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BOSTON PUBLIC
LIBRARY
Copley Square
Boston, MA02116
JOHN FORD
INTERVIEWS

CONVERSATIONS WITH FILMMAKERS SERIES

PETER BRUNETTE, GENERAL EDITOR
Courtesy of Photofest
JOHN
FORD
INTERVIEWS
EDITED BY GERALD PEARY,
JENNY LEFCOURT (PARIS),
ASSISTANT EDITOR

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI / JACKSON

www.upress.state.ms.us

Copyright © 2001 by University Press of Mississippi

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 4321

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ford, John, 1894-1973.

John Ford interviews : / edited by Gerald Peary ;

with the assistance of Jenny
Lefcourt.

p. cm. — (Conversations with filmmakers series)

Includes filmography and index.

ISBN 1-57806-397-3 (alk. paper) —ISBN 1-57806-398-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. —Interviews.
Ford, John, 1894-T973 2. Motion picture producers and
directors — United States — Interviews. I. Peary, Gerald. II. Lefcourt, Jenny.

III. Title. IV. Series.

PN1998.3.F65 A5 2001 2001033003

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

CONTENTS

Introduction ix

Chronology xix

Filmography xxiii

It's the ''Little Things" That Count, Details Essential, Says Jack Ford 3

BILLY LEYSER

Film Capitalizes Stage's Shortcomings, Says Ford 5

LOS ANGELES EXAMINER

John Ford, Man behind The Informer

The 7

DOUGLAS W. CHURCHILL
John Ford: Fighting Irish 10
EMANUEL EISENBERG
The Star Creators of Flollywood 15

HOWARD SHARPE
The Rebels, If They Stay Up This Time, Won't Be Sorry for Hollywood's
Trouble 21

MICHEL MOK
John Ford Wants It Real 24
FRANK DAUGHERTY
New York Close-Up 26
TEX MCCRARY AND JINX FALKENBERG
V I CONTENTS

John Ford Accords an Exclusive Interview to Cinemonde 29

JEAN MITRY

Rendezvous with John Ford 32

BERT MILLER

Recalling a 1955 Interview with John Ford 34

GEORGE BLUESTONE
Poet in an IronMask 38
MICHAEL KILLANIN
Down with Rebecca 41
N E WS WEEK

A Meeting with John Ford 44

JEAN-LOUIS RIEUPEYROUT

The Old Wrangler Rides Again 46

BILL LIBBY

The Autumn of John Ford 58

PETER BOGDANOVICH

Ford on Ford 61

GEORGE J. MITCHELL

John Ford 70
ERIC LEGUEBE

Filmmakers of Our Time: The Twilight of John Ford 75

JEAN NARBONI AND ANDRE S. LABARTHE
Ford on Ford 1 81

AXEL MADSEN

The Old John Ford Talks about Westerns 93

MICHELE MOTT
Telerama's Exclusive Interview with John Ford in the Flesh 96
CLAUDE-JEAN PHILIPPE
The Fourth Dimension of Old Age 98
CLAUDINE TAVERNIER
 CONTENTS V I I

Notes of a Press Attache: John Ford in Paris 104

BERTRAND TAVERNIER
Ford on Ford 2 113

AXEL MADSEN

Burt Kennedy Interviews John Ford 118

BURT KENNEDY

John Ford 124

DOCUMENTARY FILM GROUP
Ford in Person r27

MARK HAGGARD
John Ford Talks to Philip Jenkinson about Not Being Interested in
Movies 137
PHILIP JENKINSON
Ford on the Lido 141

DEREK MALCOLM

A Very Special Tribute to a Very Special Guy 143

KAY GARDELLA

Yes, John Ford Knew a Thing or Two about Art 145

LARRY SWINDELL

One More Hurrah 151

WALTER WAGNER
Index 161
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2016

https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781578063987
 ,

INTRODUCTION

Other American filmmakers never had to be persuaded

of John Ford's greatness. As the legend goes, young Orson Welles learned to
make movies by watching and rewatching Stagecoach. Welles's much-quoted
mantra was "John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford," the road to Citizen Kane
and Xanadu. "A John Ford film was a visual gratification," said Alfred Hitch-
cock, "his method of shooting eloquent in its clarity and apparent simplic-
ity." Frank Capra called Ford "pure great," and Elia Kazan confessed that,

even after half-a-dozen films, he studied Ford's oeuvre to learn how to be-
come more cinematic. Ford "taught me to tell it in pictures. . . . Jack taught
me to trust long shots," the On the Waterfront filmmaker said.

Ford's around-the-world, on-the-record adherents include Jean Renoir,

Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Francois Truffaut, Wim Wenders, Satyajit

Ray. Speaking for all of them was Federico Fellini: "When I think of Ford, I

sense the smell of barracks, of horses, of gunpowder, . . . the unending trips

of his heroes. But, above all, I feel a man who liked motion pictures, who
lived for the cinema, who has made out of motion pictures a fairy tale to be
told to everyone, but —in the first place —a fairy tale to be lived by
himself. . . . For all this I esteem him, I admire him and I love him."
So too does this unabashed Ford freak, who is proud to have edited this

anthology. My infatuation started at age eleven, in the summer of 1956, four

incandescent matinee days in a row of watching little Debbie being whisked
away by renegade Commanches in The Searchers and with John Wayne's
rough, big-daddy, Ethan Edwards, coming my favorite film im-
after. It was
mediately and, thirty or so mesmerizing screenings later, it remains my fa-
 , ; ,

X INTRODUCTION

vorite. I met Martin Scorsese once, when he was shooting Taxi Driver and for
our hour-and-a-half that's all we talked about: The Searchers , The Searchers
and how much we adored it. (I've had that equivalent conversation with
many others, including —suprisingly?—Native American novelist, Sherman
Alexie.)

The Searchers perhaps the closest we come to "the great American film/'
is the pinnacle of Ford's cinematic accomplishment. Among other deeds, he
made, in my estimation, the best biography film of all time (Young Mr. Lin-
coln), the best war film (They Were Expendable), a classic romance (The Quiet
Man), two of the best literary adaptations (The Grapes of Wrath, The Long
Voyage Home), many of the most distinguished, thoughtful of westerns
My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,
(Stagecoach,
Wagon Master, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance).
Ford even produced —how prescient in the 1950s! — a profound, germane
"gender-issues" film showing the tragic consequences of intractable male
codes ( The Wings of Eagles, also his most underrated work).
These carefully wrought studio films, filtered through Ford's shimmering
personal perspective, and starring his semi-private stock company of actors
(Wayne, Victor McLaglen, Maureen O'Flara, Ben Johnson, Ward Bond, John
Carradine, Harry Carey, Jr., Olive Carey, John Qualen, Barry Fitzgerald, etc.),

became special things indeed, hearfelt and luminous.

Ford was unusually gallant about love, and he took families seriously, par-
ticularly impoverished ones, and he had a special reverence for the hard,
sacrificial lives of mothers. No American director has mademany pictures
so
so seriously steeped in American history, from the pre-Revolutionary War
(Drums Along the Mohawk) to multiple tellings of the displacement of Native
Americans (including Cheyenne Autumn), to stories of World Wars I and II.

Here is critic Andrew Sarris's famous description about Ford: "His style has
evolved almost miraculously into a double vision of an event in all its vital

immediacy and yet also in its ultimate memory image on the horizon of
history."
montage (when, rarely, he
Formally, Ford was a master of mis en scene, of
wished to employ it), of light and shadows, of framing and settings, of mel-
ancholy expressionism fused with transcendant romanticism. The closeups
are incomparably radiant and soulful; and, as his director pal, Howard
Hawks, saw it, nobody in the history of films has been Ford's match compos-
ing long shots.
Ford (1895-1973) arrived in Hollywood in 1914 and began directing in 1917,
 ,

INTRODUCTION X I

in the silent-era days of World War I; and he worked steadily into the T960S,

through the dissolution of the studio system. He made more than sixty silent

films, about 130 movies in all, including a handful of superb documentaries.

At points, his talents were recognized and amply rewarded by his peers: he
won Academy Awards, including Best Director for The Informer The Grapes of ,

Wrath How Green Was My Valley and The Quiet Man and a Best Picture for
, ,

How Green Was My Valley.

But that was then, not now.
Though he's among the great American artists of the century, worthy to
be discussed with Faulkner and Pollock and Ellington and Ives, John Ford is,

in truth, hardly part of our national consciousness. Entering the new millen-
ium, he is, for the public, a forgotten man. Young people, including film
students, haven't seen Ford's movies, and seem uninterested in going back
and catching up. Even repertoire movie theatres are hesitant to book Ford
revivals. Unlike a Hitchcock series, the films might unspool without benefit
of an audience.
The depressing scenario we know too well. Ford movies are "old" movies,
many in black and white, and with the casts and crew all dead. Who today
cares? And who contemplates, in a Website postmodern world, long-ago
American history? Would anyone under fifty be interested in ancient Holly-
wood genre movies, many of them woefully unfashionable westerns, and all
of them unapologetically sentimental? Would a contemporary crowd pay to
see corny, creaky John Wayne?

But there's another key point in the disappearance of John Ford: the
filmmaker's complicity in his own oblivion, his lifelong insistence that his
movies should not be taken seriously as anything more than popular enter-
tainments. An undeniable barrier to Ford's acceptance as a modern master
was Ford himself. While other modernists (Fellini, Tarkovsky, Bergman) were
elegantly poetic about their art, taking their genius (and interviews) seri-

ously, Ford as a rule loathed journalists and was wary of cooperating in their
assignments. He was legendarily monosyllabic, and gruff to those who posed
intellectual questions about his works; and the better they knew his films,

the more he might make them suffer.

A paradigmatic Ford encounter of the lethal kind was the filmmaker's

brief, acerbic meeting in r970 with Joseph McBride, a precocious critic who
would cowrite with Michael Wilmington the brilliant analytic study, John
Ford (r97i). Ford, almost immediately testy, pushed his interviewer off-stride
 —
X I I INTRODUCTION

by a seating at his deaf ear, forcing McBride to sacrifice momentum repeating

questions. As for Ford's "thoughtful" answers: Ford described his Seven
Women as "just a job of work," he said of Jean Renoir's films, "I like all of

them," and he characterized The Searchers as "a good picture. It made a lot
of money, and that's the ultimate end."

Just minutes into the Q&A, Ford excused himself. Interview over. "Every-
body asks the same questions, all you people," he told McBride, "and I'm
sick and tired of answering them, because I don't know the answers. I'm just
a hard-nosed, hard-working . . . ex-director, and I'm trying to retire grace-
fully."

The John Ford Movie Mystery was the title of Andrew Sarris's book about him.
The mystery? From whence sprang Ford's mighty film art: poetic, thematic,

thick with cross-references movie to movie, undeniably symbolic? How do

you connect the marvelous cinema —so emotional, so richly humanist
with the impatient, curmudgeonly man who subverted attempts by others
to elucidate them?
"I hate the analysis, the evaluation that others permit themselves to
have," Ford told a French interviewer. "I am a peasant, and my pride is to
remain one." Though he was a self-taught expert on American history and
military affairs, someone who talked comfortably with John Steinbeck and
Eugene O'Neill, he came on when he wanted to (which was often) as what
he also was: a blue-collar, Irish-Catholic from Maine, who played football in
high school and dropped out of college within weeks to head for California.
Why did he make movies? Because, he contended, of the joy of shooting
in the open air and sleeping in a tent. What was he most proud of? Not his
Oscars: military decorations, being made by Native Americans an honorary
chieftain.

Nobody tried harder to break through Ford's veneer than the British critic-

turned-filmmaker Lindsay Anderson (This Sporting Life , O Lucky Man!). He

corresponded with, and met, Ford on a series of occasions through the years,
beginning in the late 1940s when, as an Oxford student, he wrote enlight-
ened essays praising Ford's films. In 1973, he would visit Palm Springs, Cali-

fornia, where the filmmaker lay dying.

The exasperating record of their meetings is contained in Anderson's rem-

iniscences, About John Ford.

At the best of times, Ford was vaguely friendly, controlling the agenda of
 INTRODUCTION XIII

the conversations. At his worst, Ford caused Anderson deep hurt because he
was so rudely indifferent to Anderson's side of their exchanges. "He doesn't
want to be told anything. Not unless he asked," Anderson wrote of Ford in

1952. "I was not interested to meet Ford as ... a yessing disciple, oohing and
aahing over stories which my common sense told me were not true."
In 1957, Anderson encountered Ford again, and once more came away feel-
ing cheated. The result was a telling summation of the perils of interviewing

John Ford on one of the filmmaker's bad-mood days: "His defensive barriers
were so strong; and one of its effects was infallibly to make one say the wrong
things, ask the wrong questions. . . . His technique was brutal, ruthlessly
destructive; by lying, by contradicting everything he'd ever said, by effecting
not to understand the simplest question, he could reduce one to dispirited
impotence."
And yet, that's not the whole story. Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, testify-

ing that "my relations with Mr. Ford weren't always as amicable or easy,"
managed in 1966 to coax the crotchety old director into a series of
still

lengthy talks which constitute the monumentally important book-length ca-

reer interview, John Ford, and which were utilized in Bogdanovich's masterly
documentary, Directed by John Ford. And when Lindsay Anderson asked Ford
on his deathbed if there's anything he wanted, Ford replied, and sincerely,

"Only your friendship."

Yes, there were situations when John Ford acted almost civil, and a few
easygoing storytelling days happened in the presence of journalists. The rev-
elation of John Ford: Interviews is the pleasant discovery that there were far
more times than anyone previously imagined when Ford more or less
"opened up," when, on the record, he discussed his life and career in a
friendly, communicative fashion.
Begin at the beginning, with Billy Leyser's 1920 meeting with Ford for the
Cleveland News. No trouble here: the filmmaker offered a meat-and-potatoes
description of behind-the-scenes making the silent western, Marked Men. But
by 1936, after his break-through Oscar-winning film, The Informer Ford was
,

accruing a volatile reputation —for sarcasm on the set and disarming honesty
when being queried. The New York Times's Douglas Churchill wrote of Ford,
"He is one of the most difficult men in town to interview. Graced with a rich,

deep wit, he constantly says things he shouldn't. . . . His comments on actors

as a breedwould probably inspire one of the most enthusiastic lynchings the
West has known." Difficult? The problem here wasn't Ford, refreshingly un-
 ?

X V
I INTRODUCTION

inhibited; it was the family-paper timidity of the Times faced with what Ford
dared say on the record.
Could Ford be cooperative and charming? Consider Emanuel Eisenberg's
1936 New Theatre piece, "John Ford: Fighting Irish." Eisenberg had been
warned that Ford was deadly busy; Ford was "a non-giver of interviews." Yet,
". (W)e sat for almost two hours in an easy, informal, wandering talk
. . . . .

and he . . . extended a further visit to come down to the set next week and
watch him direct."

That was the happy fate, too, of Photoplay's Howard Sharpe who, also in

1936, took up Ford's invitation to observe a day of shooting for The Plough
and the Stars. To Sharpe, Ford talked expansively: about the casting of Katha-
rine Hepburn for Mary of Scotland, about how he lights the set and about how
he researches. Additionally, Ford dropped the pose of a philistine, and admit-
ted, "Usually I take the story and get every line of printed material I can find
on the subject. And then I take the boat and simply cruise until I've read it

all."

Did Ford have it in for the establishment New York Times In T939, Times's
critic, Bosley Crowther, set up an interview and then worried aloud that
"Anything might happen, anything might be said by this cantankerous fel-

low who reputedly eats young actors like pretzels." Nothing was said; Ford
clammed up for Crowther, who wrote in frustration: "Conversation was sur-

prisingly difficult, and for an Irishman, Mr. Ford was grimly laconic." The
Times' s Theodore Strauss did no better in 1941, complaining, "It was difficult

to make Mr. Ford talk about himself. ... He spoke little, and less for the
record, of the changes that have come over the movie citadel."

The terse Times interviews were an omen. There were few encounters by
journalists with Ford through the 1940s. Had he shut down? Moving into the
1950s, Ford was most likely to sit for an interview when he'd ventured away
from America, to England or Ireland, or if he was visiting Paris, which he
embraced nostalgically because of having been there in the War. In the mid-
50s, he met twice on record, affably, with the French critic-theorist, Jean
Mitry, and also with Bert Miller, writing from Paris for a Swedish magazine.
he consented to be quizzed about making The Grapes of
Back in the U.S.,

Wrath by a young American scholar, George Bluestone, for what would be-
come the classic book, Novels into Film. (Bluestone, now a retired cinema
professor at Boston University, has contributed here an original recollection
of his unusual meetings with Ford.) In 1963, Ford talked with Peter Bogdanov-
 —
INTRODUCTION XV

ich in Monument Valley, on the set of Cheyenne Autumn. "I like making pic-

tures, but I don't like talking about them," he said.

However, also in 1964, he was the subject of a remarkable wide-in-scope
interview with Bill Libby for Cosmopolitan. Libby explained the secret of his
unprecedented rapport with Ford: he simply asked the filmmaker to defend
westerns. Ford barked, "Is more intelligent to prefer pictures about sex and
it

crime, sex maniacs, prostitutes and narcotics agents?" Ford's peevishness

somehow got him going. Never again would he talk so articulately about
western movies: their history, their morality, their appeal.
In 1965, Ford reverted to acrimonious form, amusingly subverting a French
TV team which came to film him in LA. Crouching in pajamas on his bed,

smoking a cigar, he pretended to have forgotten his early films, changed the
subject mid-talk from his movies to Spanish wine, and suddenly stopped the
shooting by clapping his hands and declaring, "I've got to have dinner!" In
contrast, Ford began 1966 by sitting down at home to another comprehensive
talk, reminiscing even about his silent days, with the astute Danish critic,

Axel Madsen.
In 1966, Ford also returned to Paris, where he'd been invited for a gala

theatrical revival of the 1948 Fort Apache. He consented to something totally

out of character: he'd set aside some hours each day to meet with representa-
tives of the French press. Although he would never admit it, Ford must have
been pleased that so many French knew his films well and were devoted to
them.
One by one, the best French critics came and talked to Ford, seventy-one,
as he sat up in his hotel bed at the Royal Monceau. He was quite friendly to
all, though not always forthcoming about his old pictures. Observed one
critic: "As soon as there's talk of one of his films, he scowls and pretends
never to have seen John Ford hasn't seen John Ford films." But the
it. . . .

two press attaches attached to him, future Cannes programmer, Pierre Ris-
sient, and future filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier, realized that things would
go better if they introduced the critics not as journalists but as their friends.
Sure enough, Ford loosened up and opened up, even having drinks and din-
ner with his French compatriots and singing aloud songs from his movies.
"Once in a while we gleaned some information," Tavernier said, though
it was spread through a host of newspaper interviews. (The best of these
with Eric Leguebe, Michele Mott, Claude-Jean Philippe, Claudine Tavernier,
and Bertrand Tavernier —appear in this volume.)
 ,

XV I INTRODUCTION

In America, 1968, Ford relaxed and had fun chatting with fellow western
director, Burt Kennedy, for Action , the magazine of the Directors Guild. In
1969, he made an informal appearance at the University of Southern Califor-
nia, and set his own agenda: he entertained with raucus stories of practical
jokes that he and "Duke" Wayne had played on fall-guy actor Ward Bond.
In 197T, he returned to USC for another Friars-like night of movie-related
anecdotes. It was Ford's seventy-fifth birthday; however, in the next years,
his health would fail after he was diagnosed with cancer.
Fortunately, John Ford's last interview, after he had come home from sur-

gery, is one of the best of all time, a true "summing up." It was in 1973 with
Walter Wagner for a chapter for You Must Remember This Wagner's 1975 book
of oral histories of old-time Hollywood. Ford reached back to proud family
sagas, how his own father came from Ireland to fight in the War Between the
He told at length, and with relish, his favorite story of movie-making:
States.

How I Became a Director. And he ended how else? with a deathbed, blas-— —
phemous denial of his artistry.
"You say someone's called me the greatest poet of the Western saga," Ford
said. "I am not a poet, and I don't know what a western saga is. I would say
that it is horseshit. I'm just a hardworking, run-of-the-mill director."
Oh? Quoth Ethan in The Searchers: "That'll be the day!"

This book could only exist because of the astounding toil of my assistant
editor, Jenny Lefcourt, working out of Paris. While writing her Ph.D. on early
French cinema for Harvard University, Lefcourt somehow carved out time to
track down every Ford interview conducted in France, and to translate them
into English so that I could decide among all those most appropriate for this
book. The selections made, Lefcourt's efforts continued, as she located the
authors and magazines and negotiated rights for all the French selections. I

am deeply indebted to her, as should be all Ford historians.

Back in the U.S., Keith Hamel, now a Ph.D. candidate in film at Indiana
University, worked as a second assistant editor, helping me with American
permissions. I thank Bill Westfall in Boston, Jon Bloom and David Bartholo-
mew in New York, Michael Chaiken in Philadelphia, and Geoffrey MacNab
in London for locating hard-to-find library articles. I thank Ted Elrich at the

Directors Guild of America for securing permissions for two Ford interviews,
and Mike Robinson at Doc Films in Chicago. At the Lilly Library, Indiana

University, Bloomington, Indiana, site of the essential John Ford Papers, I

 INTRODUCTION XVII

was assisted immensely by Sandra Taylor, Curator of Manuscripts, and by

librarian Helena Walsh. Dan Ford, John Ford's biographer grandson, very
generously allowed me permission to use interviews and clippings in the

John Ford Papers at the Lilly Library.

I also thank Pat Collins in Ireland, Klaus Eder in Germany, Jean Roy in
France, Peter Cowie, Richard James Havis, and Derek Malcolm in England,
and Peter Bogdanovich in New York. And for crucial translations from Swed-
ish and Danish into English, am grateful to Jan Lumholdt and Ludvig Hertz-
I

berg, both of whom are exemplary film critics.

