went for the John Ford school of film music where the cavalry sing as they ride out to fight the Indians. So I said to Wayne, ‘You can’t have the song being sung by the Special Forces. It would not only be old-fashioned but it would be bad taste.’
“He said, ‘People like the song and it’ll help sell the picture.’
“I said, ‘I tell you what. Let’s open and close with the song, but I’ll compose a piece that will be the actual theme for the film.’
“He said, ‘What kind of piece?’
“I said, ‘I