John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [178]
People sometimes think Duke is a big dumb guy with no brains, but he could talk a good script as well as any director. He just needed a good writer to bounce ideas off.
“We filmed in Carson City much of the time, and on a good period street on the back lot at Warner Bros. We started off filming on location, doing the opening scene where Books is held up, and Books shoots him. Until then Duke had been great to work with, but suddenly he lost his temper with the stills guy and almost got his horse to knock him down. It turned out that Duke had his own photographer, which Mike Frankovich should have known, and the photographer wouldn’t be there till the next day. But I was shocked by Duke’s violent response.
“Then we started filming the scene, and Duke took over completely. All I did was holler ‘Action!’ and ‘Cut!’ Actually, he directed the scene very well. But at the end of the day, I simply announced, ‘We’ll be back here tomorrow. We lost half a day.’
“The next morning before we left for the location Duke asked me to come and see him, and he threw his arms around me and there were tears in his eyes as he said, ‘I don’t know what came over me yesterday. I’m sorry, Don, and I swear it will never happen again.’
“I said, ‘It’s okay Duke. Actually, you had a lot of good ideas.
But I have to work loose, or I’m no good.’ And he was just so sorry, that when we got to the location, he announced so everyone could hear, ‘Mr. Siegel, there’s only one director and thank God it’s you. What’s your pleasure?’ And we got on with the scene and whenever Duke had an idea, he’d say, ‘Mr. Siegel, is it all right if I look more startled but not afraid of the robber?’ Or, ‘Sorry to bother you, sir, but can I . . . ?’ And it was like that . . . for three days.
“We’d shot some scenes with Duke and Ron [Howard] and now we were shooting the scene where Duke and Betty Bacall ride in the buggy, and we got some fine shots. My cameraman was Bob Surtees who’s good and he’s fast. We needed a dolly [tracking] shot and so Bruce was seeing to the track being laid which took a little time. And suddenly Duke just exploded. ‘What the fucking hell are you doing?
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You’d do a damn sight better if you stopped fucking around with dollies and concentrated on the lighting.’
“I jumped in and said, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself for criticizing Bruce. You haven’t come to watch one foot of the rushes, so don’t you dare to open your big mouth.’ And he tries to say something but I don’t give him a chance, and I said, ‘I want to see you as soon as you can get to the projection room. Then you can see what Bruce has shot and then I’ll hear your criticisms.’
Then I said to everyone, ‘That’s a wrap. Be back here tomorrow morning.’
“Back at the hotel we went to the projection room and we ran the latest dailies which were of Duke and Ron. Bruce was there, looking pale. When the lights went up, I stood up and faced Duke. He had tears streaming down his face, and he took Bruce in his arms and said, ‘That’s the best damn film of me I’ve ever seen. I love you and hope you’ll forgive me.’ Bruce was so overcome he couldn’t speak, so I said, ‘None of us could be happier with the results, Duke. Let’s go to the bar. The drinks are on me.’
“We managed to get all the location work done without any further outbursts from Duke. But I was puzzled by whatever demons were driving him, and in the last week on location it was clear he wasn’t feeling well. So I told him if he should be feeling tired anytime to let me know and we’d work around him. He said, ‘Thanks for your consideration, but I hate people worrying about me, so cut it out.’ We finished on schedule, and Duke’s performance was really great.
“So then we moved to the Burbank studio [Warner Bros.]. Our first scene, an interior, was the doctor’s office, and there I met James Stewart who was worried about his old friend Duke. Jimmy was very funny. He said, ‘Are you shooting the left side of my face?’ I said, ‘Yes. Is anything wrong with that? Do you have a