I am thankful, too, for the expert editorial help, and patience, of Seetha
Srinivasan and Anne Stascavage of the University Press of Mississippi, and,
as ever, to my wonderful friend, Peter Brunette, general editor of the Conver-
sations with Filmmakers Series. Finally, thank you to my university, Suffolk
University, for a summer stipend allowing me to visit the amazing Ford col-
lection at Indiana University.

This book is for, Amy Geller, with my hope she will watch lots of Ford
movies. And a special dedication to the pantheon film critic, Andrew Sarris,

whose American Cinema led me to John Ford.

 ,

CHRONOLOGY

1895 Born John Martin (later, Aloysius) Feeney, Jr., in Cape Elizabeth,
Maine, on February r, the ninth child (three had died) of John
Feeney and Barbara Curran.

r898 Feeney family moves to Portland, Maine, 93 Sheridan St., top floor
of a New England three-decker. Fie grows up here.

r9i2-i4 Plays football for Portland High School.

19T4 Graduates high school, attends University of Maine, Oreno, for sev-
eral weeks, drops out. Goes to California to work for filmmaker
brother, Francis Feeney, who had changed name to Francis Ford.
John Feeney, Jr., becomes Jack Ford.

1914-T7 Works with Francis in various capacities, including props, stunt

work, acting, assistant directing.

1915 Appears as a Klansman in The Birth of a Nation.

1917 Directs first film for Carl Laemmle, The Tornado a two-reel work.
Directs first feature, Straight Shooting, starring Harry Carey.

1917-21 Directs twenty-one more films starring Harry Carey.

1920 Marries Mary McBride Smith on July 3. Moves to 6860 Odin St., Los
Angeles, where they reside for thirty-four years.

1921 Makes first trip as an adult to Ireland. Son, Patrick, is born, April 3.
 , , , , ,

XX CHRONOLOGY

1922 Daughter, Barbara, is born, December 16.

1923 Changes name to John Ford for direction of Fox film, Cameo Kirby.

1924 Directs first major success, the epic western, The Iron Horse.

1926 Directs Three Bad Men his forty-third western, but last for thirteen
years. Meets Marion Michael Morrison (later, John Wayne).

1927 Travels to Germany. Meets filmmaker F. W. Murnau.

1929 Directs first talking feature, The Black Watch.

1930 Directs Men Without Women the first of thirteen-film collaboration

with screenwriter, Dudley Nichols.

1933-35 Directs three films starring Will Rogers: Dr. Bull (1933), Judge Priest

(1934), and Steamboat Round the Bend (1935).

1935 Directs The Informer. Wins first Academy Award for Best Direction,

Best Actor for Victor McLaglen.

1936 Directs The Prisoner of Shark Island first of ten-film collaboration

with producer Darryl F. Zanuck. Directs Mary of Scotland with Kath-
arine Hepburn. They become romantically involved.

1937 Relationship ends with Katharine Hepburn.

1939 Directs three important works: Drums Along the Mohawk Young Mr.
,

Lincoln and Stagecoach. The last, which begins Ford's twenty-three-

year collaboration with John Wayne, creates category of "adult
western" and wins Best Direction from New York Film Critics.

1940 Directs The Grapes of Wrath, Academy Award for Best Direction. Di-

rects The Long Voyage Home Eugene O'Neill's favorite adaptation of

his work. Both are collaborations with cinematographer, Gregg To-
land.

1941 Directs How Green Was MyAcademy Award for Best Picture.
Valley,

Appointed Commander John Ford, U.S. Navy Reserves, September 11.

In charge of Field Photographic Branch, Pearl Harbor, December 7.

1942 Makes America's first war documentary, The Battle of Midway, Acad-
emy Award for Best Documentary.
 CHRONOLOGY XX I

1943 Releases December 7th, filming Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor,

Academy Award for Best Documentary.

1945 Directs They Were Expendable, perhaps best Hollywood battle film

about World War II.

1946 Directs My Darling Clementine. Forms Argosy Pictures with Merian

C. Cooper.

1947 Directs The Fugitive, final collaboration with Dudley Nichols.

1948 Directs "cavalry trilogy" opener, Fort Apache, starting eleven-film

collaboration with screenwriter, Frank S. Nugent.

1949 Directs She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, second of "cavalry trilogy," Acad-
emy Award for Best Cinematography to Winton C. Hoch.

1950 Directs Wagon Master and Rio Grande, the latter concluding "cav-
alry trilogy" and first of three-film coupling of Maureen O'Hara and

John Wayne.

1952 Directs The Quiet Man in Ireland with Wayne and O'Hara, final
Academy Award for Best Direction.

1954 Directs The Sun Shines Bright, personal favorite of his films.

1956 Directs The Searchers, perhaps his greatest work.

1957 Directs The Wings of Eagles, final film with Maureen O'Hara, and
perhaps his most underrated work.

i960 Directs Sergeant Rutledge, film dealing with racism in the Old West.

1962 Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,

Directs The final collaboration with
John Wayne and his last masterpiece.

1964 Directs Cheyenne Autumn, a film dealing with government's ill

treatment of Native Americans.

1966 Directs 7 Women, final work.

1973 Receives American Film Institute's first Life Achievement Award.

Receives Medal of Freedom from President Richard M. Nixon,
March 31. Dies Palm Springs, California, August 31.
FILMOGRAPHY

Silent films—John Ford, director

1917
The Tornado The,
Trail of Hate, The Scrapper The Soul Herder, Cheyenne's Pal,
;

Straight Shooting, The Secret Man, A Marked Man, Bucking Broadway

1918
The Phantom Riders, Wild Women, Thieves' Gold, The Scarlet Drop, Hell Bent,

Delirium, A Woman's Fool, Three Mounted Men

1919
Roped, The Fighting Brothers, A Fight for Love, By Indian Post, The Rustlers, Bare
Fists,The Gun Packer, Riders of Vengeance, The Last Outlaw, The Outcasts of
Poker Flat, The Ace of the Saddle, The Rider of the Law, A Gun Fightin' Gentleman,
Marked Men

1920
The Prince of Avenue A, The Girl in No. 29, Hitchin' Posts, Just Pals

1921
The Big Punch, The Freeze Out, The Wallop, Desperate Trails, Action, Sure Fire,

Jackie

1922
Little Miss Smiles, Silver Wings (prologue, the rest directed by Edwin Carewe),
Nero (directed byj. Gordon Edwards and Ford, uncredited), The Village Black-
smith
XXIV FILMOGRAPHY

1923
The Face on the Bar-Room Floor Three Jumps Ahead Cameo Kirby North of Hud-
; , ,

son Bay Hoodman Blind

;

1924
The Iron Horse Hearts of Oak
,

1925
Lightning Kentucky Pride, The Fighting Heart, Thank You

1926
77 ie Shamrock Handicap, 3 Bad Men, The Blue Eagle

1927
Upstream

1928
Mother Machree, Four Sons, Hangman's House, Napoleon's Barber (sound short),
Riley the Cop

1929
Strong Boy

Sound Period
THE BLACK WATCH (Fox, 1929)
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: James Kevin McGuinness, John Stone, Frank Barber, from the
book King of the Khyber Rifles by Talbot Mundy
Cast: Victor McLaglen, Myrna Loy, Roy D'Arcy, Pat Somerset, David Rollins,

Mitchell Lewis, Walter Long

SALUTE (Fox, 1929)

Director: John Ford

Screenplay: James Kevin McGuinness, from a story by Tristram Tupper, John
Stone
Cast: George O'Brien, William Janney, Helen Chandler, Stepin Fetchit, Frank
Albertson, Joyce Compton, Ward Bond, John Wayne
 FILMOGRAPHY XXV

MEN WITHOUT WOMEN (Fox, 1930)

Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, from a story by Ford and James Kevin McGuin-
ness
Cast: Kenneth MacKenna, Frank Albertson, Paul Page, Pat Somerset, Walter
McGrail, Stuart Erwin, Warren Hymer, John Wayne, Robert Parrish

BORN RECKLESS (Fox, 1930)

Director: John Ford

Screenplay: Dudley Nichols from the book Louis Beretti by Donald Henderson
Clarke
Cast: Edmund Lowe, Catherine Dale Owen, Lee Tracy, Marguerite Churchill,
Warren Hymer, Pat Somerset, William Harrigan, Frank Albertson

UP THE RIVER (Fox, 1930)

Director: John Ford

Screenplay: Maurine Watkins (and Ford and William Collier, Sr., uncredited)

Cast: Spencer Tracy, Warren Hymer, Humphrey Bogart, Claire Luce, Joan
Lawes, Sharon Lynn, George McFarlane, Gaylord Pendleton, Morgan Wal-
lace, William Collier, Sr.

SEAS BENEATH (Fox, 1931)

Director: John Ford

Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, from a story by James Parker, Jr.

Cast: George O'Brien, Marion Lessing, Warren Hymer, William Collier, Sr.,

John Loder, Walter C. "Judge" Kelly, Henry Victor, Nat Pendleton

THE BRAT (Fox, r93r)

Director: John Ford

Screenplay: Sonya Levien, S. N. Behrman, Maude Fulton, from a play by
Fulton
Cast: Sally O'Neil, Alan Dinehart, Frank Albertson, Virginia Cherrill, J. Farrel

McDonald, William Collier, Sr., Margaret Mann, Ward Bond

ARROWSMITH (Fox, 1931)

Producer: Samuel Goldwyn
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Sidney Howard, from the book by Sinclair Lewis
XXVI FILMOGRAPHY

Cast: Ronald Colman, Helen Hayes, A. E. Anson, Richard Bennett, Claude

King, Beulah Bondi, Myrna Loy, Russell Hopton, De Witt Jennings, John
Qualen

AIR MAIL (Universal, 1932)

Producer: Carl Laemmle, Jr.

Director:John Ford
Screenplay: Dale Van Every, Frank W. "Spig" Wead, from a story by Wead
Cast: Pat O'Brien, Ralph Bellamy, Gloria Stuart, Lillian Bond, Russell Hopton,
Slim Summerville, Frank Albertson, Leslie Fenton, David Landau

FLESH (MGM, 1932)

Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Leonard Praskins, Edgar Allen Woolf (and William Faulkner, un-
credited)
Cast: Wallace Beery, Karen Morley, Ricardo Cortez, Jean Hersholt, John Mil-
jan, Vince Barnett, Herman Bing, Edward Brophy, Ward Bond

PILGRIMAGE (Fox, 1933)

Director: John Ford

Screenplay: Philip Klein, Barry Connors, from a story by I. A. R. Wylie

Cast: Henrietta Crosman, Heather Angel, Norman Foster, Marian Nixon,
Maurice Murphy, Lucille Laverne, Charley Grapewin, Hedda Hopper

DR. BULL (Fox, 1933)

Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Paul Green, from the book The Last Adam by James Gould Coz-
zens
Cast: Will Rogers, Marian Nixon, Berton Churchill, Louise Dresser, Howard
Lally, Rochelle Hudson, Vera Allen, Elizabeth Patterson, Ralph Morgan, Andy
Devine

THE LOST PATROL (RKO, 1934)

Producer: Merian C. Cooper
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, Garrett Fort (and Frank Baker, uncredited), from
a story by Philip MacDonald
 FILMOGRAPHY XXVII

Cast: Victor McLaglen, Boris Karloff, Wallace Ford, Reginald Denny, J. M.

Kerrigan, Billy Bevan, Alan Hale, Brandon Hurst

THE WORLD MOVES ON (1934)

Producer: Winfield Sheehan
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Reginald C. Berkeley
Cast: Madeleine Carroll, Franchot Tone, Lumsden Hare, Raul Roulien, Sieg-

fried Rumann, Louise Dresser, Stepin Fetchit, Reginald Denny, Russell

Simpson

JUDGE PRIEST (Fox, 1934)

Producer: Sol Wurtzel

Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, Lamar Trotti, from stories by Irvin S. Cobb
Cast: Will Rogers, Henry B. Walthall, Tom Brown, Anita Louise, Rochelle
Hudson, Berton Churchill, David Landau, Hattie McDaniel, Stepin Fetchit,

Charley Grapewin, Francis Ford

THE WHOLE TOWN'S TALKING (Columbia, 1935)

Producer: Lester Cowan
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Jo Swerling, from the book by W. R. Burnett
Cast:Edward G. Robinson, Jean Arthur, Wallace Ford, Arthur Byron, Arthur
Hohl, Donald Meek, Paul Harvey, Edward Brophy, J. Farrell MacDonald

THE INFORMER (RKO, 1935)

Associate Producer: Cliff Reid
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, from the book by Liam O'Flaherty
Cast: Victor McLaglen, Heather Angel, Preston Foster, Margot Grahame, Wal-
lace Ford, Una O'Connor, J. M. Kerrigan, Joseph Sawyer, Neil Fitzgerald

STEAMBOAT ROUND THE BEND (20th Century-Fox, 1935)

Producer: Sol Wurtzel
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, Lamar Trotti, from a story by Ben Lucian
Burman
XXVIII FILMOGRAPHY

Cast: Will Rogers, Anne Shirley, Eugene Pallette, John McGuire, Stepin
Fetchit, Francis Ford, Irvin S. Cobb, Raymond Hatton, Charles Middleton

THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND (20th Century-Fox, 1936)

Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Nunnally Johnson, from the life of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd
Cast: Warner Baxter, Gloria Stuart, Claude Gillingwater, Arthur Byron, O. P.
Heggie, Harry Carey, Francis Ford, John Carradine

THE LAST OUTLAW (RKO, 1936)

Associate Producer: Robert Sisk
Director: Christy Cabanne
John Twist, Jack Townley, from
Screenplay: a story by John Ford, Evelyne
Murray Campbell
Cast: Harry Carey, Hoot Gibson, Margaret Callahan, Henry B. Walthall

MARY OF SCOTLAND (RKO, 1936)

Producer: Pandro S. Berman
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, from the play by Maxwell Anderson
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Frederic March, Florence Eldridge, Douglas Wal-
ton, John Carradine, Monte Blue, Donald Crisp, Alan Mowbray, Jean Fen-
wick

THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS (RKO, 1936)

Associate producer: Cliff Reid, Robert Sisk
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, from the play by Sean O'Casey
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, Barry Fitzgerald, Dennis O'Dea, Ei-

leen Crowe, Arthur Shields, Una O'Connor, J. M. Kerrigan, Bonita Granville

WEE WILLIE WINKIE (20th Century-Fox, 1937)

Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck

Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Ernest Pascal, Julian Josephson, from the story by Rudyard Kip-
ling
 FILMOGRAPHY XXIX

Cast: Shirley Temple, Victor McLaglen, C. Aubrey Smith, June Lang, Michael
Whalen, Cesar Romero, Constance Collier, Douglas Scott, Gavin Muir

THE HURRICANE (Samuel Goldwyn-United Artists, 1937)

Producer: Samuel Goldwyn
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Dudley Nichols (and Ben Hecht, uncredited), from the book by
Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, as adapted by Oliver H. P. Gar-
rett

Cast: Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall, Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Thomas
Mitchell, Raymond Massey, John Carradine, Jerome Cowan, A Kikume
1

THE ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO (Samuel Goldwyn-United Artists,

1938)
Producer: Samuel Goldwyn
Director: Archie Mayo (and John Ford, uncredited second unit)
Screenplay: Robert E. Sherwood, from a story by N. A. Pogson
Cast: Gary Cooper, Sigrid Gurie, Basil Rathbone, George Barbier, Binnie
Barnes, Alan Hale, H. B. Warner

FOUR MEN AND A PRAYER (20th Century-Fox, 1938)

Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Richard Sherman, Sonya Levien, Walter Ferris (and William
Faulkner, uncredited), from the book by David Garth
Cast: Loretta Young, Richard Greene, George Sanders, David Niven, William
Henry, C. Aubrey Smith, J. Edward Bromberg, Alan Hale, John Carradine,
Reginald Denny, Berton Churchill, Barry Fitzgerald

SUBMARINE PATROL (20th Century-Fox, 1938)

Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Rian James, Darrell Ware, Jack Yellen (and William Faulkner, un-
credited), from the book The Splinter Fleet by John Milholland
Cast: Richard Greene, Nancy Kelly, Preston Foster, George Bancroft, Slim
Summerville, Joan Valerie, John Carradine, Warren Hymer, Ward Bond
XXX FILMOGRAPHY

STAGECOACH (Walter Wanger-United Artists, 1939)

Producer: Walter Wanger
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, from a story by Ernest Haycox
Cast: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Andy Devine, George Bancroft, John Car-
radine, Thomas Mitchell, Donald Meek, Berton Churchill, Louise Platt, Tom
Tyler, Francis Ford, Chris Pin Martin, Elvira Rios

YOUNG MR. LINCOLN (20th Century-Fox, 1939)

Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Director:John Ford
Screenplay: Lamar Trotti, based on the life of Abraham Lincoln
Cast: Henry Fonda, Alice Brady, Marjorie Weaver, Eddie Collins, Pauline

Moore, Arleen Whelan, Richard Cromwell, Ward Bond, Donald Meek, Mil-
burn Stone, Francis Ford

DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK (20th Century-Fox, 1939)

Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Lamar Trotti, Sonya Levien (and uncredited, William Faulkner),
from the book by Walter D. Edmonds
Cast: Claudette Colbert, Henry Fonda, Edna May Oliver, Eddie Collins, John
Carradine, Dorris Bowdon, Jessie Ralph, Arthur Shields, Robert Lowery, Fran-

cis Ford, Ward Bond, Russell Simpson

THE GRAPES OF WRATH (20th Century-Fox, 1940)

Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Nunnally Johnson, from the book by John Steinbeck
Cast: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, Charley Grapewin, Russell Simpson, John
Carradine, John Qualen, Eddie Quillan, Zeffie Tilbury, Frank Darien, Darryl

Hickman

THE LONG VOYAGE HOME (Argosy Pictures-Wanger-United Artists, 1940)

Producer: Walter Wanger

Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, from one-act plays of Eugene O'Neill
 FILMOGRAPHY XXXI

Cast: Thomas Mitchell, John Wayne, Ian Hunter, Barry Fitzgerald, Wilfred

Lawson, Mildred Natwick, John Qualen, Ward Bond, Joe Sawyer, Arthur
Shields, J. M. Kerrigan

TOBACCO ROAD (20th Century-Fox, 1941)

Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Nunnally Johnson, from the play by Jack Kirkland and the novel
by Erskine Caldwell
Cast: Charley Grapewin, Marjorie Rambeau, Gene Tierney, William Tracy,
Elizabeth Patterson, Dana Andrews, Slim Summerville, Ward Bond, Grant
Mitchell, Russell Simpson

SEX HYGIENE (Audio Productions-U.S. Army, 1941)

Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck

Director: John Ford
Cast: Charles Trowbridge, Robert Lowery, George Reeves

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (20th Century-Fox, 1941)

Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Philip Dunne, from the book by Richard Llewellyn
Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Roddy McDowall, Donald Crisp, Sara

Allgood, Anna Lee, John Loder, Barry Fitzgerald, Patrick Knowles

THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY (U.S. Navy-2oth Century-Fox, 1942)

Director:John Ford
Narration: John Ford, Dudley Nichols, James Kevin McGuinness

TORPEDO SQUADRON (U.S. Navy, 1942)

Director: John Ford

DECEMBER 7TH (U.S. Navy, 1943)

Director: Gregg Toland, John Ford

WE SAIL AT MIDNIGHT (Crown Film Unit-U.S. Navy, 1943)

Director: John Ford (?)

