Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [228]
The company had taken over a huge summer resort camp on the shore of the lake, and some four hundred actors and technicians—including Tracy, Robert Young, Walter Brennan, Nat Pendleton, and Isabel Jewell—were housed there. A tent city for the 450 Indians used in the film stood three miles north of the main camp. A special train from Los Angeles brought twelve carloads of props and three additional carloads of uniforms and costumes. There were seventy-five rough-looking characters—mostly stunt personnel—imported from Hollywood to play the principal men under Rogers’ command. Another 175 were recruited from among the local lumberjacks and miners. French frontiersmen and oarsmen were also hired locally, and many did double duty as the day’s work required. The Idaho National Guard supplied the 225 British soldiers needed to man Fort Ticonderoga; in all, it was said the company employed over fifteen thousand extras and bit players.
Tiny McCall, population several hundred, was overwhelmed by the hordes seeking employment on the film. “There were quite a few unsavory characters joining the gold rush,” Vidor’s assistant director, Harrold Weinberger, recalled, “including a half dozen or so whores up from Boise and other points south or north, and a troupe of professional gamblers … The hookers were occupying half the rooms in the small and only hotel in town. I saw them all many times about town. They weren’t bad at all to look at. They were prospering. I was told their rates ran from $10 to $25 a trip. Pretty good for the 1939 economy … The hotel management must have gotten some kind of cut considering all the towels and linens that were required.”
Tracy managed to endear himself to actor Robert Young during their first morning on location. “We were in this renovated camp which had been unused for about 20 years,” Young said, “so you can imagine what kind of shape it was in … So they stuck up a service tent and the caterer brought the tables and chairs and the stove and everything else in there. Well, we went to breakfast, or whatever the hell the first meal was that we had there, and Spence stood up, threw the plate clear across the tent.” They had been served powdered eggs. “Oh, it was awful. He went right to the unit manager [and] said, ‘When you correct the situation, I’ll be back. I’ll be on the set. Otherwise, don’t bother me. Don’t even talk to me.’ Well, you don’t think the telephone wires didn’t get hot the next day. I don’t know how the hell they produced it that quickly, but the next day there was a new unit manager. It was the most incredible transformation you ever saw. Overnight, there was a complete transformation; we had the most divine food … I watched him and I thought to myself, man that’s great. That’s power.”
Filming began with Rogers’ address to his men, crudely mapping their route on a surface of rock. One of the men graphically describes the atrocities of the Abenaki warriors against their fellow Rangers, then Rogers goes on to suggest fates of a similar sort for the settlers on the border farms—the survivors of whom now comprise much of his force. (“If it was over quick, they were lucky.”) Grimly determined, they say nothing, all eyes fixed on their leader. “Now, if there’s any man here who doesn’t want to follow me against these Indians, he can step out now and nothing will be said at home.” And, of course, no one does.
Tracy held Rogers taut during the scene, letting the words and the images grip the audience with the harshness of their clarity. Maintaining