John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [52]
John Wayne remembered the incident. He said, “I asked Dmytryk outright: ‘Are you a Commie?’ He said, ‘If the masses’—
emphasis on masses—‘of the American people want Communism, I think it’d be good for our country.’ Well, to me, the word
‘masses’ is not a term generally used in Western countries, and I just knew he was a Commie. But we had a film to make, and I got on with my job.”
Dmytryk remembered their relationship somewhat differently when I interviewed him. He said, “John Wayne was an amazing man who worked really hard. Sometimes, when the sun shone, Wayne, some extras, and myself played kickball during lunch breaks. Duke could throw his body around like a lightweight gymnast. When it rained, which it did often during filming, Duke and Tony Quinn killed time by playing Chinese poker.
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“When we started filming I think Wayne knew, through channels, that I was a Communist, but I didn’t know that he knew. We got along well and even attended the same affairs thrown by Bo Roos, who was our mutual business manager.”
Wayne’s memories of making Back to Bataan were decidedly bitter. “Ben Barzman was another like Dmytryk. I had to work with these people, but I felt the time was coming when we’d have to do something about it. Thank God there were some good people in it, like Paul Fix and Tony Quinn.” Paul Fix recalled, “It was a difficult film to make because Duke was working with what he called a
‘lefty screenwriter’ and a ‘lefty director.’ Try and imagine John Wayne working with them. It was explosive. Somehow we got through it.
“We were making the film toward the end of the war, with the Russians pressing the Germans on one front, and the rest of the Allies on the other. One day Barzman said to Duke, ‘You shouldn’t keep damning the Russian people. Without them we’d be losing the war.’
“This didn’t impress Duke who told him, ‘It isn’t the Russian people I have a problem with. It’s Communism. And let’s not forget that the Russians are only our allies now because the Nazis invaded Russia even though Stalin was happy enough to sign a peace pact with Hitler at the beginning of the war. But I tell you this, when the war is over, it’s Stalin’s Communist state that will be the biggest threat to us.’
“Ben Barzman said, ‘Talk like that is the very thing that causes wars. The Russians will be our friends.’
“To which Duke said, ‘They’ll be your friends.’ ”
As one of Wayne’s closest friends, Yakima Canutt was privy to his concerns about Communists. Wayne also confided to him that Communists were trying to intimidate him. In London, in 1976, Canutt told me, “John stood for what we like to think of as good old American freedom. He was becoming more hostile toward the Communists in the business, and he got criticized a lot for his politics later on. But Wayne was standing up for what was right, and he knew it, because when he was making Back to Bataan, he had some cross words with the director Eddie Dmytryk and the writer Ben Barzman about their suspected Communist affiliation, 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:42 PM Page 97
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and someone in the Communist Party didn’t like it all. I’m sure neither Dmytryk nor Barzman knew about this, but Wayne received an anonymous letter from someone in the party telling him he’d better watch out.
“When Wayne told me about this letter, I said, ‘Sounds to me like you better watch out.’ He said, ‘No goddamn Commie’s gonna frighten me.’ I said, ‘Duke, why don’t you let me look into this?
See if I can find out who