Narration: Clifford Odets

XXXII FILMOGRAPHY

THEY WERE EXPENDABLE (MGM, 1945)

Producer: John Ford
Director: John Ford

Screenplay: Frank W. "Spig" Wead, from the book by William L. White

Cast: John Wayne, Robert Montgomery, Donna Reed, Jack Holt, Ward Bond,

Louis Jean Heydt, Marshall Thompson, Russell Simpson, Leon Ames, Paul
Langton, Arthur Walsh, Cameron Mitchell

MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (20th Century-Fox, T946)

Producer: Samuel G. Engel
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Engel, Winston Miller, from a story by Sam Heilman, based on
the book Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal by Stuart N. Lake
Cast: Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Walter Brennan, Tim Holt,
Ward Bond, Cathy Downs, Alan Mowbray, John Ireland, Grant Withers, Jane
Darwell, Russell Simpson

THE FUGITIVE (Argosy Pictures-RKO, 1947)

Producer: John Ford, Merian C. Cooper
Director: John Ford

Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, from the book The Power and the Glory by Gra-
ham Greene
Cast: Henry Fonda, Dolores Del Rio, Pedro Armendariz, Ward Bond, Leo Car-
rillo, Chris Pin Martin, Robert Armstrong, John Qualen, J. Carroll Naish

FORT APACHE (Argosy Pictures-RKO, 1948)

Producer: John Ford, Merian C. Cooper
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Frank S. Nugent, from a story by James Warner Bellah
Cast: John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple, JohnWard Bond,
Agar,
George O'Brien, Victor McLaglen, Pedro Armendariz, Anna Lee, Guy Kibbee,
Grant Withers, Mae Marsh, Irene Rich, Dick Foran

3 GODFATHERS (Argosy Pictures-MGM, 1948)

Producer: John Ford, Merian C. Cooper
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Laurence Stallings, Frank Nugent, from a story by Peter B. Kyne
 FILMOGRAPHY XXXIII

Cast:John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz, Harry Carey, Jr., Ward Bond, Mildred
Natwick, Charles Halton, Jane Darwell, Mae Marsh, Guy Kibbee, Dorothy
Ford, Ben Johnson

MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (Argosy Pictures-RKO, 1949)

Producer: John Ford, Merian C. Cooper
Director: Ernest B. Schoedsack
Screenplay: Ruth Rose, from a story by Cooper
Cast: Terry Moore, Ben Johnson, Robert Armstrong, Frank McHugh, Regis
Toomey

SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON (Argosy Pictures-RKO, 1949)

Producer: John Ford, Merian C. Cooper
Director: John Ford

Screenplay: Frank S. Nugent, Laurence Stallings, from a story by James War-

ner Bellah
Cast: John Wayne, Joanne Dru, John Agar, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Jr.,

Victor McLaglen, Mildred Natwick, George O'Brien, Arthur Shields, Francis

Ford, Chief Big Tree

PINKY (20th Century-Fox, 1949)

Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Director: Elia Kazan (and, briefly, John Ford, uncredited)
Screenplay: Philip Dunne, Dudley Nichols, from the book Quality by Cid
Rickets Summer
Cast: Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore, William Lundigan, Ethel Waters, Basil

Ruysdael

WHEN WILLIE COMES MARCHING HOME (20th Century-Fox, T950)

Producer: Fred Kohlmar
Director:John Ford
Screenplay: Mary Loos, Richard Sale, from a story by Sy Gomberg
Cast: Dan Dailey, Corrine Calvet, Colleen Townsend, Lloyd Corrigan, Wil-

liam Demerest, James Lydon, Evelyn Varden, Mae Marsh, Charles Halton

WAGON MASTER (Argosy Pictures-RKO, 1950)

Producer: John Ford, Merian C. Cooper
Director: John Ford

Screenplay: Frank S. Nugent, Patrick Ford

XXXIV FILMOGRAPHY

Cast: Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Jr., Joanne Dru, Ward Bond, Charles
Kemper, Alan Mowbray, Jane Darwell, Ruth Clifford, Russell Simpson, James
Arness

RIO GRANDE (Argosy Pictures-Republic, 1950)

Producer: John Ford, Merian C. Cooper
Director: John Ford

Screenplay: James Kevin McGuinness, from a story by James Warner Bellah

Cast: John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Ben Johnson, Claude Jarman, Jr., Harry
Carey, Jr., Chill Wills, J. Carroll Naish, Victor McLaglen, Grant Withers

THIS IS KOREA! (U.S. Navy-Republic, 1951)

Director: John Ford

Narration: James Warner Bellah, Frank Nugent, Ford

THE QUIET MAN (Argosy Pictures-Republic, 1952)

Producer: John Ford, Merian C. Cooper (and Michael Killanin, uncredited)

Director: John Ford

Screenplay: Frank S. Nugent, from a story by Maurice Walsh

Cast: John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Victor McLaglen, Ward Bond, Arthur
Shields, Barry Fitzgerald, Mildred Natwick, Francis Ford, Eileen Crowe

WHAT PRICE GLORY (20th Century-Fox, 1952)

Producer: Sol C. Siegel
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Phoebe and Henry Ephron, from the play by Maxwell Anderson
and Laurence Stallings

Cast: James Cagney, Corrine Calvet, Dan Dailey, William Demerest, Craig
Hill, Robert Wagner, Marisa Pavan, Casey Adams, James Gleason

THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT (Argosy Pictures-Republic, 1953)

Producer: John Ford, Merian C. Cooper
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Laurence Stallings, from stories by Irvin S. Cobb
Cast: Charles Winninger, Arleen Whelan, John Russell, Stepin Fetchit, Rus-

sell Simpson, Ludwig Stossel, Francis Ford, Paul Hurst, Grant Withers, Mil-
burn Stone, Dorothy Jordan
 FILMOGRAPHY XXXV

MOGAMBO (MGM, 1953)

Producer: Sam Zimbalist
Director: John Ford

Screenplay: John Lee Mahin, from the play Red Dust by Wilson Collison
Cast: Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, Donald Sinden, Philip Stainton,
Laurence Naismith, Dennis O'Dea

HONDO (Wayne-Fellows-Warner Brothers, 1954)

Producer: Robert Fellows
Director:John Farrow (and, second-unit, John Ford, uncredited)
Screenplay: James Edward Grant, from the book by Louis L' Amour
Cast: John Wayne, Geraldine Page, Ward Bond, Michael Pate, James Arness

THE LONG GRAY LINE (Rota Productions-Columbia, 1955)

Producer: Robert Arthur
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Edward Hope, from the book Bringing Up the Brass by Marty
Maher, with Nardi Reeder Campion
Cast: Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Hara, Robert Francis, Donald Crisp, Ward
Bond, Betsy Palmer, Phil Carey, William Leslie, Harry Carey, Jr., Patrick
Wayne

THE RED, WHITE AND BLUE LINE (U.S. Treasury Department-Columbia,

1955)
Director:John Ford
Narration: Edward Hope

MISTER ROBERTS (Orange Productions-Warner Brothers, 1955)

Producer: Leland Hayward
Director: John Ford, Mervyn LeRoy (and Joshua Logan, uncredited)

Screenplay: Frank Nugent, Joshua Logan, from the play by Logan, Thomas
Heggen, and the book by Heggen
Cast: Henry Fonda, Jack Lemmon, James Cagney, William Powell, Ward

Bond, Betsy Palmer, Phil Carey, Nick Adams, Harry Carey, Jr., Ken Curtis

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR (Hal Roach Studios, 1955) (Television drama)

Director: John Ford

Teleplay: Frank S. Nugent

XXXVI FILMOGRAPHY

Cast: Patrick Wayne, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, James Gleason, Willis
Bouchey

THE BAMBOO CROSS (Lewman Ltd-Revue, 1955) (Television drama)

Producer: William Asher
Director: John Ford
Teleplay: Laurence Stallings, from a play by Theophane Lee
Cast: Jane Wyman, Betty Lynn, Soo Yong, Jim Hong, Judy Wong

THE SEARCHERS (C. V. Whitney Pictures-Warner Brothers, 1956)

Producer: Merian C. Cooper, C. V. Whitney
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Frank S. Nugent, from the book by Alan LeMay
Cast: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Natalie Wood, Ward Bond,
Hank Worden, Olive Carey, John Qualen, Harry Carey, Jr., Henry Brandon,
Ken Curtis, Dorothy Jordan, Pat Wayne, Lana Wood

THE WINGS OF EAGLES (MGM, 1957)

Producer: Charles Schnee
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Frank Fenton, William Wister Haines, based on the life of Frank

W. "Spig" Wead
John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Dan Dailey, Ward Bond, Ken Curtis,
Cast:

Edmund Lowe, Kenneth Tobey, Henry O'Neill, Tige Andrews, Mae Marsh,
Willis Bouchey

THE RISING OF THE MOON (Four Province Productions-Warner Brothers,

1957)
Producer: Michael Killanin
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Frank Nugent, from a story by Frank O'Connor and plays by
Michael J. McHugh and Lady Gregory
Cast: Noel Purcell, Cyril Cusack, Jack McGowran, Jimmy O'Dea, Tony
Quinn, Paul Farrell, J. G. Devlin, Eileen Crowe, Maurice Good, Frank Lawton,
Dennis O'Dea
 FILMOGRAPHY XXXVII

THE GROWLER (U.S. Navy, 1957)

Producer: Mark Armistead
Director: John Ford
Cast: Ward Bond, Ken Curtis

GIDEON OF SCOTLAND YARD (Columbia British Productions, 1958)

Producer: Michael Killanin

Director: John Ford
Screenplay: T. E. B. Clarke, from the book Gideon's Day by J. J. Marric (John
Creasey)
Cast: Jack Hawkins, Dianne Foster, Anna Massey, Anna Lee, Cyril Cusack,
Andrew Ray, James Hayter, Frank Lawton

THE LAST HURRAH (Columbia, 1958)

Producer: John Ford
Director: John Ford

Screenplay: Frank S. Nugent, from the book by Edwin O'Connor

Cast: Spencer Tracy, Jeffrey Hunter, Dianne Foster, Pat O'Brien, Basil Rath-

bone, Donald Crisp, Edward Brophy, John Carradine, Ricardo Cortez, Anna
Lee, Wallace Ford, Frank McHugh, Jane Darwell, Edmund Lowe, Ken Curtis,
Arthur Walsh

KOREA: BATTLEGROUND FOR LIBERTY (U.S. Department of Defense, 1959)

Producer: John Ford, George O'Brien
Director: John Ford

Cast: George O'Brien, Kim-Chi Mi, Choi My Ryonk

THE HORSE SOLDIERS (Mirisch Company-United Artists, 1959)

Producer: John Lee Mahin, Martin Rackin

Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Mahin, Rackin, from the book by Harold Sinclair

Cast:John Wayne, William Holden, Constance Towers, Althea Gibson, Hoot

Gibson, Anna Lee, Russell Simpson, Willis Bouchey, Ken Curtis, Hank Wor-
den, Strother Martin

SERGEANT RUTLEDGE (Ford Productions-Warner Brothers, i960)

Producer: Patrick Ford, Willis Goldbeck
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Goldbeck, James Warner Bellah
XXXVIII FILMOGRAPHY

Cast: Jeffrey Hunter, Constance Towers, Woody Strode, Billie Burke, Juano
Hernandez, Willis Bouchey, Carleton Young, Mae Marsh

THE COLTER CRAVEN STORY (Revue Productions-MCA, i960) (Television

drama)
Producer: Howard Christie
Director: John Ford
Teleplay: Tony Paulson
Cast: Ward Bond, Carleton Young, Frank McGrath, Terry Wilson, John Car-

radine, Chuck Hayward, Ken Curtis, Anna Lee, Mae Marsh, Willis Bouchey

THE ALAMO (Batjac-United Artists, i960)

Producer: John Wayne
Direction: John Wayne (and second-unit, John Ford, uncredited)
Screenplay: James Edward Grant
Cast: John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey, Richard Boone,
Frankie Avalon, Patrick Wayne, Chill Wills, Linda Cristal, Ken Curtis

TWO RODE TOGETHER (Ford-Shpetner Productions-Columbia, 1961)

Producer: Stan Shpetner
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Frank S. Nugent, from the book Commanche Captives by Will
Cook
Cast: James Stewart, Richard Widmark, Shirley Jones, Linda Cristal, Andy
Devine, John Mclntire, Paul Birch, Willis Bouchey, Henry Brandon, Harry
Carey, Jr., Ken Curtis, Olive Carey, John Qualen, Anna Lee

THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (Ford Productions-Paramount,

1962)
Producer: Willis Goldbeck
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Goldbeck, James Warner Bellah, from a story by Dorothy
Johnson
Cast:James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Andy Devine, John Qualen,
Lee Marvin, Edmond O'Brien, Ken Murray, John Carradine, Carleton Young,
Woody Strode, Denver Pyle, Strother Martin, Lee Van Cleef
 FILMOGRAPHY XXXIX

FLASHING SPIKES (Avista Productions-Revue-MCA, 1962) (Television drama)

Associate producer: Frank Baur
Director: John Ford
Teleplay: Jameson Brewer, from a book by Frank O'Rourke
Cast: James Stewart, Jack Warden, Patrick Wayne, Edgar Buchanan, Tige An-
drews, Carleton Young, Willis Bouchey, Don Drysdale

HOW THE WEST WAS WON (Cinerama-MGM, 1962)

Producer: Bernard Smith
Director: John Ford, George Marshall, Henry Hathaway
Screenplay: James R. Webb, suggested by a series in Life

Cast (in Ford sequence, "The Civil War"): George Peppard, Carroll Baker,
Russ Tamblyn, Claude Johnson, Andy Devine, Willis Bouchey, Harry Mor-
gan, John Wayne, Raymond Massey

DONOVAN'S REEF (Ford Productions-Paramount, 1963)

Producer: John Ford
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Frank Nugent, James Edward Grant, from a story by Edmund
Beloin, adapted by James Michener
John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Cesar Romero, Elizabeth Allen, Jack Warden,
Cast:

Dorothy Lamour, Mike Mazurki, Marcel Dalio, Jacqueline Malouf

CHEYENNE AUTUMN (Ford-Smith Productions-Warner Brothers, 1964)

Producer: Bernard Smith
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: James R. Webb (and Patrick Ford, uncredited), from the book by
Mari Sandoz
Cast: Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, James Stewart, Edward G. Robinson,
Karl Malden, Sal Mineo, Dolores Del Rio, Ricardo Montalban, Gilbert Roland,
Arthur Kennedy, Patrick Wayne, Elizabeth Allen, John Carradine, Victor Jory,
Mike Mazurki, Ken Curtis, Harry Carey, Jr., Ben Johnson

YOUNG CASSIDY (Sextant Films-MGM, 1965)

Producer: Robert D. Graff, Robert Emmett Ginna
John Ford (two weeks of shooting)
Director: Jack Cardiff,

Screenplay: John Witing, from the book Mirror in My House by Sean O'Casey
X L FILMOGRAPHY

Cast: Rod Taylor, Maggie Smith, Julie Christie, Flora Robson, Sian Phillips,

Michael Redgrave, Dame Edith Evans, Jack MacGowran, T. P. McKenna

7 WOMEN (Ford-Smith Productions-MGM, 1966)

Producer: Bernard Smith
Director: John Ford
Screenplay: Janet Green, John McCormick, from a story by Norah Lofts

Cast: Anne Bancroft, Margaret Leighton, Flora Robson, Sue Lyon, Mildred
Dunnock, Betty Field, Anna Lee, Eddie Albert, Mike Mazurki, Woody Strode

VIETNAM! VIETNAM! (Ford Productions-USIA, 1972)

Producer: John Ford
Direction: Sherman Beck
Screenplay: John Ford, Thomas Duggan
JOHN FORD
INTERVIEWS
 . . ,

It's the "Little Things" That Count, Details

Essential, Says Jack Ford

BILLY LEYSER/1 920

"Every editor in the country agrees that The Three God-

fathers, recently presented to American fiction lovers through the medium of
a weekly magazine, was an excellent story with wonderful dramatic possibili-

ties; but . . these editors overlooked the fact that as a film subject it stood
out as a classic with unlimited possibilities.

"And," continued Jack Ford, Universal's great director, who is responsible

for the filming of the story under the title of Marked Men "it was the great
punches in the story which attracted me. I had Universal buy it, and, of
course, it fell to my lot to make a six-reel photoplay out of it with Harry
Carey as the star.

"The public has no idea of the work we had to do preparatory to filming

the story. It meant building the old-fashioned dance hall on the desert. It

meant long tedious days of struggle in the merciless sun on a sand-covered

waste. meant moving men, women, and children from up-to-date hotels
It

to the heart of a deserted country, and making them understand that they
were a part of the country and must act accordingly. It meant finding types,
the kind that would pass the closest scrutiny of the ever-critical public. And
it meant taking a six- weeks-old baby into this fringe of civilization to become
the pivot around which the story was woven.
". . (W)e took the opening reel in a penitentiary. There were no imitation
bars, only three imitation prisoners out of the 1,100 convicts shown in the
picture, and only one acting guard or 'head screw' shown in the great prison

From the Cleveland News January , 27, 1920.

4 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

scene. Into this atmosphere I had to take cameramen, lights, and . . . make
1,100 desperate men remember that they were really prisoners in the greatest

penitentiary of the West and act accordingly.

"In the second reel I had to find one man who dared risk his life for a

thrill, and I found him. His duty was to dash through the railing of a high
wooden bridge on a horse and fall sixty feet below in a shallow river. I had
six cameramen there to catch the scene from every angle. And I believe it

will stand as one of the most daring feats ever performed before a camera.
"I had to find a man who could handle a rifle so well that there could not
be a fraction of an inch mistake in his aim, for he shoots at Carey, who is

swimming a river, and the bullet is seen to hit just three inches from the
star's head.
"And then came a man who knew how to dynamite a safe. There were a
lot of amateurs about the country, but they wouldn't do. I had to have a
professional, and I borrowed him from the penitentiary. ... He had served
ten of his twenty years, but it seems he hadn't lost the old knack of 'cracking
a crib,' and the scene, as a result, is unusually realistic."

These things Jack Ford told me the other day when he spent a day with
me between trains on his way to the Coast, (and they) were just a few of the
details attendant upon making Marked Men one ,
of the best films Universal
has ever produced. . . .

Ford is a stickler for detail. No imitation whiskers are used by people act-
ing underhim to show the passing of time. He does not permit them to
shave when such a facial effect is needed. In fights there is a real battle, in
drinking liquor the real stuff is used, and at a dance the music really plays.

Ford himself becomes a part of the picture. He acts every scene for his
principals, and goes through every move for the minor actors in the cast. "In

everything I want realism," is months he

Ford's continual cry. . . . For two
studied the story before outlining any acting. Then he chose his cast, and
lastly he spent weeks finding locations. Then came the work, which con- . . .

sumed sixty days, with eight to fourteen hours of untiring acting and as a —
result came the masterpiece, Marked Men.
The photoplay is being shown this week at the Standard Theater and will
serve for those who study the intricate ins and outs of the movies as the
finest bit of directing seen in many a day.
Film Capitalizes Stage's Shortcomings,
Says Ford

LOS ANGELES EXAMINER/^ 925

''Now, about the future of motion pictures. You appreciate,

of course, that the industry is still in its infancy."
John Ford, unsung director of The Iron Horse, still the magnet drawing
matinee and nightly throngs to Grauman's Hollywood Theater, cleared his
throat, adjusted his horn-rimmed spectacles, drew in his chin and tried to

look as impressive as the newly elected president of a Chamber of Commerce

making his inaugural address.

"Much has been said about art in the making of pictures. We must have
bigger and better pictures . .
."

Not a smile betrayed him. He went through the platitudinous harangue

with the monotony of a phonograph record.
"The influence of the motion picture is tremendous. It offers the greatest

opportunity today. This year will be the greatest . .

."

But in this burlesque of the self-important director, John Ford gave him-
self away. Going through the recital without a change of expression was elo-
quent of the game spirit that provides amusement to old and young in The
Iron Horse. Life to him is an interesting game. Directing pictures provides
opportunity for a variety of maneuvers. It's a battle of wits.
"I like outdoor dramas best," said Ford. "On the stage, there is the voice
to carry a large share of the no opportunity for
drama. In pictures there is

the tonal gradations that convey such meaning on the stage. The compensat-
ing thrill comes in what the stage lacks —the 'long shots' that bring in a herd
From the Los Angeles Examiner, May 3, 1925.
6 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

of cattle, massive mountain peaks, a chain of waterfalls, or a huge mob of

men and women/'
"Then you believe the successful picture capitalizes on the limitations of
the stage?" was suggested.
The reply sounded like "exactly," but perhaps it was "bologna."
 , 6

John Ford, The Man behind The Informer

DOUGLAS W. C H U R C H I L L / 1 9 3

With the best-picture-of-the-year discussion engaging

both coasts and with the probability that the academy will be forced into
naming The Informer as the most distinguished offering and John Ford as the

outstanding director of the season, the town is beginning to ask questions

about both the film and the man who wielded the megaphone.
Known as a "sleeper/' one of those pictures that are made and released
without even their own lot being aware of it, any vagueness concerning the
film is understandable. Not so clear is Hollywood ’s ignorance of John Ford,
born Sean O'Fienne in Portland, Me., who for twenty-two years has been one
of the most colorful figures in the industry.
To say that the academy is being "forced" into naming these two is, in a
sense, a little unkind. Still, that body never has been noted for going far

beyond its ranks when honors were to be awarded. RKO-Radio, where the
picture was made, is not a strong academy lot and votes often are cast in that
organization according to payrolls. Ford is not an academy member. At least

he thinks he isn't. "I think I was for a couple of months," he said, "but when
I saw what it looked like, I didn't bother." Aside from the merit of the pro-
duction and its maker, the academy can hardly overlook the action this week
of the New York Film Critics nor the anticipated vote of the Writers' and
Actors' Guilds.

Getting Victor McLaglen to play the role of Gypo Nolan was probably the

From the New York Times January 5, 1936. © 1936 by the New York Times. Reprinted by
permission.
 ,

8 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

hardest part of the picture for Ford. McLaglen read the book and, after rather
ponderous consideration, remained dubious. But, by shrewd salesmanship,
Ford convinced him that he was born to the part. "Physically and mentally
he was the informer," Ford now says. Then he added, "Just make that 'physi-
"
cally.'

That line is indicative of Ford. He is one of the most difficult men in town
to interview. Graced with a rich, deep wit, he constantly says things he
shouldn't and makes remarks about local idols that would result in his exile
should they be printed. Separating the discreet from the indiscreet is a report-
er's problem. Ford is aware of this and constantly follows some delectable
barb, with the admonition "But don't say so." His comments on actors as a
breed would probably inspire one of the most enthusiastic lynchings the
West has known.
On the set he is kind and considerate —except when he's aroused. Then
he resorts to sarcasm and, if this is ineffective, he explodes. A feminine star

of some magnitude was in one of his pictures. She began dictating certain
phases of the production. Ford stopped her and said, "I was hired to direct

this picture. What were you hired for?" Nothing was heard from her during
the balance of the film.
The man has a fine contempt for the ostentation and fictitious values of

Hollywood. Some fifteen years ago he built a comfortable home near the
center of Hollywood and he still lives in it, which is something of a local

record. Then his salary was nominal; now he is one of the highest paid direc-

tors in the business. He hasn't a swimming pool, but this Christmas he says

he "went Hollywood": he got a ping-pong table for his two children. He

thinks Beverly Hills is a very funny place.

He has no intimates among the celebrities of the town. When he wants a

social evening, he gets hold of his head gaffer or a couple of carpenters. He

likes to associate with reporters providing they don't talk about Hollywood.
He cuts his pictures himself. He says it is the only way for a director to get

acceptable material on the screen. At the moment he is at Twentieth Cen-

tury-Fox making The Prisoner of Shark Island and he is a little worried. He
understands that Darryl Zanuck cuts all pictures there. "It has some of the
" "but more Hollywood." He
qualities of The Informer he says, it's resolves

everything into "Hollywood" or "non-Hollywood." He laughs at the town

probably more than any other resident.
"A lot of legends have grown up about The Informer he says. "I'm sorry
 DOUGLAS W. C H U R C H I L L / 1 9 3 6 9

because they're not true. They say that McLaglen was tricked into doing
some of the scenes. That's absurd. Vic is a superb actor. Anything he looks at

he can play. He believes in realirm on the screen, and he has ideas. That may
account for the stories that have been circulated about the sequences in
which Gypo was befogged by liquor. But they're untrue. In those shots where
he tried to remember Frankie McPhillips's name, Vic didn't learn his lines
until the last minute. That put realism into his delivery.
"Vic isn't one of those Trocadero actors. That probably accounts for some
of the local attitude. He lives his own life as he wants to, and he hasn't any-
thing to do with the Hollywood crowd. As an actor, he's tops. I hope he gets

the academy award. He deserves it.

