John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [55]
Wayne had two war films released in succession. The first was Back to Bataan in May 1945, just three months before the end of the war. It was a box-office success. Then They Were Expendable in November, when the war was over, by which time people no longer wanted to see films about the war, and despite the reputation the film has gained as a classic, it did poor business.
It was time for a change in Hollywood.
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In September 1945, Wayne signed a new nonexclusive contract with Republic. Under this new contract, he would make seven pictures and would receive 10 percent of the gross profits with a guaranteed minimum. He also had a contract with RKO for several pictures and, in all, he stood to make more than a million dollars a year, more than he had ever earned.
“The most important thing for me was that I would be able to produce some of my own films,” he said. The first under this contract, however, was not a John Wayne production, although he did exert far more control over it than he’d ever had before.
The film was a run-of-the-mill Western called Dakota. At Wayne’s insistence, there were roles for Ward Bond, Paul Fix, and Grant Withers. And he insisted that second-unit direction be put in the hands of Yakima Canutt. “Yates humored Duke by allowing him to approve the casting,” said Paul Fix, “but it was not unconditional. Herbert Yates had a new girlfriend, a Czechoslovakian actress called Vera Hruba Ralston, and she was to be Duke’s leading lady. He didn’t want her, but he had no choice.”
“Vera was attractive,” said Wayne, “and she never pushed her weight around just because she was about to marry Yates. As a human being, she was okay. But she was no actress.”
Paul Fix said, “The film began well enough, but it soon became clear that Duke was dissatisfied with Vera’s performance. Duke was also learning to flex his muscles and the director Joseph Kane was not having everything his own way. Halfway through production, Duke got a message that his son Michael had fallen off a cliff at a summer camp and had hurt his back badly. The doctors assured Duke that Michael would recover, but he was in a state for the rest of filming, although you’d never know it from the film. That’s the kind of pro Duke is. Anyway, it was a pretty lousy film. It did okay, I think, by Republic’s standards, but nobody was interested in seeing Vera Ralston except Herbert Yates.”
Dakota made it to the screens in November 1945, just before They Were Expendable opened, and it proved enough of a diversion from the memories of war to make a profit.
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Next came a comedy in the manner of It Happened One Night, starring the leading lady from that film, Claudette Colbert. Without Reservations saw Colbert as an authoress whose latest book is about to be made into a film. The search is on for the star of the film, and on a train she meets Wayne and Don DeFore, both marines returning home from the war. She immediately realizes that Wayne is perfect to play the hero of her book, and sets about wooing him for the sole purpose of getting him to agree to make the film.
Neither Wayne nor Colbert wanted to make the film. Wayne told me, “I was a little hesitant about making a light comedy without any of the action scenes my audience expected. So I almost chickened out. I think Claudette didn’t want to make it because she thought it was too much like It Happened One Night, and perhaps she didn’t think I was as good at comedy as Gable was in that film.
“The producer was Jesse L. Lasky, and he was convinced we would be able to make a success of it. So Claudette and I insisted on an outstanding director to make sure it would be good, and he got Mervyn LeRoy. I knew Mervyn and liked him, although we’d never worked together, and I thought I’d like to do a movie with him, and he convinced me I should try light comedy. He said I did a lot of light comedy in my films,