John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [17]
He had good cause to remember one particular scene in which he and Tully Marshall had to pass a jug back and forth. “Marshall had filled it with bootleg whisky. When I took my first slug, I nearly choked. You can bet I called him every kind of an old bastard.”
Leading lady Marguerite Churchill remembered Wayne as “nothing but a drunk.” Walsh said, “Duke learned to cut back on his drinking while filming progressed. Marguerite Churchill even developed a bit of a crush on Duke, and played him classical music on a windup Victrola phonograph. They had a brief fling, and I suggested he break it off. On-set romances too often lead to emotional disasters.
Besides, he was still courting Josephine.”
After Yuma, the company moved to Sacramento for the river scenes, but still the script was in poor shape. Said Walsh, “We had new pages of dialogue being written each day but I encouraged Wayne to continue ad-libbing most of his lines. It was a long, hard location, and those damned New York actors were constantly complaining. But not Duke. I could see he was enjoying the whole experience.
“My worry was that we had far too much talking and not enough action. We moved on to St. George in Utah and by then we had more footage than we needed of the wagon train fording rivers, toiling through rugged canyons, and crawling over mountains. I decided we needed something that would really bring home to the audience how the pioneers put their lives on the line during the migrations west. So I decided in St. George we would lower several wagons and horses and steers down the canyon.
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“I scribbled some lines for Duke and told him to use them or just ad-lib as he directed the lowering of the wagons, which was really a dangerous scene. I watched young Duke and thought how well he was doing because he seemed to actually be there and not just making a motion picture. When we were lowering the last wagon, the rope slipped and the wagon hung lopsided enough to heighten the suspense, and there was Duke shouting orders like it was real because now the danger really was real. Then the wagon fell and crashed to the canyon floor. I held my breath hoping I’d caught it all on camera—and I had. And through it all, Duke was waving his arms and shouting orders. I think he really enjoyed the adventure of it all.”
The next stop was Jackson Hole, Wyoming, by the shores of Jackson Lake in the Grand Tetons. Then it was back to California, to Sequoia National Park, and finally the location shooting wound up in Moise, Montana, for the buffalo stampede. With all outdoor shooting finished, the company returned to the Fox studio for interiors, and after ten weeks of production, the film was finally wrapped.
“We finally struggled through the picture. John was very attentive, very good. He was a nice boy to work with and I felt pleased that I had discovered the world’s greatest box-office star. I also discovered a great American.”
Filming The Big Trail proved to be an ordeal for Walsh, who admitted, “I went into it unprepared for the difficulties I would face.
Apart from my drunken actors, I had to shoot several different versions of the film—one in 70mm Grandeur, another in conventional 35mm, and another version with German actors for foreign markets.”
According to at least two books, Starring John Wayne by Gene Fernett, and The Western: The Aurum Film Encyclopedia by Phil Hardy, the 70mm version ran 158 minutes, while the 35mm version ran 125 minutes, which is the running time all other sources give for The Big Trail.
The 70mm version of the film was premiered in October 1930, at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and was hailed as a momentous event in Hollywood, drawing praise from critics. Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times wrote, “The scenes in this picture are a testimonial to the progress of motion-picture work. Mr. Wayne acquits himself with no little distinction. His performance is pleasingly natural.”
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