"As for The Informer Hollywood didn't even

,
know we made it. The news-
paper boys around the country pounded away on it and started the public

going to see it. They're the ones who made it a financial success."
John Ford: Fighting Irish

EMANUEL E I S E N B E R G / 1 9 3 6

Mr. Ford wasn't in to anybody, the information clerk assured

me; the secretary had just told him so. But I had been granted an appoint-
ment the day before. The clerk shrugged and called the secretary again. All
right, I could go in the office, and he pressed a releasing button with an
expression that said: for all the good it'll do you.
The secretary was extremely considerate and greatly concerned for my
sanity. See Mr. Ford today ? Did I know that he was making tests of Hepburn?
That the filming of Mary of Scotland was to begin the day after tomorrow?
She could conceive of no urgency impressive enough for disturbing him.
I walked on the mock-streets of the enclosed studio What city. Deserted.
would I do with the morning? I had made no more than two turns when
suddenly, incredibly, there stood the unobtainable Mr. Ford, chatting lei-

surely with a couple of men. It was too good, too much like the mechanical
ending of a joke with an over-heavy build-up. I managed to catch his eye; he
winked in recognition; we strolled over to the office; Dudley Nichols soon
joined us; and we sat for almost two hours in an easy, informal, wandering
talk.

I offer the preliminary details of the meeting simply because they are so
representative of the man Ford, his style and his methods. In the middle of
an abnormally busy day he had found time to hang around on the sidewalk
for some gossip. Officially he could be located or approached by no one in
the studio, yet a stranger wandering illegitimately around the lot might

From New Theatre, April 1936, 7, 42.

bump into him and him away from schedule for a period. He had
attract

warned me that I would be lucky if I could talk to him for five consecutive
minutes as he went about his work; but the non-giver of interviews found
New Theatre and its point of view so challenging that he stretched five min-
utes to 120 and extended a further invitation to come down to the set next
week and watch him direct (something Dudley Nichols described as a dis-

tinct rarity).

For Ford is Irish and a fighter. He has fought for this way of living within
the film industry as he has had to fight for the stories that interested him
and the methods he believed in.

Pictures like The Informer do not come into existence lightly. To the frantic

but still hopeful devote its appearance —or the appearance of any other film
on such a high level — is revelation, oasis and consummation, a sudden re-

ward in the stoical pilgrimage of picture-going; but to one whose eyes have
been exposed ever so briefly to the mechanics and finances of Hollywood
production, the sheer physical emergence of The Informer is a small miracle.
"After all, there's nothing surprising about the difficulty of doing things
you yourself believe in in the movies," he said, "when you consider that
you're spending someone else's money. And a lot of money. And he wants a
lot of profit on it. That's something you're supposed to worry about, too."
"Trouble is, most of them can't imagine what'll make them money out-
side of what's already been made and what's already made them money be-
fore."

"Exactly! That's why it's a constant battle to do something fresh. First they
want you to repeat your last picture. You talk 'em down. Then they want you
to continue whatever vein you succeeded in with the last picture. You're a
comedy director or a spectacle director or a melodrama director. You show
'em you've been each of these in turn, and effectively, too. So they grant you
range. Another time they want you to knock out something another studio's
gone and cleaned up with. Like a market. Got to fight it every time. Never
any point where you can really say you have full freedom for your own ideas
to go ahead with."
"How do you explain such a crazy setup?" I asked. "By block booking?
The star system? The fact that it's first an industry and second an art?"

"I used to blame it largely on the star system," the large genial Irishman
told me. "They've got the public so that they want to see one favorite perfor-
mer in anything at all. But even that's being broken down. You don't think
12 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

The Informer went over because of McLaglen, do you? Personally, I doubt it.

It was because it was about something. Pm no McLaglen fan, you know. And
do you know how close The Informer came to being a complete flop? It was
considered one, you know—until you fellows took it up. You fellows made
that picture. And that's what the producers are going to learn, are already
learning, in fact: there's a new kind of public that warns more honest pic-

tures. They've got to give 'em to 'em."

"How do you think they'll go about it?" I wanted to know. "That is, if

they go about it at all."

"Oh, they will," he assured me. "They've got to turn over picture-making
into the hands that know it. Combination of author and director running
the works: that's the ideal. Like Dudley Nichols and me. Or Riskin and
Capra."
The point startled me. "I thought directors were running the works com-
pletely now."
Ford snorted, amused. "Oh, yeah? Do you know anything about the way
they're trying to break directorial power now? To reduce the director to a

man who just tells actors where to stand?" He proceeded to describe a typical
procedure at four of the major studios today. The director arrives at nine in
the morning. He has not only never been consulted about the script to see

whether he likes it or feels fitted to handle it but may not even know what
the full story is about. They hand him two pages of straight dialogue or finely
calculated action. Within an hour or less he is expected to go to work and
complete the assignment the same day, all the participants and equipment
being prepared for him without any say or choice on his part. When he
leaves at night, he has literally no idea what the next day's work will be.

"And is that how movies are going to be made now?" I asked, incredulous.
"Like a Ford car?"
He smiled wryly. "Not if the Screen Directors Guild can help it, boy. Hang
around and watch some fireworks."
This Guild, of which Ford is one of the most embattled members, if and
when it aligns itself with the Screen Actors Guild and the Screen Writers
Guild, a not too distant possibility, will offer the autocratic money interests
of the movies the most serious challenge of organization they have known
to date.
Talk shifted to The Informer. Ford spoke of the great difficulty of persuad-
ing the studio that it ought to be tackled at all. He and Nichols arranged to
 EMANUEL E I S E N B E R G / 1 9 3 6 1 3

take a fraction of their normal salaries for the sheer excitement of the ven-
ture; also, of course, to cut down production cost. Now, of course, the studio

takes all the credit for the acclaim and the extraordinary number of second

runs and for the Motion Picture Academy award —although Dudley Nichols's
formal rejection of the award created considerable ructions. Nichols, it need
scarcely be added, is one of the leading spirits of the Screen Writers Guild.
But what about the ending of the picture? I asked. Wasn't that a conces-

sion? So many of the criticisms had objected to it. Yes, said Ford, it was a

compromise: the plan had been to show Gypo dying alone on the docks, and
this had been just a little too much for the producers. Still, the religious
ending was so much in keeping with the mystical Irish temperament, Ford
maintained, that it was pretty extreme to characterize it as superimposed
sentimentality.

How about more such pictures? What were the chances?

"If you're thinking of a general run of social pictures, or even just plain
honest ones, it's almost hopeless. The whole financial set-up is against it.

What you'll get is an isolated courageous effort here and there. The thing to

do is to encourage each man who's trying, the way you fellows have done.
Look at Nichols and me. We did The Informer. Does that make it any easier to

go ahead with O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars which we want to do after

Mary of Scotland? Not for a second. They may let us do it as a reward for being
good boys. Meanwhile we're fighting to have the Abbey Players imported
intact and we're fighting the censors and fighting the so-called financial wiz-

ards at ever point."

"Actually tackling social themes would be marvelous, of course," I put in

at this point. "But what seems to us almost as important right now is to give
the straight version of any aspect of life the movies do choose to handle. To
avoid distortion and misrepresentation in favor of one interest or another.
Don't you think that can be managed within this set-up?"
"It can and should!" he exclaimed. "And it's something I always try to do.

I remember a few years ago, with the Judge Priest picture, putting in an anti-

lynching plea that was one of the most scorching things you ever heard.
They happened to cut it, purely for reasons of space, but I enjoyed doing that
enormously. And there can be more things like that."

"Then you do believe, as a director, in including your point of view in a

picture about things that bother you?"
 He looked me as if to question the necessity of an answer. Then: "What
at

the hell else does a man live for?"

Ford, who is on record as having directed about a hundred pictures, selects
Men Without Women as his favorite. His desire is to do a film about the men
and women workers in the wings of film production; they are the only peo-
ple in "the industry" who interest him at all. That this is not remotely near
being the affectation it may sound like to some is attested by Dudley Nichols,
who admires John Ford as one of the most fearless, honest, and gifted men
in Hollywood. Ford's house, says Nichols, is the same one he has lived in for
fifteen years now; it has never occurred to him to "gold it up" or change it.

No movie star or executive may ever be found visiting it. Electricians, prop-

erty men, and cameramen are the people invariably hanging around —and
in this choice of unprominent and unsung companions may very well be
found the key to the fighting Irishman's life as a clear-eyed craftsman.
 ,

The Star Creators of Hollywood

HOWARD SHARPE/19 3 6

Out at RKO ;
just now, a company is making that symphony
of courage and hate and love called Plough and the Stars under the direction
of one Sean O'Fienne —a whose beautiful name was
tall and typical Irishman
Anglicized by an unfeeling Saxon people to Jack Feeney and later changed
by himself (he is a simple man) to John Ford. I chose him as the object of my
first bombardment of questions because he made The Informer which is the ,

greatest motion picture ever filmed, and because in himself he represents all
that is the best of Hollywood and its industry.
The set I walked into was an entire section of Dublin enclosed by a sound
stage; from the asphalt studio street to the cobblestones of this Irish square

was only a step or two, but the difference in mood was an ocean and eight
thousand miles.
. . . '"How?" I asked him. "How do you do these things? I want to know
how you get your effects, what your technique is, all your methods, whether
you work more with camera than with sound, what you do about casting,
what you do with a bad script, how you direct a picture everything." —
He didn't even flinch. Sitting there, striking match after match, his hair
rumpled by thoughtful fingers, he started, surprisingly, at the beginning.
The routine of his first efforts on any picture is of course dependent on
the circumstances, the type of story, the particular stars who are scheduled
to work in it.

From Photoplay, vol. 50, no. 41, 1936, 14-15, 98-100. Reprinted in Richard Griffith, The Talk-
ies: Articles and Illustrations from a Great Fan Magazine, 1928-1940. NY: Dover, 1971, 167, 333—
37. Reprinted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc.
 ——

"When they gave me Mary of Scotland to do, my first thought was of Hep-
burn," Ford said, with only a trace of brogue in his voice. "She was already
set for the role, and it wasn't as if she were just any talented pretty young
actress who could be dressed in anything and photographed casually. In that
case the primary problem was the star and we had to solve it before we could
start on story or script.
"I asked the studio for a print of every picture Katharine had ever made
Bill of Divorcement, Morning Glory ,
Little Women ,
Alice Adams, all of them
and then I called in the wardrobe department and set men and the story
adaptors; together we looked up portraits and old woodcuts of the period
costumes Mary, Queen of Scots, wore, and photographs of the rooms in her
castle. We sketched gowns and ruffs, we planned backgrounds and settings

in rough outline.
"When we had some sort of working basis for departure, we locked our-
selves in a projection room and, one each night so long as they lasted, ran
the Hepburn pictures. We studied every angle of her strange, sharp face —the
chiseled nose, the mouth, the long neck —and then adjusted the sketches to
fit her personality. We planned photographic effects, decided how best to
light her features and what make-up to use in order to achieve for her a
genuine majesty."
He paused to relight the inevitable Ford pipe. "After that was time enough
to worry about the story."
"Usually I take the story," he told me, "and get every line of printed mate-
rial I can find on the subject. And then I take the boat and simply cruise until

I've read it all.

"I eat, sleep and drink whatever picture I'm working on —read nothing
else, think of nothing else; which is probably the reason the continuity and
mood of my products stay at an exact level."

. . . Seated across the stained, round table in the prop Dublin pub —with
the tangible mood of fog enclosing the windows and the smell of onions and
old beer heavy in the air, he analyzed, in a detached good-natured voice, the
elements that make him 1936's ace of directors.

Casting was first, and of supreme importance. "After all," Ford said, sitting

back, "you've got to tell your story through the people who portray it. You
can have a weak, utterly bad script —and a good cast will turn it into a good
picture. I've thwarted more than one handicap of that kind with the aid of
two or three really fine actors.
 —
HOWARD SHARPE/1936 1 7

"With the exception of the stars who are signed for parts by the studio in
advance, I insist on choosing names for myself. And I spend more time on
that task than on any other."
. . . McLaglen is the classic example of this premise. "The studio spent
weeks trying to foist better known heavies on me," Ford went on, "but I
knew Vic could do the job, and I knew I could handle him exactly as I wanted
to. I won in the end —
and you saw the performance he gave."
But the strongest forte of Ford is his selection of bit players. You may have
noticed in his pictures the constantly recurring faces of ex-celebrities, men
and women who once rode the crest of the Hollywood wave and who have,
through various adversities, but mostly because of changing public opinion,
been relegated to the motion picture backwash. These people he hires for
two reasons: one based on objective intelligence, one on mere subjective
sentiment.
"From my chair as a director," he said seriously, "I'm able to see that these
ex-stars will, after all, give a better performance even in the smallest part
than any casual extra would; and it's my contention that the bits in any
picture are just as important as the starring role, since they round out the
story —complete the atmosphere—make the whole plausible. You've seen,
certainly, a good many really fine scenes spoiled suddenly by a background
player who is obviously reciting his lines, or blundering awkwardly through
his action. I won't have that. A woman walking down a street, while people
like Barbara Stanwyck and Preston Foster create a love scene, must walk as
well and as naturally as a star would do it, or the effect is lost."

He paused moment, and then grinned. "The other, and just as im-
for a

portant reason, is that when I was starting in this town those people were
kind to me. I want to repay a little of that if it's in my power."
On Ford's private lists are one hundred names not all of the once great —
from which he picks his cast for every picture he directs. Always the same
people, always the same results; they know his techniques and his wishes,
they are capable and hard-working. To my knowledge it's the only list of its
kind in the movie colony.
They help, too, these people, in the building of story. "A good mcmy of
the most outstanding incidents I have filmed have been things that members
of the company have actually seen or actually done during their lives. For
these pictures that deal with the Irish uprising I've looked up former black-
and-tan soldiers, former rebels, former onlookers, and given them parts; it
18 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

adds to the sincerity because in the mass demonstration scenes they remem-
ber their own experiences and have real tears in their eyes —and every now
and then some extra will offer a suggestion that lends to the authenticity of
the production.
"Some of them —Arthur Shields for instance—were really in the Dublin
post office when it fell. They were in this pub we've reproduced when the
call came to mobilize. I talk with them all informally, and get their opinions,
and listen to their anecdotes, and as a result get a better picture."

Which explains, in a measure, some of the superlative effects that have

startled you in the multiple John Ford productions you have seen. You re-
member, of course, the unforgettable scene in The Informer where the boy is
shot and drops lifeless from a window, while in the agonizing silence his

fingernails scratch loose down the wooden sill: one of the extras in the In-

former company had watched (and heard) that happen at some lost time in
his life, and had carried the memory of it through the years until the day

came for Ford to use it.

"That particular sequence almost caused me a lot of trouble." The pipe
quivered with Ford's laughter. "There was a convention of producers being
held at the time, so the rushes were sent up for them to see one afternoon; I

asked them what they thought of the scene —and they told me it was all

right, not to worry because the sound department could cut out the unfortu-
nate sound of the scratching nails! I'm really afraid I insulted them a little

during the next five minutes."

. . . Ford was in Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese war (he recounted this
to me as if he were discussing a bridge game) and found time during a partic-

ularly cluttered afternoon to see and store away this amusing slice of experi-
ence. Shells, as he remembers it, were bursting like exaggerated fireworks
over the narrow streets of the old city, and he stood sheltered in a doorway
while bits of metal whizzed down at comet speed. Suddenly, around a corner,
a plump Chinese nobleman came running —retarded by his heavy silks and
splendid trappings, tripping and terrified. His attendants lay dead beside his
overturned sedan chair in the street behind; the sky was bursting; and there
was no place of refuge.

Then, as an exceptionally huge shell boomed overhead, he stopped short,

looked up, and with a quick motion opened his painted umbrella.
He lifted it above his head, took a long breath of relief.

In his new safety he waddled sedately down the sidewalk and out of sight.
 —
HOWARD SHARPE/1936 1 9

Ford shot that scene, translated of course to the mood and circumstance
of the Dublin neighborhood, on the afternoon I was there.

. . .[T]his unpretentious Irishman works with a camera as a 1936 Aladdin

would work with his lamp; he carries under contract —year after year—one
super-cameraman named Joe August, and since the two of them work upon
the same basic premise, and since both follow mentally the same artistic

groove so far as motion pictures are concerned, between them they manage
to achieve a special end that no other director, and no other technician, has
managed to reach in all the years Hollywood has been a movie center. Joe is

allowed to dream as much as he likes, and insofar as common sense will

allow, photograph as he likes —a system which, according to Ford, helps Joe
to feel that he really has something to work toward and a responsibility of
his own; not deliberate psychology, perhaps, but good.
Sound is of secondary importance to Ford, but nevertheless of great conse-
quence. Forty percent of the time (and this will amaze you) he uses a silent
camera without even a mike for moral persuasion on the set.

''In the first place I can talk to my people while a scene is shooting," he
explained, "and give them suggestions about expression or movement; as a
result I don't have to make so many takes. I've discovered that if you rehearse

a scene too much it looks artificial and —well, rehearsed.

"Lighting, as a matter of fact, is my strong point. I can take a thoroughly
mediocre bit of acting, and build points of shadow around a ray of strong
light centered on the principals, and finish with something plausible
anyway that's my one boast. If you'll watch in any of my pictures you'll see
the trick I use for special effect: while the stars are running through their
lines a diffused glow settles over the background assemblage, which at the
same time begins to murmur and then to talk intelligibly. And the louder the
voices, the stronger the glow, until the main actors are merely part of a group
and the general realism is achieved. It always works. Good technique is to let
a spot follow a bit player with an important line or two of dialogue across a
shadowed set until his part of the scene is finished too."
So far as the industry — as an industry— is concerned, he has pretty definite
opinions. "Just now we're in a commercial cul de sac/' he complains mildly.
"We have time schedules, we are ordered to direct a certain story in a certain
way because that's what the middle-west wants and after all the middle-west
has all the money. But the profession on the whole is progressing steadily.
Actors are getting to be better actors, technicians are learning more about
20 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

their trade every day, and the success of such simple deathless portraits as

'The Informer' is making it easier for those who have ideals about pictures,
to make demands in the interest of their convictions.
blasting
"Eventually motion pictures will all be in color, because it's a success and
because it's medium. And we'll go out to a Maine fishing port or to
a natural

an Iowa hill and employ ordinary American citizens we find living and work-
ing there, and we'll plan a little story, and we'll photograph the scene and
the people. That's all pictures should do anyway, and it'll be enough.''
Agree with him, or not; but in his very definite statement you must dis-

cover the essence of his personality, both as a man and as a director. Simplic-

ity, real sincerity, hatred of ostentation: greatness.

 —

The Rebels, If They Stay Up This Time, Won't

Be Sorry for Hollywood's Trouble

MICHEL MOK/1939

John Ford and Dudley Nichols, the iconoclasts who dared to

make The Informer, a movie that cost only $218,000 (about one-tenth the
expense of the usual super-super) and yet earned scads of money, are up to
their old tricks. They've finished a new one, Stagecoach, at a total outlay of

$250,000.
"In Hollywood," said Mr. Ford, the director, "that's considered the price
of a good cigar."

"We're all set," said Mr. Nichols, the scenarist, "to revolutionize the in-

dustry again."
A few years ago the Messrs. Ford and Nichols created a sensation by con-
suming three weeks and less than a quarter million in turning out their mas-
terful, forthright screen version of Liam O'Flaherty's saga of Gypo Nolan, the
Judas of the Dublin slums.
The picture, you remember, was an artistic and financial success. Critics
predicted that it would mark the end of elaborate, insipid screen slush, start
a vogue for simple, direct, intelligent film drama. The "revolution" raged
and died —in the movie columns. The producers continued to crank out the
same old elaborate, insipid slush.

"Yes, sir, comes another revolution," said Mr. Ford, "provided, of course,
that the picture is ever released."

From the New York Post, January 24, 1939. © r939 by the New York Post Holdings, Inc. Re-

printed with permission from the New York Post.

 "We're particularly attached to this one," said Mr. Nichols, "because it

violates all the censorial canons."

"There's not a single respectable character in the cast," said Mr. Ford.
"The leading man has killed three guys."

"The leading woman is a prostitute," said Mr. Nichols.

"There's a banker in it who robs his own bank," said Mr. Ford.
"And don't forget the pregnant woman who faints," said Mr. Nichols.
"Or the fellow who gets violently ill," said Mr. Ford.
This pleasant opus, the members of the writer-director team explained, is

based on "Stage to Lordsburg," a short story by Ernest Haycox. Conceived in

the “Boule de Suif"-‘ Grand Hotel" tradition, it shows the experiences of eight
people accidentally thrown together on a stagecoach ride from Ronto, Ariz.,

to Lordsburg, N.M.
"It's a simple, intimate little thing," said Mr. Ford. "It isn't even colossal
in a small way. It's completely devoid of what the reviewers call 'great direc-
"
torial touches.'

"You needn't look for any great writing, either," said Mr. Nichols. "I wrote

the plainest kind of dialogue — just the way those guys and gals talk without
those sudden, inexplicable flights of poetry in the conversation."
Mr. Ford, whose real name is Sean O'Fienne, and Mr. Nichols, whose real

name is Dudley Nichols, have come East for a holiday.

Ford, who will spend his vacation in his native, Maine, is a fellow with a
huge, grayish face, thin grayish hair, rumpled gray clothes, horn-rimmed
specs and an unfragrant pipe. Mr. Nichols, who used to be a reporter for the
old Evening Post and The World, is tall and slim, with a pink aquiline face and
a maestro mop of prematurely gray hair.
"It would be a good thing," said Mr. Ford, "if the producers would get
into the habit of making inexpensive pictures. They could turn out twelve
films like Stagecoach in a year instead of two like Marie Antoinette. Think of
the work such a policy would give to the people out there. Conditions are
awful. Do you realize that an extra, who makes from $7.50 to $11 a day, gets
an average of two days' work a month?"
"It would be swell, too, from another point of view," said Mr. Nichols.

"With a smaller investment, the producers wouldn't need to please such

huge masses of people and watch their P's and Q's so carefully. The old bro-
mide that money talks doesn't hold in Hollywood. In the movies, a million
dollars can't raise its voice."
 MICHEL MOK/1 939 2 3

A great many horses were used in Stagecoach , and Mr. Ford was proud of
the fact that not one of the animals was injured on location.

'The S.P.C.A.," he said, "watched us every minute, and a good thing, too.

They raised all kinds of hell with Darryl Zanuck for what was supposed to
have happened to the horses in Jesse James. The only creature hurt in making
our picture was a press agent who got in the way of a posse. Fortunately,
there's no society for the prevention of cruelty to press agents."
This reminded Mr. Ford of an incident that occurred on location during
the filming of a picture he directed a couple of years ago.
"We were shooting in the desert near Yuma, Ariz.," he said. "It was about
150 in the shade, and not a day went by that some actor, cameraman, or
electrician didn't keel over from the heat.
"That made for a lot of delay, and the producer, in his air-cooled Holly-
wood office, was frothing at the mouth with rage. Day after day he sent us
furious wires. We ignored them. Finally, he decided to come out and see for

himself what was up. He arrived by plane in a complete tropical outfit, pith
helmet and all.

"The moment he blew into town he sent for me, but I was busy in the
cutting room and couldn't go to the hotel until twenty minutes later. When
I got there, the producer had disappeared. They'd taken him to the hospital.
Yep. Heat prostration."
 ,

John Ford Wants It Real

FRANK DA U G H E RTY / 1 9 4 1

John Ford has worked in motion pictures for thirty years. A

list merely of the titles of his "hit" pictures would take several long para-

graphs. But consider some of the pictures he has directed in the past two
years, beginning with Young Mr. Lincoln running through Stagecoach Drums ,

Along the Mohawk The , Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home, and now,
Tobacco Road.
I am not sure that any director in Hollywood can show a comparable
group of pictures directed in so short a time; and perhaps only Frank Capra
has directed pictures that even compare to them, directed over a much
longer period.
John Ford's position in Hollywood is as secure as anyone's could be; yet
he is almost the antithesis of all that Hollywood stands for to the public

generally and to the casual visitor to the place. He has lived with his family
in the same house in the center of Hollywood for more than twenty years.
He has never been inside a Hollywood night club. Except Henry Fonda, with
whom he became acquainted when both were working on Young Mr. Lincoln,
he counts few stars among his close personal friends. His intimates, constant
visitors to his home, fellow travelers with him on his yacht, are apt to be

technicians on his pictures, bit players, a writer or two.

"Nearly everyone," he says, "wants to write about the thing he knows

This article first appeared in The Christian Science Monitor on June 2i, 1941, and is reproduced
with permission. Copyright i94r The Christian Science Publishing Society. All rights re-

served.
 FRANK D A U G H E R T Y / 1 9 4 1 2 5

nothing about. The story of Hollywood has never been told. The real people
in Hollywood walk around the streets, the studios, and the sets by the hun-
dreds, and no one pays any attention to them. There are more stories to the

square foot in Hollywood than in any other place on earth, I believe; there

are more interesting and real people here. There is more drama, and com-
edy —and tragedy, too ..."
He is attracted almost sentimentally to the problems of the underprivi-
leged: but his pictures never preach, never try with sermons to make you
appreciative of the problem. He presents it cinematically, and lets you draw
your own conclusions. He laughs a little today when you ask him if he has
joined the ranks of the social reformers.
"You're judging me by two or three pictures," he answers. "Twenty years
ago people asked me if was always going to direct westerns, because made
I I

a couple of dozen westerns. Later I was called a comedy director because I

directed comedies. When some of my pictures came along with tragic end-
ings, people said I directed only somber subjects. Now they say am trying I

to get S.S. into them."

"S.S.?"

"Social significance. Let 'em find it there if they want to. But I don't spend
any time looking for it myself. When make a picture,
I I try to find people I

like in situations that I think are dramatic. The 'oakies' were dramatic. So
were those O'Neill characters in The Long Voyage Home. So were those people
in the stagecoach going to Lordsburg through the Apache country. That's all

there is to it . .
."

John Ford, like Frank Capra, has worked out his best pictures with a single
writer —in this case, Dudley Nichols. It was Nichols who turned out the
scripts for Stagecoach, The Hurricane, The Informer, The Plough and the Stars,

The Long Voyage Home. Nunnally Johnson did his scripts for The Grapes of
Wrath and Tobacco Road.
"I've got a whole lot of respect for the people who go to see motion pic-
tures," John Ford says. "I think we ought to make pictures in their language."
 —

New York Close-Up

TEX McCRARY AND JINX

FALKENBERG/1952

Like Ernest Hemingway, Rear Admiral "Jack" Ford has

tried to live up to the fiction he has created or translated onto film —and has
many a scar to prove how hard he tried:

He squeezes two foam-rubber bones in his left hand while relaxing

therapy for atrophy of the muscles in that arm, souvenir of a machine-gun
bullet he picked up in the Battle of Midway.
He wears sun glasses even indoors in New York—partial coverup for an
almost useless left eye, another souvenir of World War II.

During an interview, when his ears are cocked to catch the questions, he
points the right ear at you —the left ear went dead on him in North Africa.

Only a war could inflict casualties on Jack Ford —he proved too durable
for the normal ravages of Hollywood. "Yes, I have had the same cook for

sixteen years, the same pair of house slippers for twenty-eight, the same wife
for thirty-two, the same house for thirty-one — it's only my bottle of gin that
I have replaced every other evening!"
We stopped taking notes on the last part of that quote, Ford laughed.
"It's perfectly all right to print that —my friends know I have been on the
wagon since '40."
Prior to that, his evenings were sometimes legendary. Not a man to
knuckle under to convention, Ford never managed to be present at the Acad-
emy Award dinners at which he was awarded Oscars —three of them.
From the New York Herald Tribune, August 17, 1952. 1 + © . 1952 by the New York Times. Re-

printed by permission.
 TEX McCRARY AND JINX F A L K E N B E R G / 1 9 5 2 2 7

''What happened? Simple. Once I went fishing. Another time there was a
war on . . . and on another occasion, I remember, I was suddenly taken
drunk!"
Ford's early days in Hollywood conditioned him for combat. He followed
his older brother, Francis, who was a director and, as Frank Ford, a male serial

star. Frank put Jack to work as a prop boy in cliff-hangers, but when stunt
men balked at some of the rough stuff the script called for, Frank shamed
them by yelling:
"You call that dangerous! Why my kid brother could do it!"
To prove how safe it was, Jack was blown out of a tent, crashed a car after
it was blasted by a land mine planted by Brother Frank, dived six stories from
a freight car into a lake, etc. The only time a stunt sent Jack to the hospital

was during the filming of a Civil War sequence, in which he doubled for the
leading man. Frank set his camera for a closeup, and lobbed a smoke-bomb
right under Jack's feet —a real Purple Heart!
Nineteen years later, Jack got even. Frank was cast in a John Ford movie
this time, wearing a uniform and whiskers of a Confederate soldier, sitting

on a wheelbarrow on the porch of a general store, chewing tobacco and spit-

ting into the dusty street. Slyly, Jack had the wheelbarrow hitched to the axle
of the buckboard in which the heroine was to make an escape from the vil-

lain. Jack still cherishes the memory of his brother's green face
— "he swal-
lowed the tobacco plug" —as the heroine whipped her horses down the
street, with Brother Frank hanging onto the wheelbarrow in a swirl of dust
and gravel.

"The score was finally even!"

The John Ford "stock company" of stars includes many famous, weather-
beaten faces —Victor McLaglen, Thomas Mitchell, Barry Fitzgerald, Ward
Bond —and the most famous of them now is a one-time prop boy who fol-

lowed Ford's pattern in Chapter One of his career.

"I had to shoot the escape of two sailors from a submarine. It was a raging
sea, and my two so-called stunt men said the trick was much too dangerous
and wouldn't touch it. A sixty-four-year-old Irishman volunteered to try it,

and I looked around for a husky partner. I spotted a big guy who worked in
props, and I yelled at him, 'Hey, Duke, get in there!' Without hesitating, he
shucked off his clothes, made we used
a clean dive off the side of the tanker
for a camera ship and played the scene with all the confidence of a swimmer

who thinks he can stretch out and touch bottom. I took a good look at him
28 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

and decided he was quite a boy —or quite a man—and pretty soon he was
coming along so fast as an we decided it was time for him to have
actor, a

professional name. That's when we traded in 'Duke Morrison' for 'John

"
Wayne.'
Ford took his whole "stock company" to Ireland to shoot The Quiet Man,
but the strangest assignment he ever gave them was to play "pitchmen" for
Senator Taft, on television and in Chicago.
"Of course I worked to get the nomination for Taft, but I never could have
voted for him. My father, bless him, would have sent me a sudden, swift

message all the way from Heaven if he learned I had deserted the Demo-
crats!"
 ,

John Ford Accords an Exclusive Interview

to Cinemonde

JEAN MITRY/1 955

That morning, John Ford, still in bed, nevertheless invited

me to come upstairs, granting Cinemonde the benefit of a private interview.

His wife, while showing me into the luxurious apartment that the family
occupies in the Royal Monceau, apologizes for her morning attire.

Mrs. Ford: "We were out very late last night. Paris is so marvelous and
there is so much to see!"
But a gruff voice thunders from the other room.
Ford: "Come in! We are all in the family here, come in! It doesn't matter!"
Square-shouldered, stocky, youthfully sporting his sixty years, John Ford
is finishing up taking in the morning news. An enormous cigar serves as an
appetizer while breakfast is being prepared in the next room.
Ford: "Take one, will you?"
He holds out the box of cigars and I abandon my Gauloise for a comfort-
able Henry Clay. But here comes a young woman in a bathrobe and ba-
bouches. Then it's a tall guy's turn, very "leading man," who follows her in
the same attire.

Ford: "My daughter Barbara. Mon gendre. C'est bien 'gendre,' n'est-
ce-pas? Je parle si peu frangais oui, oui. . . ." ("My son-in-law. It's 'gendre'
isn't it? I speaks so little French, yes, yes. . . .")

We exchange a few words, half-French, half-English with Ken Curtis and

his ravishing wife, who presses her father to get up. Breakfast is ready.

From Cinemonde January 14-20, 1955. Reprinted by permission of Janine Mitry. Translated
from French by Jenny Lefcourt.
 Ford: "Ok, ok, I'm coming! I came on a trip to Europe to rest and show
my wife and my children Paris. It's the first time that they have crossed the
ocean! We just spent a few days in Rome, and we are leaving the day after
tomorrow for London. I don't have a minute to myself! Montmartre, Mont-
parnasse, the Louvre, Notre-Dame, Versailles. These kids want to see every-
thing."
Barbara: "And we won't see everything!" (Barbara excuses herself to go get
dressed.)

Then a third person in a bathrobe appears, corpulent, greying.

Ford: "My cousin, the English director Brian Desmond Hurst. We are
going to make a film together in Ireland, a little production of our own, for
the pleasure. Three Irish stories. He will make one, I will make the two others,
unless we are three, I don't know yet. Ah! I have to get dressed. Barbara! No,
she isn't here . . . Excuse me a minute. ..."

Desmond Hurst and I go to chat in the room next door. Desmond tells me
about Ford's personal life, for the benefit of readers of Cinemonde.

In 1920, Ford married Mary McBride Smith, with whom he had two chil-
dren: a son, Patrick Roper Ford, a journalist and writer, born in r92i, and a

daughter, Barbara Nugent Ford, born in 1922, married today to the actor Ken
Curtis.

But here comes Mrs. Ford with coffee, followed by Barbara.

Mrs. Ford: "My husband just had a serious operation two months ago, he
is still in convalescence and these trips are very tiring. Yesterday, we were in

Bayeux. We went to put flowers on the tombs of some friends killed during
the Normandy landing, and in the evening the children want to go see a
show. John likes the music-hall. We will have to go to the Folies-Bergere, to
the Casino de Paris. In the meantime, he has to go to Versailles later. The
admiral also has his obligations. Serious things first, no?"
Barbara: "And besides that, we have to organize that press conference. We
have so little time. And to think that my father is here to rest after his opera-

tion!"
Ford: "Yes, yes . . . (putting on his jacket and coming back among us) a

serious operation. The gall-bladder . .

. yes! (he bursts out laughing) That's
the way it is. That's life!"
With his eye which he keeps bandaged since the unfortunate accident
during the war, he looks like one of the pirates of Treasure Island. A gruff and
good-natured pirate.
 “War and Peace? No, I won't do War and Peace. have seen and
Ford: I

filmed enough battle scenes. And besides, I'm not Russian, to reconstruct the
atmosphere as it should be. A cup of coffee?"
Alas! John Ford, wanting to serve me, doesn't see a pot of boiling water
prepared for the tea, and inadvertently spills the whole thing on his ankle.

Everyone rushes over. Fie is terribly burned and I'm afraid he will retain a

stinging memory of my visit. But the old lion is stoic. He coats his leg with
cold cream. Already he talks to me of a big western he will undertake as soon
as he returns to America, with John Wayne in the leading role: The Searchers.

Pioneers who went to look for a little girl lost and taken in by the Indians.
Ford: "A very simple story as I like them. A strange adventure in the set-
ting of the Rocky Mountains. My favorite films? Bah! I don't know. You say
I made good films, I'll take your word for it. I didn't know people were so
interested in my work in France. I'm delighted all the same. Well! Let's say
The Long Voyage Home , Stagecoach , The Informer. Also The Sun Shines Bright
and my last, The Long Gray Line. I think it's one of the best. You'll see. The
Quiet Man? Yes, of course, especially because of the Irish climate. I made it in
my home, in my country. All the extras were friends of the family. We shot
it among friends. That's how I like to work. I hate affectation. You do your
job, that's all. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's less good, sometimes it's a
failure. It happens to everyone! That's it."
But they are already coming to get John Ford.
Ford: "We'll see each other tomorrow," he says, excusing himself. "I hope
I don't spill the coffee!"
 .

Rendezvous with John Ford

BERT MILLER/1955

(Paris.) A tall, cigar-smoking, energetic man with thin

white hair on his head. A very high forehead, distinct nose, and pretty big
ears, large black glasses, and a black ribbon bandage over his left eye. One

could say that he is reminiscent of an ancient combatant crusader, a pirate.

But any possible dread that his appearance may have aroused in the by-
stander is driven away by his smile; and when he starts to explain about his
left eye, then one is simply captivated.
'That's a souvenir from the war," John Ford says. "My eye was part of the
price I had to pay for fighting for freedom and peace. You become something
of a philosopher when you have taken part in a rough war and seen the
transcience of everything up close. But . . you are glad every time you return
to Paris. At least it is like itself, in spite of changes of government, in spite of

raised prices, and a lot of misery. For instance, the other day I visited the

Folies-Bergere. The last time I was there was in 1918. But it was exactly as if

time had stood still. The same locales, the same show, almost the same audi-

ence."
What is the art of making good films?
"It's hard to give a universal formula. But today I think the most impor-
tant thing is to be in command of the art of borrowing money. A director
who wants to work autonomously, independently, freely— and we Irish are

among the most freedom-loving people— nowadays needs to raise the neces-

From Filmnyheter, vol. 10, no. 6, April, 1955, 4-6. Translated from Swedish by Ludvig Hertz-
berg.
sary capital himself for his difficult films. I like to say something with my
films. And I'm a stubborn man, who prefers to work in a manner that I think
personally appropriate. That's exactly why . . . after Paris, I'm on my way to

Dublin and London. And in London, I'll be having a few nice fights with
some money men to try to get them to let my hands free for the next films.
"For instance, here my bedside table have a new book, The Searchers
on I ,

which makes up the material for my new films. It's a Western but not just
with 'bang-bang' and cowboys and stuff. No, it has fine character studies,
real problems, and a marvelous main character, whom I'm thinking John
Wayne could play."
.... The last completed movie of John Ford's is a story about West Point,
the U.S. military academy, called The Long Gray Line.
"I have been accused of being interested in masculine subjects. War and
prison life have fascinated me over the years. But is that so strange? I have
lived through the experience of two world wars. I myself have experienced
the hell that is war. But I have also learned about friendship, bravery, and
deprivation. And back home in Ireland, I learned what a poor life means in
a barren climate. And the sea, and the hardship of men at sea have fascinated

me since early youth. Would I not then have betrayed my ideals, my

thoughts, and my ancestors, if hadn't given men like that a well-deserved
I

celebration in my films? If hadn't chosen to tell about poor, simple people

I

and their hard struggle for existence?"

With that, John Ford lit a cigar.

 ,

Recalling a 1955 Interview with John Ford

GEORGE B L U E S T ON E / 1 9 5 5

A walking cyclone with a cyclone's energy, he came rolling

into the offices of his producer, Merian C. Cooper, an hour late (I'd been
warned about this), acting "John Ford" even before he'd negotiated the door.
He was wearing a pink and black striped shirt, a safari hat, and thick glasses
over the famous eye patch. "Son, my editor held me up," he said.
I was there to ask questions about Ford's adaptations of The Informer and
The Grapes of Wrath which , I would be discussing in my book, Novels into
Film. While waiting, I'd been thumbing through a stack of photographs from
The Searchers Ford's current project.
, I picked out a beautiful still of a lone
Indian on a horse riding an immaculate dune. Ford removed his thick lens,
held the photo about three inches from his good eye, and made an approv-
ing grunt. "Yeah, it is pretty, isn't it?"

He positioned himself in a chair, ready to begin. Cooper, sunburned, bald

and dapper, had been wandering in and out of the office. Ford gave the leg-
endary co-director of King Kong a look, which signaled him to leave us alone.
Cooper obligingly disappeared until our talk was over. I began by asking Ford
questions had about the production of The Grapes of Wrath accumulated
I'd

over months of research, including an interview with screenwriter Nunnally

Johnson. Ford was almost dismissive of the film. "It was a work from my
dark period," he said, treating it like an aberration of youth.
Soon it was clear that he wasn't going to give serious answers. "What
happened to your Oakies after they settled in California?" I asked. He replied,

Printed by permission of the author.

 , 1

GEORGE B L U E S T O N E / 1 9 5 5 3 5

as if he'd given the same reply dozens of times. "They took over the State.
One of them, a contractor, does something in the building trades — lives

across the street from me. His home is a palace compared to mine!" And so

it went. . . . We were half-way through out interview when Ford looked up at

me as if we'd just now been introduced and said, "How about you? Where
did you come from? Where are you going?"
I lapsed into a sketchy autobiography. My father was a Russian immigrant.
I was raised on the East Side of New York. I'd attended Harvard on a scholar-
ship, and I was currently at Johns Hopkins writing Novels into Film for my
doctorate. Now Ford listened very attentively, as if he were trying to absorb
the design of my life. He was nearly sixty when we spoke, and something
had clicked on his radar screen. Was it the struggles of a twenty-seven-year-
old kid to write one of the country's first Ph.D.'s about the movies?
In his own inimitable way, Ford was responding, I think, to the courtesy
of being taken seriously. There were no books about his career at the time. I

had, after all, made the pilgrimage to Los Angeles exclusively to see him. For
a few tantalizing minutes, he had become the serious questioner himself, I

the respondent. Ford picked up on something I'd said, that I'd gone to the
Iowa Writers Workshop for my Master's. "Workshop? Workshop?" he asked.
"Is that one of those pinko outfits?"

I began patiently to explain that "Workshop" wasn't a labor reference. It

was normal usage for a group of writers getting together to read each other's
work. Instructing the great man, I felt suddenly foolish. He knew perfectly
well what a "Workshop" was. He was baiting me to see how I would react;

the look in his good eye was marvellous, half mischievous, half mocking. If

he was impelled to test the youngster from Hopkins, what must life have
been like, I wondered, for poor actors when Ford was the director in charge?
Like so many legends about Ford, everything was double —at least. Curmud-
geon and teddy bear. Good-natured ribbing and aggressive baiting.
Before I left with a handful of notes, Ford picked up the still I admired
from The Searchers took out a green felt pen and inscribed it: "To George
Bluestone with affectionate thanks, Jack Ford." (The photograph sat on my
mantlepiece for nine years, until it disappeared at a time I moved to London
to work in film production.)
I my contact with Ford had ended with that interview. But there
thought
was an epilogue. When Novels into Film was published in 1957 sent Ford a ,

copy, but got no acknowledgement. In i960, teaching at the University of

36 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

Washington in Seattle, I arranged what was perhaps the first John Ford retro-
spective, concentrating on the rich middle years from Stagecoach to My Dar-
ling Clementine. Again, I sent Ford a program, expecting no reply. However,
the day before the Clementine screening, and five years after our interview, I

got a telephone call from the film's director. A local one. "Don't get the idea
that I'm up here for the retrospective. I'm up here to get my associate's
daughter into the University of Washington."
Without thinking, I gave him the name of a friend in the admissions of-
fice. "Well," I said, "as long as you're up here, how about introducing My
Darling Clementine ?" He agreed to be there. The following night, the house
was packed, and Ford appeared on time, which I took as a sign from heaven.
He was wearing a white turtleneck jersey with a teal blue suit. In his introduc-
tory remarks he related the old saw about how in the early days actors were
pariahs. "They used to have signs in windows reading, 'Dogs and actors need
not apply.' "
Unfortunately, he said nothing about Clementine, and that was it. After his
introduction, he was going back to the hotel to have a steak dinner with his
associate Max.
I stayed to see the film. It had been a while since I had screened it and I

wanted to refresh my memory of the details. So I was a little surprised when

the auditorium door opened, a few minutes into the picture, and I saw Ford
finding a seat in the back. I went over and took the seat next to his. "What
are you doing here?" I whispered.
"It's okay, they serve until ten," he whispered back. We sat through the
film, and when the famous hoedown scene came on, with all its lyrical plea-

sure, Ford leaned over and said, "Hey, you know this isn't a bad movie. I

haven't seen it in a while." I noticed he sat with his good eye favoring the
screen.
Later we went to his room, where Max was waiting for him. Max was
Ford's accountant. Though Max's participation was mostly monosyllabic, he
seemed to have come up mainly to keep Ford company. However, he had
talked to my friend in the admissions office. Ford never did order his steak,
but he knocked back four bourbons as we talked far into the night. The late

hour blurred my eventual memory, but I remember an extended anecdote

involving John Wayne, a pit bull, and a homemade distillery. Another about
an Irish nun on her first trip to New York. Above all, a story about some
church bells in Dublin. "They were the purest, clearest, most beautiful sound
 GEORGE B L U E S T O N E / 1 9 5 5 3 7

in the world. I stood there, listening for an hour. I wish you could have heard
it, Bloomstone."
"Bluestone," I corrected.
"Aren't you the one with the Russian immigrant parents?" Five years had
gone by, and he remembered, sort of.

"My father was Russian. My mother was Rumanian. It's still Bluestone."
But I was Bloomstone the rest of the night. I don't know how I eventually
got home, but I drove all right, because the morning after my car was intact
in the driveway. The last thing Ford said to me was, "Nice book." It took me
a few beats to realize that he meant Novels into Film. He'd remembered that,

too.
 ; ?

Poet in an Iron Mask

MICHAEL K I L L AN N I / 1 9 5 8

Among the cinema's few poets, director John Ford is a

man of iron will. Combined with his good humor is a determination to make
the film ... his way. This article is a new evaluation of Ford's contribution to
cinema by a man who knows him well. They worked together when Ford
went to Ireland to make The Quiet Man; and Lord Killanin was producer on
both The Rising of the Moon and Gideon's Day.
"... I have known John Ford all my life. Strange as it may seem, have I

learntmore about the substance of his genius during the making of Gideon's
Day in Britain than during the making of any of his other films. Much of the
understanding comes from the day to day arguments and discussions be-
tween shots, such as the following which I thought worth recording."

killanin: Jack ,
now that we have been associated with three pictures , what
do you think really rules your choice in making a film —characterization ,
story

value, or the setting and location

ford: Surely you know by now that the most difficult to find is the story.
Once we have found the right story, it is the responsibility of the writer,
director, and producer to work as a team to put it on paper in such a way

that it can be a guide to what we have to put on the screen.

killanin: I certainly know that once you are on the floor it is a matter for the
director and the cameraman to produce the eventual product which is seen on the
screen.

From Films and Filming vol. 4, no. 5. February 1958. 9, 28.

 MICHAEL K I L L A N I N / 1 9 5 8 3 9

ford: I have made 118 pictures: and what surprises me working in England
is how little cutting is done in the camera. Perhaps I have learned from expe-
rience of bad cutters not to give them anything with which to make a mess!

Everything I shoot is cut in the camera and I do not cover myself from
every angle, which appears to be the desire of some of the front-office English
executives.

k i l l a n i n : We seem to be spending a lot of time on casting. Whilst I may have

had predetermined views on casting you more often than not suggest types quite
;

different to that indicated in the script

ford: But don't you see, I am interested in people. That is why in a picture

like Gideon's Day and, indeed, The Rising of the Moon where we had some fifty

speaking characters, all the parts "sing." I certainly don't like type casting. I

like casting for individuals, for I photograph people.

k i l l a n i n : One of the troubles I have always had as a producer is that actors

are always trying to sneak in to see rushes. Thank goodness you've stopped all that.

ford: Well Michael, you know I do not believe in actors seeing rushes. It

is only the director who knows what he is trying to get and who is compos-
ing the whole. If the actor sees his rushes one day, he may try to change his
personality the next day and make it more difficult for me in the process.

k i l l a n i n : Yes, watching you direct is like watching the conductor on the ros-

trum before a symphony orchestra. On both The Rising of the Moon where we
had Frank Nugent as script writer, and Gideon's Day where we had T. E. B. Clarke,

the eventual pictures have gone a long way from the shooting script.

ford: Because as the basic story develops one must develop each charac-
ter in the actor, besides the mood and the tempo, so that the drama is cor-
rectly mixed with humour.

k i l l an i n : Certainly many actors and actresses have found their first opportu-

nity in your pictures. On the other hand, there are always a number of actors who
will appear time and again in one of your productions.
ford: Well, it's natural to use people whose capabilities one knows and
also they know my method of work. It has certainly been an interesting expe-
rience during the last two years working both in Ireland and England where
there is such tremendous talent among actors. Jack Hawkins, for instance,
40 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

who plays a Police Inspector in Gideon's Day is, I believe, the finest dramatic

actor with whom I have worked.

k i l l a n i n : But reverting to stories. With our Irish company Four Provinces

,

Films , I am continually reading and considering stories which might be made in

Ireland, not necessarily Irish subjects. One of our troubles is that Irish stories are
always more literary than dramatic. There is one hand pulling us towards the mak-
ing of good but cheap pictures for TV and the other trying to make feature pictures
of quality. What should we do in the future?

ford: Well Michael, you know any picture I make is only making money
for the tax collectors. I took no salary for either Gideon's Day or The Rising of
the Moon; but I have rarely made a film where I did not like the story. As for
TV, I think it has interesting possibilities for the future and let's face it, The
Rising of the Moon was shot in such a way that it could be used as three TV
stories. In the long run the length or time of a picture depends on the story.

Let's find the right stories to make, then decide their scale and market poten-
tial!
 , —

Down with Rebecca

NE W S WEEK/ 1958

One of the true anomalies in Hollywood is directorJohn Ford,

who has won six Oscars even though he has always said exactly what he
pleased. Talking to a visitor last week about the forthcoming The Last Hurrah,
which he had just finished making for Columbia, Ford was exhilaratingly
exact as ever.
"I had hoped to make a controversial picture," said Ford. "That was origi-

nally Harry Cohn's idea [as studio chief of Columbia]. He wanted it contro-
versial, exactly like the book. Then, after we had been only three or four days
on it, Cohn died. The new men — —
seven or eight of them thought it was just
too daring. Tt's liable to offend people/ they said. Well, you can't keep doing
Rebecca ofSunnybrook Farm. Anyway, the moles —a whole series of them
have been working on it. But there's still lots of good stuff left in. There is

practically no love story, and no sex. Yet I think it makes you gulp in a couple
of places."

James Michael Curley, eighty- three-year-old ex-mayor of Boston and ex-

governor of Massachusetts, whom most people took to be the political boss
portrayed in the novel the movie was made from, has lately tried to stop
Columbia from showing the film on the ground that it violated property
rights to his own autobiography and constitutes an invasion of privacy.
"It's certainly not James Michael Curley's life," said Ford. "It has nothing
to do with it. But I'll say this to Curley: If this is Curley — if Curley thinks he

From Newsweek September 22, 1958. 104-06, 107. © 1958 by Newsweek, Inc. All rights re-

served. Reprinted by permission.

42 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

is Frank Skeffington —then instead of suing I would advise him to run for
governor again."
The Skeffington of the story is the classical political boss, "handsome,
white-haired, bright of eye, ruddy of face —and a year either side of sixty."
Ford waited a whole year and went without salary during that time to get
Spencer Tracy for the part. "He's perfect," said Ford. "His body, for one thing,
is just right —a big old man's body, yet it's up and alive when people are
about. Every little thing about this man's character is in Tracy's portrayal. I

think he's just great."

The picture as a whole, though, had a narrow escape. "The moles got the
great idea of cutting out one and a half reels. Everybody had to get in on the
act and save the picture. In the end we put back two reels, and it comes out
the way I made it. I'm stubborn, too."
This stubbornness has been operating ever since Ford, now sixty-three,
went to Hollywood from Maine in i$>r5 (the year of D. W. Griffith's Birth of a

Nation). Ford started work as a property boy, became a stunt man, an actor,
an assistant director, and finally, at twenty, a full director (at $35 a week).
The movies he has made since then have included Stagecoach , The Informer ,

How Green Was My Valley Grapes of Wrath,

,
and The Quiet Man. He has made
some 320 [sic] films, but the only picture he has liked so far, he says ("the
only one to come off as I had hoped") is The Fugitive a movie he made in
,

1947 about religious persecution in Mexico, and a box-office failure.

Probably his most frequently praised movie is his twenty-three-year-old

The Informer which figures large in

;
all the movie histories. "I never cared for
The Informer Ford said. "I still occasionally see it, and still wonder what the
hell all the shouting is about. It's pretty obvious."
Ford, a gruff, loquacious man with a dry wit and a sharp tongue, has some-
times been accused of projecting his real but hidden sentimentalism into his
pictures. "A made-up statement," he says. "I'm sentimental as hell. I'm Irish.

I like animals, and then, after baseball, I like people."

He has little taste for the way movies are made today. "In the old days,
you turned them out and got the cost back. Now it's a carefully calculated

risk, and the director doesn't have much to say about it, either. There was a

time when a director could pick his own stories. Now the producers read

stories in their advance proofs, nail the property down, and the poor director

takes what he's given."

Ford is a difficult man to handle; as one man has put it: "You don't handle
 N E WS WEEK/ 1958 4 3

Ford; you turn the reins loose and you try to hang on." He stays aloof from
organized Hollywood social life, shuns previews and night clubs, spends
much of his time on his yacht, Aramer, which he keeps in Honolulu.

The picture he is tackling next is The Horse Soldiers — "all about Grierson's
raid. He raised hell and managed to get away with it in the Confederate

country between La Grange, Tenn., and Baton Rouge. It's a pretty good horse
yarn.
"The first 'motion' pictures were Leland Stanford's photos of a running
horse. For your information, a running horse remains the finest subject for a

motion-picture camera." There will be plenty of horses in the new movie.

A Meeting with John Ford

JEAN-LOUIS R I E U P E Y R O U T / 1 9 6 1

Two —the section of Sunset Strip which

steps off sunset Strip

is home to the most famous nightclubs of Hollywood— the house on is little

Palm Avenue where John Ford's office can be found. The house is comfort-
able and cool (air condition is incontestably the number one invention of
this country). On the walls, watercolor portraits of Tom Mix, Harry Carey,
Buck Jones. John Wayne in his uniform of Fort Apache is painted in oil. In
this very western environment, the master of the house welcomes me,
kindly, like a grandfather receiving a visitor, and invites me to take a seat.

Ford — I was in France, but I forgot almost all my French, excuse me. At the
end of the War, I was Mont Saint-Michel. Decorated, embraced by a
at the

French general with a beard. Wounded too. ... I am a little deaf. ... I am of
Irish origin, but of western culture, Yankee. ... In Europe, everyone hates
the Yankees. Can you cite one European who is pro-American? . . .

am a liberal, not a Communist; people think I'm a racist, but in Arizona,

I

in New Mexico, many Southerners have settled, and it is not surprising that
in my films these characters have racist sentiments. In the East, they think
that what show is false, but
I that's the way it was. What interests me is
. . .

the folklore of the West. To show the real, almost documentary. ... I was a
cowboy; I earned $13 a month with my hands, not bad, huh? At the time
when Pancho Villa crossed the border. ... I like fresh air, wide open spaces,

From Cinema 61, no. 53. February r96i. 8-10. Reprinted by permission of the author. Trans-
lated from French by Jenny Lefcourt.
 . ?

JEAN-LOUIS R I E U P E Y R O U T / 1 9 6 1 4 5

the mountains, the deserts. . . . Sex, obscenity, degeneracy, these things don't

interest me. . .

Wagon Master You didn't see it in France? Why? It's the best, you know.
No great actors, no pistol shots, but real men. The picture didn't make much
money. In England, they project it and discuss it. I talked about it at Oxford
and Cambridge, at conferences.

Yes, I receive a lot of screenplays. . . . My next film? I forgot the title. Big
actors, but the story is worthless. It's for the money. . . . You understand? It

pays. . . . Money!"

Three quarters of an hour have gone by in galloping conversation. One re-

mark must be made: Ford is not a man to dwell upon his work at length. Fie

says, and insists, "That's the way it was."

 ,

The Old Wrangler Rides Again

BILL LIBBY/1964

Not unlike a person from another place and another time, a

displaced character out of his beloved Old West, director John Ford swept
from the sun-baked streets of Sunset Boulevard into his small, plush Holly-
wood offices. He was a picture of khakied inelegance, preceded by two wildly
barking dachschunds. One of the office girls rushed to corral the dogs; the
others pressed their backbones to the wall to clear a path for the briskly strid-
ing figure.
Ford settled into a chair behind his desk, cupped his hands, and a secre-
tary rushed to shove a huge, steaming mug of coffee into them. He swal-
lowed from his cup, flipped a match on a rug, and turned to me: ''I've been
damned as a 'Western director/ " he said. "Every time I start to make a West-
ern, they say: There goes senile old John Ford out West again,' but I don't
give a damn. I've done a lot of pictures in my lifetime that weren't Westerns,
but I've also done a lot that were, and I'm going to do a lot more. I don't
think they need any defense at all."

Ford is not an easy man to see. He says he can count on the fingers of one
hand the full interviews he's granted in the last ten years. He succumbed to

me simply because I held out as lure this defense of his favorite topic. "You're
supposed to be an illiterate if you like Westerns," he growled. "What non-
sense! Is it more intelligent to prefer pictures about sex and crime, sex mani-
acs, prostitutes, and narcotics addicts? Is it more intelligent to prefer a

picture simply because it's a foreign film and has subtitles? It may be more

From Cosmopolitan vol. 156, no. 3. March 1964. 12-21.

 BILL libby/1964 4 7

fashionable, but it isn't more intelligent. I'm not a vain man. I don't like
talking about my own work. But it's time those of us who make Westerns, or

go to them, or enjoy them in any way, stopped ducking into dark alleys

when the subject is brought up. It's time we spoke up."

Speak up he did, drinking one hot mug of coffee after another, chain-

smoking cigars and tossing the butts roughly and often inaccurately in the

direction of an ash tray a little smaller than the Grand Canyon.

It is easy to be fooled by such a man. His outer senses are dulled and he is

no longer young. He has been making movies forever. When you ask him a
question, you must wait against a long silence for a reply, until you begin to

wonder if he has forgotten or even heard you in the first place. But when he
has considered your question carefully, he will give you your answer, and if

it has been a foolish question, his answer will mock you and make you seem
a fool, and if it has been a good question, his answer will be good and make
you feel good.
"When a motion picture is at its best," he said, "it is long on action and
short on dialogue. When it tells its story and reveals its characters in a series
of simple, beautiful, active pictures, and does it with as little talk as possible,

then the motion picture medium is being used to its fullest advantage. I

don't know any subject on earth better suited to such a presentation than a
Western.
"The people who coined that awful term 'horse opera' are snobs. The crit-

ics are snobs. Now, I'm not one who hates all critics. There are many good
ones and I pay attention to them and I've even acted on some of their sugges-
tions. But most criticism has been destructive, full of inaccuracies, and gener-
alizations. Hell, I don't think the leading newspaper reviewers even go to see
most of the Westerns. They send their second string assistants. And they're
supposed to be very nasty and very funny in their reviews. Well, it's a shame,
because it makes it a crime to like a Western. Sure, there have been bad and
dishonest Westerns. But, there have been bad and dishonest romantic sto-
ries, too, and war stories, and people don't attack all romantic movies or war
movies because of these. Each picture should be judged on its own merit. In
general, Westerns have maintained as high a level as that of any other theme.
"The critics always say we make Westerns because it's an easy way to make
money. This is hogwash. They're not cheap or easy to make. They have to be
done on location, which is damned hard work, the most expensive and most
difficult form of moviemaking. It's true Westerns generally make money.
48 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

What wrong with that? They make money because people like
the hell's
them. And what the hell's wrong with that? If there was more concern with
what the public wants and less with what the critics want, Hollywood
wouldn't be in the awful fix it's in right now. This is a business. If we can
give the public what it wants, then it's a good business and makes money.
The audience is happy and we're happy. What the hell's wrong with that?
"Some of our greatest Americans have been Western fans. I guess in many
cases it provided them with an escape, a relief, but I see nothing wrong with
that. Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Jack Kennedy were all Western
fans.

"Yes, that's right, they were all Democrats, and I'm a Democrat, too. I

some Republicans have been great Western

don't try to hide that, either. But
—
fans Douglas MacArthur. I flew from Korea into Tokyo once, years ago, and
MacArthur sent for me. He said they were showing movies that night and
that the picture was one of mine, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. He said he was
showing it in my honor, that he watched it at least once a month and never
got tired of seeing it. Now that is an honor."
I asked Ford who attends Westerns. "Everyone," he said brusquely. Then
he smiled. "Actually, we've taken surveys and we've found that most of our
audience made up of children and fathers taking their children. The fathers
is

enjoy Westerns and the children give them an excuse to go. It's a shame that
most persons feel they have to sneak in to see a Western by the side door.
There's nothingwrong with anything being 'family entertainment,' you
know. But now Hollywood has found it can pull a lot of people to the box
office and make a lot of money with a lot of different types of pictures. Lately,

they've been doing it with 'dirty pictures.' I don't like to use that term, but I

don't know what else you can call them.

"Now, I'm a Roman Catholic. But, I'm Irish, too. I think I'm fairly mascu-
line and I don't think I'm a prude, but I do think there are certain things that

don't belong on the screen. I wouldn't take anyone to see some of the pic-

tures that are being put out today. I wouldn't even take them to see the
billboards outside of the movie houses. These and other ads, lurid come-ons
with half-naked women, are dishonest and cater to our worst instincts. They
making Hollywood any friends.
aren't

"When I come back from making a Western on location, I feel a better

man for it. I don't think some of the modern trash makes anyone feel better
for having read or seen it.
 ,

BILL libby/1964 4 9

"I don't recall a Western which ever had to carry a 'For Adults Only' sign.
When you go to a movie today, you feel guilty, as though you were going to

a striptease. It all runs in cycles. Tomorrow, someone will make a picture

about a boy and a dog and it'll make money and then everyone will start

making boy-and-dog pictures again.

"Actually, I'm certainly not against sex on the screen if it's done in the

right way. Many Westerns have a gusty sort of sex. And I think I made the
sexiest picture ever, The Quiet Man. Now this was all about a man trying to
get a woman into bed, but that was all right, they were married, and it was
essentially a moral situation, done with honesty, good taste, and humor.
These things are all fundamental to a good Western, too. In a Western, you
can make a strong picture which is reasonably adult, yet a man can still take

his children to see it, which is the way it should be. After all, we're not in the
burlesque business.
"I know the term 'morality play' has been applied to Westerns, but I won't
go that far, nor be so high-toned about it, but I do feel they have a basically
moral quality, and I applaud this and think it's the way it should be.
"We use immoral characters. In Stagecoach we had Claire Trevor playing
a woman of easy virtue and Thomas Mitchell playing a drunken doctor. We

don't deny that there are such persons; we just aren't out to glorify them or
build every story around them. Incidentally, these have become stock char-
acters in Westerns and maybe they've become what you call 'cliches,' but
they weren't always cliches, and I keep trying to do things fresh or different,
just as many others in this business do.
"There are no more cliches in Westerns than in anything else, and this

applies to our moral approach, too. I don't think I, nor anyone else, have
always garbed my heroes in white and my villains in black and so forth.
Good doesn't always triumph over evil. It doesn't in life and it doesn't in all

Westerns. Usually it does, but I think this is the way it should be. I have
depicted some sad and tragic and unjust things in my Westerns, as have
others.

"I remember once I was seated in a screening room with someone viewing
the rushes of a picture I was shooting. In an early scene, there was a back-
ground shot of a man on a horse. It was background, mind you; he wasn't
important and the scene wasn't. This person turned to me and said he knew
that was the villain. He was wearing black or riding a black horse or some
50 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

such fool thing. I threw him the hell out. I had to cut the scene out. It's not
fair. It's one of those unfair generalizations made about Westerns."
What, I wondered, were the men of the West really like?

"They were like Will Rogers," Ford said, waving at the wall. He stood star-
ing at a blank spot on the wall. He buzzed his secretary and she came rushing
in, thrusting another steaming mug of coffee into his hands and turning to
run. He pinned her to the door with a shout: "Where the hell is my Will
Rogers picture? When am I going to get it back? When I loaned it out, they
promised to return Would you be kind and generous enough to get those
it.

kind and generous people on the phone and ask them when can I kindly
have my Will Rogers picture back?"
"Yes, Sir, Mr. Ford," she shouted back. "Right away, Sir."

When she had made her escape, he looked down to find coffee in his
hands, and raised the cup to his lips. He flipped a cigar butt away, missing
the Grand Canyon, lit another, puffed it, and stared at the wall. "I had a
picture of Will Rogers and, by God, I'll get it back," he said. He turned to me.
"The men of the West were like Will Rogers. They were rugged and imperfect
men, but many were basically gentle, and most were basically moral and
religious, like most people who live with the land.
"They had their own language, but it was not profane. They had a warm,
rugged, natural good humor. Strong people have always been able to laugh
own hardships and discomforts. Soldiers do in wartime. The old cow-
at their

boy did in the Old West. And today, in the hinterlands, in places like Mon-
tana and Wyoming, there are working cowboys, and they even carry guns,
usually .30-. 30 Winchesters, though for protection against animals, such as
coyotes, not to shoot each other.
"We've studied the history of these cowboys, past and present, and we've
had some true Western characters, such as Pardner Jones, serving as technical
experts on our films. I think some of the personality things I've mentioned
have been very well portrayed in our Western film heroes. These men are

natural. They are themselves. They are rugged individualists. They live an
outdoor life, and they don't have to conform.

"I think one of the great attractions of the Western is that people like to
identify themselves with these cowboys. We all have an escape complex. We
all want to leave the troubles of our civilized world behind us. We envy those

who can live the most natural way of life, with nature, bravely and simply.
What was that character's name? Mitty, that's it. We're all Walter Mittys. We
all picture ourselves doing heroic things. And there are worse heroes than

the Westerners for us to have.

'The Western heroes may be 'larger than life/ but so are many of our
historical heroes, and we hate to dispel the public's illusions. If we cast hand-
some men and attractive women in semibiographical roles, portraying per-
sons who were really homely, we are doing no worse than has always been
done in movies. I myself am a pretty ugly fellow. The public wouldn't pay to
see me on film.
"It is probable that the Westerns have been most inaccurate in overgla-
morizing and overdramatizing the heroes and villains of the period, and in
playing up the gunfights. We could do without such stock characters as the
hero who leaps from two stories onto his horse, fires twenty shots at a time
from his six-shooter and has a comical, bearded rascal for his sidekick. But
again, these are generalizations, which don't apply to all Westerns.
"We have been charged with using too much violence, with too often
achieving a good end through the unfortunate use of violent means, and
this charge has merit, but, after all, those were violent times. I've tried not to
overdo this and so have a lot of men who have turned out good Westerns.
The very term 'gunslinger' makes us cringe, and we try to hold shoot-downs
to a minimum. But men did carry guns and did shoot at each other. There
wasn't much law for a long while, after all.

"It is wrong to make heroic the villainous characters, such as Billy the Kid,
who were more ruthless and vicious than anyone can imagine today. How-
ever, it is true that much of the conversion to law and order was accom-
plished by reformed criminals, who got sheriffs' jobs because of their strong
reputations. Men like Wyatt Earp had real nerve. They didn't have to use
their guns. They overpowered the opposition with their reputations and per-
sonalities. They faced them down. They were lucky. A .45 is the most inaccu-
rate gun ever made. If you've handled one, you know. Pardner Jones told me
if you put Wild Bill Hickok in a barn with a six-shooter, he couldn't have hit
the wall.
"It is equally wrong for the heroes to have been made out to be pure Sir

Galahads in so many cases, which is nonsense. However, those were different

times than we know today. Mere survival took something a little out of the
ordinary, and the men who dominated the time were out of the ordinary,
really big men.
"Some of the early Western stars, such as William S. Hart and Buck Jones,
52 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

were real Western types, either from the West or naturals for the part. They
were great and courageous athletes and horsemen, skills which deserve some
credit. Tom Mix was a great athlete and, I think, next to C. B. De Mille, our
greatestshowman. I worked often and happily with George O'Brien, a fine
Western actor. And also Harry Carey, through whom we brought the real
saddle tramp to the screen for the first time. He was natural and rugged, but
he had an innate modesty. He was a great, great actor, maybe the best West-
erner ever. Will Rogers was a real Westerner, a truly outstanding character
actor, humorist, and person, who did much to popularize the real cowboy. I

used to have a fine picture of him up there on the wall and I intend to get it

back.
"Because the roles such actors played were natural roles and because they
played them naturally and simply, they have never been given enough credit
for their acting skills. Even those that date back to the silents seem less exag-
gerated, more natural to us than the romantic heroes of that period, as we
see these early films once again. But the critics seem to think you have to be
conscious of acting for it to be acting. Actually, the less conscious you are

that it is acting, the better it usually is.

"There have been many fine Western actors in recent years damned with
this casual acceptance. Henry Fonda has been one. Gary Cooper was another.
Coop even came not Coop said he wasn't a great
to believe in himself. But if

actor, he was wrong. And he was a real Westerner. He was just as fine in High

Noon as he was in Sergeant York and I'm glad the critics saw fit to reward him
,

equally for both.

"Many of our fine Western actors, such as Jimmy Stewart, who is terrific,
have had to go outside Westerns to get their rewards. Two who have never
received anywhere near the credit they deserve are two of my closest friends
and men with whom I've made many John Wayne and Ward Bond.
films,

"Wayne is one of our most popular actors and a great box office draw,
something which should not be disregarded. And he is superb. As long ago
as The Long Voyage Home he proved he was a
,
fine actor. When made She
I

Wore a Yellow Ribbon we had Wayne playing an old man. The

,
critics an-
nounced in advance Wayne wasn't capable of playing an old man. Then they
didn't bother to judge for themselves. But he did it, and beautifully. It was a

very moving performance.

"I miss old Ward Bond very much. He played Wagon Master for me in the
early days, and it's possible his very successful TV Wagon Train role was mod-
 , ,

BILL libby/1964 5 3

eled after this. He was a great human being and a wonderful actor who was
taken for granted because he played Westerns.
"It has been said that we haven't always portrayed women fairly in West-
erns, and I think there's some truth in that, though not a great deal. It is a

sort of a sore spot. The men were dominant in settling the West. The women
played a somewhat lesser role, though certainly an important one. There
were the saloon women. There always will be wherever there are rugged and
lonely men. And some of these were not such terrible characters. And there
were the home women who helped break the land, bear and raise children
and make a home for their families. These were hard times for women and
they acquitted themselves nobly. And think they've generally been por-
I

trayed very well by actresses. Claire Trevor is one example. Jane Darwell, a

grand person and a grand actress, is another."

Ford has won six Oscars, two for wartime documentaries, and four for

feature films. He was honored for The Informer in 1935; The Grapes of Wrath in
1940; How Green Was My Valley in 1941; and The Quiet Man in 1952. But he has
never been honored as director for any of his great Westerns.
"It is hard for me to judge," he says, "but I would say Stagecoach She Wore ,

a Yellow Ribbon , and The Searchers were my best Westerns. I also remember
The Iron Horse and Wagon Master fondly. And I think some of my more recent
ones, such as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance stand up very well, too. I like

to think Stagecoach set a trend, sort of blazed a trail, for the adult western,

and it is appreciated, but it did not win me an Oscar. I don't like to say T'm
proud' of the pictures that did win, but I do remember them fondly. Still, I'll

be darned if I worked any less seriously on some of my Westerns, and I think

they're just as good."
He pointed out that of the pictures that brought him Oscars for the best
direction, only How Green Was My Valley was also selected as the best picture.
And he threw in the names of some of his other pictures that didn't win him
Oscars but which he felt were just as good as those that did: The Long Voyage
Home; Young Mr. Lincoln; Irvin Cobb's The Sun Shines Bright; and When Willie
Comes Marching Home with Dan Dailey, which he considers "the funniest
film ever made." He also noted that some great Westerns made by other men
also lost out in the quest for Hollywood's major awards. These include The
Ox-Bow Incident Shane and Red River.
,

"Oscars aren't the end-all of our business," he growled nastily. "The award
those of us in this profession treasure most highly is the New York Film Crit-
 ,

54 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

ics Award. And those of us in the directing end treasure the Directors Guild
of America Award. These are eminently fair."
Yet it is a fact that even these have been snobbish about Westerns. High
Noon and its director, Fred Zinnemann, did win the New York Film Critics

Awards. Ford won it four times, for The Informer; Stagecoach; The Grapes of
Wrath and The Long Voyage Home (in the same year); and How Green Was My
Valley. Miss Kerr did win this prize for her woman of the soil in The Sundown-
ers. George Stevens won the Directors Guild Award for Giant (also A Place in

the Sun), while Ford won it for The Quiet Man, but never for a Western.
"Well, the applause of the critics isn't the end-all of our business, either,"
Ford said, his when awards and such
voice cracking with contempt. "But
things influence public opinion, it's damned unfortunate. Do you think I let
Oscars influence me? What is the Academy Award anyway? Who is a mem-
ber? Who votes? I'm not a member. Do you know that only a couple of
hundred people vote each year? Is that supposed to represent all of us? None
of us really give a good damn about the Academy. I've never even been to
one of their shindigs, not even to receive one of my awards."
He stared reflectively into his mug of coffee. His voice mellowed for a
moment. "Oh, I'm pleased when I'm honored," he said. "I'm just not fooled
by it. I don't think it's the measure of my success. I don't think John Wayne
thinks his lack of awards is the measure of his success. I hope not. I love that
damn Republican," he grinned.
He pointed to some pictures of Indians on the wall, and had me look at

them. "The Indian is very close to my heart," he said. He had a deer hide
inscribed to him with affection from the Navajo, and he asked me to pick it

up and feel it and read the gracious inscription.

"There's some merit to the charge that the Indian hasn't been portrayed
accurately or fairly in the Western, but again, this charge has been a broad
generalization and often unfair. The Indian didn't welcome the white man,
you know, and he wasn't diplomatic. We were enemies and we fought. The
fight against the Indian was fundamental to the story of the West. If he has
been treated unfairly by the whites in films, that, unfortunately, was often
the case in real life. There was much racial prejudice in Some of it
the West.
was directed against the Negro, too, by the way, something I touched on in
Sergeant Rutledge.
"The Indians are wonderful people. I have come to know best the Navajo
of Monument Valley. The Navajo can ride like a son of a gun and they're the
 ,

BILL libby/1964 5 5.

greatestdamn fighters in the world. They were tough to beat in the Old West
and they've been tough to beat in modern war, in which many of them
fought for us and performed heroically. But even today, although the Indian
has a better civilized understanding of us, we don't have a much better un-
derstanding of him. There's still a lot of prejudice.

"When we first went into the Indians' reservations, they were poor and
starving. The pay from the shooting of Stagecoach helped put them on their

feet. Since then, many movies on location have helped and rewarded the
Indian. I don't mean we should take too much credit for this, or that it makes

up for our treatment of them on film, but it is a fact, and it's been important
to them. Many of the Indians are wealthy now, through the discovery of oil

on their property, but except for a few luxuries, they actually still live as they
always have, simply and close to the land. They're not greatly different than
they were, particularly not at heart.
"I am doing now a particular story I've wanted to do which stresses the
Indian angle. It's called Cheyenne Autumn. It won't be the first film to deal
sympathetically with them. Since the early years, a lot of movie-makers have
tried to see at least some of the Indian side of the problem. Television hasn't
dealt too much with the Indian, but has concentrated more on the whites in
the Old West. Under the handicaps it faces, TV has done a wonderful job
with Westerns in general.
"However, when you get down to this matter of treating various phases of
the Old West inaccurately, TV has been a worse offender than the movies.
More than the movies, TV has glamorized and dramatized their heroes inac-
curately. And many of the TV Westerns are just plain bad, just like many of
the movie Westerns. I don't sympathize with anyone who sits glued to his
set for hours on end, watching any of this that comes along. In this respect,
I guess it's just as well my eyesight prevents me watching more.
"But in general, I don't think there is any aspect of our history that has
been as well or completely portrayed on the screen, particularly in movies,
as the Old West.
"Ambitious projects along this line are constantly coming along. One of
the latest is How the West Was Won which was done in separate segments. I

was one of the directors on one section, a very short piece of material in
which a boy returns to the farm from the Civil War, then leaves to head
West. I have seen on the screen and was pleased
it to find it touching and
strong. And it is more or less a very true situation.
 ,

'There have to be some compromises with historical fact and accuracy in

all movies. The public will simply not accept certain things which seem
strange to them, true as they may be. You cannot, for example, show a gen-
eral heading into battle, riding a mule, wearing corduroys and a pith helmet,
and shielding himself from the sun with an umbrella, yet General Crook
actually did that.
"Most Westerners really dressed in simple, rugged clothing, and were
often very dirty. You got dirty on the range, you know, and laundries and
bathrooms were sometimes hard to come by. Some time ago we reached the
point where they would let our characters get out of the elaborate dress that
once passed in movies for cowboy clothes, and let us put John Wayne, for
example, into a part without a coat and with suspenders showing, as in The
Horse Soldiers.

"Actually, the thing most accurately portrayed in the Western is the land.
I think you can say that the real my Westerns has always been the
star of

land. I have always taken pride in the photography of my films, and the
photography of Westerns in general has often been outstanding, yet rarely

draws credit. It is as if the visual effect itself was not important, which would
make no sense at all.

"When I did She Wore a Yellow Ribbon I tried to have the cameras photo-
graph it as Remington would have sketched and painted it. It came out beau-
tifully and was very successful in this respect, I think. When I did The
Searchers, I used a Charles Russell motif. These were two of our greatest West-
ern artists, of course.
"Is there anything more beautiful than a long shot of a man riding a horse
well, or a horse racing free across a plain? Is there anything wrong with peo-
ple loving such beauty, whether they go to experience it personally, or absorb
it through the medium of a movie? Fewer and fewer persons today are ex-

posed to farm, open land, animals, nature. We bring the land to them. They
escape to it through us. My favorite location is Monument Valley, which lies
where Utah and Arizona merge. It has rivers, mountains, plains, desert, eve-

rything the land can offer. I feel at peace there. I have been all over the world,
but I consider this the most complete, beautiful and peaceful place on earth.

I'm shooting some of Cheyenne Autumn there.

"There should never be any shame in liking Westerns," he said. "Westerns
are understood and appreciated the world over, as much or more in other
countries as here. When I go to Japan, I am more readily recognized and
treated more as a celebrity than I am in my own country. When I go to
England, I am often paid the respect of being asked to lecture, as I have at

Oxford and Cambridge, and am often asked to discuss in particular a film

such as Wagon Master which ,
is totally forgotten here. This is all to the good.

As a moviemaker, my audience is the world, not just the U.S.

"And if one small segment of the population, the critics, paid and unpaid,
professional and amateur, prefer to be snobs and to sneer, I'm certainly not
going to worry about it. As long as I can remember these pictures affection-
ately and with a little pride, as long as people like them and come to see

them, as long as they make money, as long as they are good and honest and
attractive and decent films, I'm not going to worry, I'm going to figure
they're wrong and we're right."
 , 4

The Autumn of John Ford

PETER B OGDANOV C I H / 1 9 6

John Ford was born Sean Aloysius O'Fearna in Cape Eliza-

beth, Maine, on the first of February, 1895. His parents had come to America
from Galway, Ireland. He directed his first movie in 1917. (It was a two-reeler
called The Tornado about a cowboy who rescues the banker's daughter from
a gang of outlaws and uses the reward money to bring his Irish mother to
the United States. He also played the lead.) The only director to have received
six Academy Awards, he is also the only who has been cited four times
one
by the New York Film Critics. As a Commander in the Navy, he made Ameri-
ca's first war documentary, The Battle of Midway (1942), as well as December
yth (1943), an account of the Pearl Harbor attack and its aftermath; both were

awarded Oscars as the best documentaries of their years. Over forty-six years,

Ford has made almost a hundred and forty pictures.

One evening he sat up in his bed in Room 19 of Goulding's Lodge. The

place was in total disarray. Clothes lay everywhere: on the floor, on tables

and chairs, even on the refrigerator. There were also piles of books on every
conceivable subject scattered around the room and next to his bed. On it lay
a copy of Gods Graves and Scholars. The
, ,
little night table was covered with
cigars, matches, a watch, pills, glasses, a couple of knives and pencils, loose

paper, scripts, and frayed handkerchiefs. Attached to the headboard of the

bed was a lamp. The director was discussing movie-making, and you could
hear a slight but distinct Maine accent in his speech.
"I love making pictures, but I don't like talking about them," he said,

From Esquire, April 1964. 106-7. Reprinted by permission of the author.

cutting a cigar in half with his jackknife. "I mean. Y'know. It's been my
whole life. But people ask me which is my favorite— I always say the next
one/' Raising his arm in the air, he pulled his faded-silk pajama sleeve down.
" Y'know. I make a picture and then move on to the next one." He shook his

head. "I love Hollywood. I don't mean the higher echelons," he said sarcasti-

cally. "I mean the lower echelons, and the grips, the technicians."
After a while, Ford lit a cigar-half and spoke of the difficulty of finding

decent stories to do. "My agent," he began, "was at a property conference at

one of the studios. And they hold up this book, on the jacket of which was a
rather simplified drawing of a nun. He jumped up," Ford said gesturing.
"
'My client's a Roman Catholic and that property would interest him very
much,' he says." Ford grimaced and chewed on one end of the handkerchief.
"I read this thing. nun who's seduced by a pimp and then falls
It was about a

in love with him. Gets pregnant. She was supposed to run away with him

and he told her to meet him at some bridge at one in the morning." He took
the handkerchief and held the end a few inches from his mouth. "She went
there. Bong! One o'clock. No pimp. You dissolve. Bong, bong. Two o'clock.

No pimp. Dissolve again. Three o'clock. So she finally throws herself into the
river." The director put the handkerchief back in his mouth. "My agent
walked in the door, I threw the book at him," he said, imitating the move-
ment. "Imean Jeez. That's y'know, that's the kinda junk they give you these
days." He shook his head.
"Now this thing," he said, nodding at the script of Cheyenne Autumn lying
on the table, "I've wanted to make this for a long time. Y'know. I've killed

more Indians than Custer, Beecher, and Chivington put together." He raised
his arm and pulled the sleeve down again. "People in Europe always wanta
know about the Indians. They just see them ride by, or they're heavies. I
wanted to show what they were like. I like Indians very much," he said
warmly. "They're they're a very moral people. They have a literature. Not
. . .

written. But spoken. They're very kindhearted. They love their children and
their animals. And I wanted to show their point of view for a change." Ford
pulled down on his cheeks. "S'amazing " He paused. "It is amazing, work-

ing with them, how quickly they catch on despite the language barrier." He
rubbed his mouth with the handkerchief.
"But y'know, there's no such thing as a good script. I've never seen one."
He paused. "Yes, I have. I've seen one. This O'Casey thing I'm gonna do next.
Based on his autobiographies. It's the first script I've ever read that I can just
60 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

go over and shoot." (It was Young Cassidy.) He waved his hand in the air.

"Well, you know the old thing: one-picture's-worth-a-thousand-words.

Scripts are dialogue. I don't like all that talk. I try to get things across visually.

Y'know, get back to the old thing." He picked up the other half of the cigar
and lit it. "I don't like to do books or plays. I prefer to take a short story and
expand it rather than take a novel and try to condense." He pulled reflec-

tively on know anything about making pic-

his cheeks. "Producers don't

tures," he said earnestly. "And that's why I shoot my films so they can only

be cut one way." He puffed on his cigar. "They get to the cutting room and
they say, 'Well, let's stick a close-up in here.' " Ford paused. "But there isn't

one. I didn't shoot it."

The director commented that he'd always wanted to do a stage play. "I
like the form," he said and picked up a glass of stale water from the night
table. He took a pill from a little box. "B means it's a Bufferin, right?" he said

and swallowed the pill. "I once got a letter from the Metropolitan Opera
people," he said sardonically. "It was a flowery, purple prose thing. Inviting
me to direct The Girl of the Golden West. 'Course, they made it very clear I was
to have nothing to do with the sets or costumes or the music or. ..." Ford

took the cigar from his mouth, holding his arm up by the elbow. "I wrote
back that, first of all, I thought The Girl of the Golden West was a lousy opera."
He paused. "But that I was very interested in directing La Boheme." He put
the cigar back and puffed on it. "Well, you can imagine, y'know, what they
thought of that! This dirty old cowboy . . . this mangy old . . . wants to do La
Boheme! Well, I certainly knew more about the Left Bank than the manager
of the Metropolitan," he said with a wave of his arm. "They wrote back that

they weren't interested in having me do La Boheme." He chuckled.

 ,

Ford on Ford

GEORGE J. MITCHELL/1964

Because of the importance of John Ford in film history, the

recent tribute paid him at the University of California in Los Angeles is wor-
thy of an extended report.
The "tribute" consisted of a panel discussion between Ford, George Sid-

ney, who is president of the Directors' Guild of America, and Ffugh Gray,
associate professor of theatre arts at UCLA, with Arthur Knight, motion pic-

ture curator of the Hollywood Museum, as moderator, and the showing of

excerpts from such Ford films My Darling Clementine and The
as The Informer ,

Quiet Man and the entire Civil War sequence from How the West Was Won.
,

. Ford is a big, shambling man with craggy features and thinning gray
. .

hair. He wears heavily framed dark spectacles (a black eye-patch covers the
outside of the left lens). He is deaf in his left ear and has a hearing aide in
the frame of his spectacles. He appears to have lost a lot of weight and his
worn navy-blue jacket hung loosely about his big frame. Underneath he had
on a yellow sweater, a soft-collar shirt and a loosely tied dark four-in-hand
tie. His well-worn gray flannel trousers were hitched rather high above his
waist.

. . . Ford likes to tell stories and got rather annoyed —or seemed to—when
Moderator Knight interrupted him once or twice in the middle of a good
yarn. His stories revealed more about him than his answers to the sometimes
pointless questions.

From Films in Review vol. XV, no. 6. June/July 1964. 321-32. © 1964 by Films in Review. Re-
printed by permission.
 Ford had the audience on his side way and there was whole-hearted
all the
laughter at some of his stories, or, I should say, at the way Ford told them.
Occasionally he had the air of a mischievous small boy, as when he would
throw a questioner off balance by coming back fast with an unexpected an-
swer. Example: '"Mr. Ford, what do you think of Bergman?" Ford, with a
wicked smile: "Ingrid? Well, now— oh! You mean the director Bergman." He
knew all the time the question concerned Ingmar.
Ford was sitting in the front row when Moderator Knight made his intro-

ductory speech, in the course of which he mentioned that Ford "had been
an actor".
"I deny it," Ford exclaimed. "I just doubled for my brother."
At the conclusion of Knight's remarks, Ford walked slowly and carefully
to a chair facing the audience. He removed his glasses and quickly covered
his bad eye with the handkerchief that had been hanging untidily out of his

breast pocket.
"I woke up today," he explained, "with this damned eye feeling like a
bucketful of stilettoes. Maybe, if I'm a good boy, I'll get my glass of medicine
when this meeting Can I go home and get it now?"
is over.

He lives near the UCLA campus and said gently: "I've been looking at it
every day for many years. It has none of the phony Georgian or Renaissance
architecture. It's simple —beautiful."
Asked how early in his career he was able to choose the stories he would
direct, he said it had been about when he was twenty-six, and that his "first

really good story" was Four Sons ('28), which was taken from a little story

called "Grandma Bernle Learns Her Letters." He added: "Nowadays the son
would have to be in love with the mother, or is it his sister?"

When asked about Westerns he replied: "You can't knock a Western. They
have kept the industry going. And you can't parody or satirize a Western.
I've seen people try —and fail."

Professor Gray asked Ford what sort of stories he like best. "Any good story

with a colorful locale that's about human beings," Ford replied. "Anything
with interesting characters —and some humor."
Ford does not like "message pictures" and he resisted Knight's attempt to
have him say he intended a message of social significance in The Grapes of
Wrath. When Knight persisted, Ford became impatient.
"I am of the proletariat," he said with some fervor. "My people were peas-
 ,

GEORGE J. MITCHELL/1 964 6 3

ants. They came here, were educated. They served this country well. I love
America. I am a-political."

And that led him to talk about Cheyenne Autumn which he had finished

editing a few days before.

"I don't want to sound like I'm plugging it but I think it's pretty good," he
said. "It's a true story about the Cheyennes and how they outwitted the
whole U.S. Army in their retreat across the middle part of this country."

Why had he done this picture?

"I liked the story and caught Jack Warner in a weak moment. He agreed
to let me do it. People in Europe and other parts of the world always ask me
about the Indians —what they were really like, their culture, their history.

I've long wanted to do a story that tells the truth about them and not just a

picture in which they're chased by the cavalry. I think we did that in this
new picture. I hope we did."
He said he particularly likes Sergeant Rutledge. "The colored soldier played

a great role in our history," he said, "and I wanted to tell that story. Woody
Strode, who went to UCLA here, gave a great performance. But the picture
was not successful, because, I've heard, Warners sent a couple of boys on
bicycles out to sell it."
Ford was asked about The Informer and confirmed the statement attributed
to him that it is not one of his favorites.
"I'll tell you about The Informer.
"When an old friend named Joe Kennedy, father of the late lamented Pres-
ident, was in control of RKO, he wanted me to work there and he told four

or five of RKO's big producers — I know they were big producers because they
wore big-check sports coats and smoked big cigars —he wanted them to get
me to direct a picture. They informed Joe I didn't want to do a Western but
a picture about 'a rebellion in Ireland.' Joe asked how much it would cost.

When one of the producers said around $200,000, Joe said: 'Let him make it.

It won't lose any more than some of those you've made.' "
When way through on The Informer Kennedy disposed of
Ford was half ,

his interest in RKO. "They shut me down for one day and told me they'd

have to have the stage I was working on and moved me across Melrose Ave-
nue to the California Studio [now Producers Studio] Which was good, be- .

cause they no longer came in each day to tell me how depressing the story
was and what a failure the picture was going to be.
" The Informer was made in eighteen days and after it was finished they
64 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

shipped the print to New York and sat on it for about five months. When it

was previewed in Hollywood, there were a number of walk-outs. In the lobby

of the theatre —
nobody spoke to me I was treated like a leper. But when the
critics saw it and gave us favorable reviews, things changed. The night the

Academy gave it some four Awards, the producer who had opposed it ac-
cepted one of them for the studio and made a fifteen-minute speech. He then
—
accepted my Award for Best Direction and made another fifteen-minute
boring speech. He also tried to have his name put on the prints and the
advertising, but it was too late for that."

An exerpt from The Informer was then shown. It consisted of the last few
hundred feet and started with the scene of Gypo being shot down and his

death in the church before the mother of the man he had betrayed. Projec-

tion was so badly out of focus that Ford exclaimed: "Is this my print?" As-
sured that it was, he said: "It was a good print the last time I saw it and it was
in correct focus."
Professor Gray then asked Ford about Dudley Nichols, who, Gray said,

"was deeply loved here UCLA." Ford replied with feeling: "We were very
at

close. He loved motion pictures. He never used purple prose. He wrote like

people speak, and with a minimum of dialogue. He was a wonderful man. I

miss him terribly."
He added that no other writer had collaborated as closely with him as

Nichols had.
"I like to have the writer with me on the set," Ford continued. "If a scene
won't play, the writer can look at it and maybe discover that if he eliminates
or adds a word here, or a line of dialogue there, the thing we're striving for
can be gotten."
Moderator Knight asked Ford's opinion of those who like only silent pic-

tures and decry their passing. "I am with them," Ford said with some vigor.
"I too am a silent picture man. Pictures, not words, should tell the story."
Which reminded him of his new picture, and he said Cheyenne Autumn "is

really a silent picture. It's a true story and I'm rather pleased with it."

The discussion then turned to The Iron Horse a picture Ford obviously ,

wanted to talk about. "I had an Uncle Mike who was in the Civil War," he
said proudly. "In fact I had four uncles in the war. I'm a Civil War buff —are
there any here in the house? I used to ask my Uncle Mike to tell me about
the battle of Gettysburg. All Uncle Mike would say was: Tt was horrible. I

went six whole days without a drink.' Uncle Mike was a laborer on the Union
 GEORGE J. M I T C H E L L / 1 9 6 4 6 5

Pacific Railroad when it was built. He told me stories about it and taught me
the songs they had sung. I was always interested in the railroad and wanted
to make a picture about it."

Fox finally gave him the opportunity, but stipulated a four- week schedule.
Ford made a little joke about producers he had worked for who pronounced
the word "shed-yool."
"We went up to Wadsworth, Nevada, on the Southern Pacific line where
the studio had built sets of a railroad construction crew shanty town. When
we got off the train at Wadsworth, it was 20 below zero. I can see those boys
and girls from Hollywood now. Some of them had on linen knickers. The
Southern Pacific helped a lot and brought in several hundred pairs of long
woolen underwear for us. We took the uniforms the studio had sent along as
costumes for the soldiers and wore them because they were warm. I remem-
ber one girl wore a pair of soldier pants so big it came up around her chin.
She cut holes in the side for her arms and didn't care how she looked as long
as she was warm.
"The next day it was 25 below and there was a blizzard. I said to George
Schneiderman, the cameraman: 'What'll we do? We only have four weeks to
make it.' George said there must have been snow when they built the rail-
road so why don't we shoot anyway? Schneiderman was one of the early
cameramen and a great one. He could do anything.
"We lived in passenger cars that belonged to the A 1 G. Barnes Circus, but
some of the people took over the shacks that had been built for the sets and
lived in them.
"Despite the bad weather and almost constant exposure to it, no one got
sick. I suppose it was being out in the open air that kept them all healthy.
Eight of the young men with me became directors, and six or seven of the
girls later became important actresses.
"I've begun writing a story about the making of The Iron Horse," he said,
"and have already finished eight chapters. My wife says it's more porno-
graphic than even current literature. There are some good stories I could tell

you —but not in mixed company." The audience was naturally disappointed.
"We had a nice girl named Madge Bellamy, an important star in those
days, for the leading lady. After the picture was finished, and I was away on
a trip, some glamorous close-ups of Madge,
the studio decided they needed
so they had an assistant director shoot some. He set the camera up in the

bright sunlight and had Madge ooh and ah [Ford mimicked]. When I saw
66 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

this stuff, I was furious, for it didn't even match the scene it was intended
for. But there was nothing I could do."
When Knight and Professor Gray told Ford UCLA was showing The Iron
Horse the following Thursday evening, he said: "I'd like to see it again, but
only if they've cut out those horrible close-ups of Madge."
Gray then asked Ford if it was true, when a production manager com-
plained he was behind schedule, he had once torn pages out of a script and
said: "Now we're on schedule!"
"It's absolutely true," Ford answered. "There was this obnoxious little

character — I think he was the son of some big shot. He said [Ford mimicked]:
'You're way behind schedule.' He'd been pestering me for days so I tore out
ten pages of script and said: 'Now we're three days ahead of schedule. Are
"
you happy?'
Ford became very serious when he talked to the students in the audience
about their chances for jobs in motion pictures. "There is nothing we direc-

tors can do to give you jobs," he said regretfully. "It's not like it was when I

started out and you could walk in and get some kind of a job. It's a terrible

situation that exists when young people are denied the opportunity. But, I

believe talent is somehow always recognized in the end." And he added with
irony: "Of course, if you marry the daughter of some executive producer
you'll get to the top fast."

Although fewer pictures were now being made in Hollywood than at any
time in the past, Ford employment was up because actors and techni-
said,

cians were working on television films and "it was very hard to get a good
cameraman now because so many sign up for thirty-nine-week tv shows. It's
also hard to get a good gaffer [electrician] and a good grip [stagehand-carpen-

ter-handyman] Television latches onto all of the good ones. You have to
.

have people who know how to pick it up and put it down where you want
it. These gaffers and grips are good —they have to be. I've been very lucky in
getting a good crew and a good cameraman."
A student asked if Ford would care to comment on the beautiful photogra-
phy his pictures always seem to have. "Well," he replied, "I think first as a

cameraman, I consider myself a cameraman rather than a director."

George Sidney, who had already described himself as a John Ford fan,

remarked that "Mr. Ford never puts in these striking pictorial scenes just for

effect. Everything is done to enhance the scene, to tell the story."

Ford rejoined: "It's still a silent medium."
 GEORGE J. M I T C H E L L / 1 9 6 4 6 7

Someone asked if Ford would like to comment on a remark some director

had made that "actors are cattle" and if he felt that way. "I can't imagine
anyone saying that because the actors I've worked with were real profession-
als," Ford replied. "They worked hard. I never ran into temperament —not
in Americans, anyway."
He parried a question about Ingmar Bergman in the way already described
and added: "My eyes are pretty bad and it's difficult for me to look at pictures
so I haven't seen any of his, but I understand they're good. I've corresponded
with him, and I intend to meet him very shortly on my trip abroad. Perhaps
I'll see something he has done then."
Asked what he thought of Akira Kurosawa and whether Kurosawa's Samu-
rai films bore any similarity to Ford's Westerns, he said: "I know him. We
consumed a lot of saki together when I was in Japan.He showed me a reel of
cut film of his. He has a genuine feeling and works fast. He is a fine director,
but I don't think his films are at all like mine."
A student asked if it is true Ford shoots his films so they must be cut his

way. Ford smiled and replied: "Yes. Now don't you think that's rather
clever?"
Professor Gray asked Ford if he would comment on Ince and his contribu-

tions to motion "He was not really a director, but a

pictures. Ford answered:

producer. My brother [Francis] worked for him but I did not know him. Ince
had a great influence on films, for he tried to make the best. But I don't think
he was a better film editor than others I've known."
A why Ford did not do more comedies like When Willie
student asked
Comes Marching Home and Ford replied: "I feel I'm essentially a comedy direc-
tor, but they won't give me a comedy to do. When I direct a scene always I

want to make the leading lady fall down on her derriere." He added that
though he has more freedom making pictures his way now that he heads his
own company, "you still have to deal with bankers and people in New York
even if you are your own boss." Knight asked if the company he referred to
was Argosy Pictures, a company Ford had formed with Merian C. Cooper,
"No," Ford replied wryly, "we dissolved that one with a capital loss."

Knight then alluded to a film called Sex Hygiene which Ford directed for
the Signal Corps and which all U.S. soldiers of World War II were shown. "I

threw up when I saw it," said Ford. Knight described his reactions when he
saw this film as a soldier. "Did it help you?" Ford airily asked. "Yes," replied
Knight.
 After an excerpt from They Were Expendable was screened, Ford reiterated
that he did not like it. He
Navy had ordered him to leave his outfit
said the

overseas to make it, which he did not like. "I knew Johnny Bulkeley [the real
life character the story is based on] well. He was a much decorated man, and

a brave one. He dropped me on the coast of France several times during the
war when I was working with the French underground. I guess it's all right
for me to say this, now."
That is the first time, to my knowledge, that Ford has mentioned his work
with the OSS during WW II. Ford also remarked in another context: "The
Italian Government gave me a medal for blowing up a wrong tunnel."
Asked to comment on the so-called "John Ford stock company" he said:

"It's a legend. It's true I've used 'Duke' Wayne, and Ward Bond, God rest his

soul, and others, in many pictures, but I don't think of them as a stock com-
pany."
"What about Maureen O'Hara?" Knight asked. "Forgive me for that," said
Ford, and added: "This is boring." But then added: "I guess I do have a stock

company, but it is the many extra and bit players who have worked with me
for years. I spend a lot of time with them, more than I do with the main
actors."

Before an excerpt from My Darling Clementine was screened, Ford declared:

"I knew Bill Cody, Pardner Jones, A1 Jennings and Wyatt Earp. They used to
visit my sets, and were interested in our pictures. I made Henry Fonda play
Earp just as he was. Earp was not particularly good with a gun. You really
can't shoot a six-gun accurately, you know. Earp was a solemn man and
backed them down with his presence. I knew him rather well.
"This is a strange thing to say, but I've never seen My Darling Clementine.
I hope you are going to show the scene where they dedicate the church. I

think that's good."

That sequence was shown, as was the barber shop one in which Fonda
gets a haircut and a liberal appliance of hair tonic. When the lights went up
and the applause was heavy, Ford said with sincerity: "I enjoyed it."
Before The Quiet Man excerpt was shown, Ford had a few things to say
about it, and it was evident he likes this picture a great deal.

"This is a very sexy story, you know," he said. "I like good lusty sex but I

The customs shown in The Quiet Man are true

object to dirty innuendoes.
and prevail in Connemora, which is the poorest country in Ireland and the
only one Cromwell never conquered. I was born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine,
 GEORGE J. M I T C H E L L / 1 9 6 4 6 9

but I went to school in Ireland for a while and was brought up to speak both
English and Gaelic. Every Irishman is an actor. The Irish and the colored
people are the most natural actors in the world.
“The Quiet Man was photographed in the rain —or Irish mist, as they call

it in Ireland. That helped the picture a lot."

When the questions began to lag Ford, obviously tired, murmured,

"You're running out of material" and sat down.
The audience, applauding, rose in his honor. He got up, bowed, resumed
his seat, removed his spectacles, and wiped his eye, which several times dur-

ing the course of the evening had given him pain.

He seemed genuinely moved by the sincerity of the ovation.
John Ford

ERIC LEGUEBE/1965

q : John Ford, how did you become a director for the cinema?
ford: Because I was lucky enough to have a brother who was interested

in directing before I was and who introduced me.

0 : Can you explain?

ford: At thirteen years old, I was a delivery boy for a shoe manufacturer.
Three years later, my brother Francis had made himself a place in Hollywood,
and called me there. I stole the only pair of boots which were a size seven
from the shoe manufacturer, and I crossed America to join him. Francis had
become a director. The family spirit being one of the attributes of the Irish

race, he hired me as an assistant. Although he had been born O'Feeney, he

had taken the pseudonym Ford. I followed in his footsteps and, for ten years,
1 was Jack Ford. How much fun we had, Francis and I, actors in the same
films, in charge of the same projects!

q : John Ford was to take the place of Jack Ford ...

ford: That happened in 1923. From that moment, I my brother.

bypassed
He was sick with an incurable illness. But I always included him in my proj-
ects. He stayed by my side until his death in T953. Thirty-three years of frater-
nal love!

From Confessions 2: A Century of American Cinema. 37-41. paris IFRANE, 1995. Translated
from French by Jenny Lefcourt.
 ,

q Do you have a method for directing actors ?

:

ford: I never had actors to direct, but friends. How could I speak other-

wise than in terms of friendship, of fraternity, of people like John Wayne,

Victor McLaglen, Henry Fonda? All those who have worked with me have in

their memory the phrase which I always repeat during the shooting, during
editing: ''It's O.K., but it has to be better."

o : What are the criteria by which you chose the subjects which you have decided
to film?
ford: I like, as a director and as a spectator, simple, direct, frank films.

Nothing disgusts me more than snobbism, mannerism, technical gratuity

(that the spectators pay for) and, most of all, intellectualism.

q What place do you give to technique ?

:

ford: The technique is what you don't see on the screen and which is

there to benefit that which the spectators see: the action, the heroes, the
characters, the landscape. For me, a film is a success if the spectators leave
the theater satisfied, if they identify with the characters, if they get joy or
energy.

q : You have been given four Oscars in Hollywood, all the festivals in Cannes
Venice . . . tried to jump on the bandwagon that you have led since 1924, with The
Iron Horse. Of all the awards you have been granted, is there one that you prefer?
ford: None of that kind. I like the job that I do, I hate the analysis, the
evaluation that others permit themselves to have. I am a peasant, and my
pride is to remain one.

q What is your fondest memory of the cinema?

:

ford: Having been named honorary Sachem by the Nava os, with the j

name "Great Soldier." People have said that on the screen I like having Red-
skins killed. But today other people in the cinema feel sorry for them, make
humanist pamphlets, declarations of their intentions, without ever, ever put-

ting a hand in a wallet. Myself, more humbly, I gave them work. That is

perhaps the reason why, during the shooting of The Iron Horse, the chief "Iron
Eyes" Cody became my friend. More than having received the Oscars, what
counts for me is having been made a blood brother of different Redskin na-
tions. Maybe that is my Irishness, my respect for beauty, clans, in the face of
 1

72 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

the modern world, masses, collective irresponsibility. Who, better than an

Irish man, could understand the Indians while remaining enthusiastic about

the fable of the U.S. Cavalry? We are on both sides of the epic. That is what
America was.

q How would you define yourself?

:

ford: John Ford, author of westerns, war stories where men count more
than events, and comedies where the strength of feelings counts. Heroism,
laughter, emotion: the rest is just the rest.

q : You aren't only the filmmaker who says "action" for the camera, hut you are
also the man of action, the soldier of the Second World War, the marine who partic-
ipated in the battle of the Pacific and Normandy.
ford: That's why I like Paris so much. One of my greatest memories is to
have beaten a section of the S.S. with my men during a confrontation around
the Care de la Paix. It wasn't about hate between us, but a fight for different
causes. Similarly, in 1944 , participated in the great events on the parvis of
Notre-Dame. Every time I come to France, I go to pay my respects at Bayeux
on the tombs of French Resistants with whom I was in contact, and at the
cemetery where some of my men were buried.

q How do you see the evolution of American cinema?

:

ford: Hollywood, it's over. The new world capitals of cinema from now
on are Paris, London and maybe Rome. In the United States they only have
eyes for television. That is why I am unemployed, or let's say semi-unem-
ployed!

q: But you still have lots ofprojects?

ford: First of all, I would have liked to devote a film to the great French

aviator, Guynemer. The project is evaporating, without me really renounc-

ing it. But you see, this book, it doesn't leave me. It is the story of the battle
of Lexington. I am working on adapting it, transforming it into a scenario.
If I do this film, that I see already, I would dedicate most of my work to
the description of the everyday life of those who have today become Ameri-
cans; to those farmers who began to become attached to this new land, who
then began to revolt against the English soldiers. This aspect of the birth of

the United States, rustic, rough, interests me a lot more than the battle,
John Wayne
Katharine Hepburn and John Carradine, Mary of Scotland, 1936
George Bancroft, John Wayne, and Louise Platt, Stagecoach 1939
,
Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell, The Grapes of Wrath, 1940
John Wayne, John Qualen, and Thomas Mitchell, The Long Voyage Home, 1940
Charley Grapewin, William Tracy, Elizabeth Patterson, and Gene Tierney,
Tobacco Road 1941
,
Grant Withers, Victor McLaglen, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, George O'Brien,
Miguel Inclan, and Dick Foran, Fort Apache, 1948
John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, Rio Grande, 1950

John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter, The Searchers, 1956

 ERIC LEGUEBE/1 965 7 3

which is am passionate about this approach to

simply the crystallization. I

history. like to dedicate my films to the little people who suddenly became
1

conscious that they belonged to a human group, a community. France par-

ticipated in our War of Independence. Just as it had supported, under Napo-
leon's directory, the independence of Ireland. That is why I am proud to have
contributed to its Liberation. But I also have a hope that the French will be
interested in my project for a film on the battle of Lexington, which was our
taking of the Bastille.

q What advice do you have for a beginning filmmaker?

:

ford: Ask Robert Parrish. Fie would tell you. After having been my assis-
tant, he took the opportunity to stand on his own feet, (and direct), so he
."
came and asked my advice. I answered: "Aim between the eyes, like that. . .

And I punched him in the nose. Since then, I have seen some of his produc-
tions and I saw that he had understood the lesson, his images gave me a

punch.
I am a pioneer, proud to be one. I warn you, despite the love I have for

my profession, I hate to analyze it. To talk about it would give me the impres-
sion never to have done anything.

q : Are there certain of your films which you prefer?

ford: Of course. All of the films in which my friend John Wayne played
the main way I had a nice safety margin! And, Fort Apache,
character. That
where there is action and humor and where, for the first time, my brothers
of the Indian race are heroes presented in a positive light. And finally, the

last of my feature length films for the moment, 7 Women, a western that

takes place in China, and in which all the cowboys are women!

q Do you think the cinema has the right to call itself the Seventh Art?
:

ford: I hate the cinema. But I like making westerns. What I like in filming
is the active life, the excitement of the humming of the cameras, and the
passion of the actors in front of them, the landscapes on top of that, the
work, work, work. ... It takes a huge physical effort to remain lucid and not
to fall in the traps of aestheticism and, above all, intellectualism. What
counts is what one does and not what one says. When make I a western, all
I have to do is to film a documentary on the West, just as it was: epic. And
from the moment that one is epic, one can't go wrong. It's the reality, outside
74 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

time, that one records on the negative. My biggest pride is not having signed
so many films, but having been a cowboy at fourteen. The thirteen dollars
that I made represented a bigger fortune than anything I have earned in
thousands of dollars from my films. That was when I was rich.

q What do you think of cinema today?

:

ford: I don't go anymore. don't see why humanity likes

I that which
stresses stupidity and lowliness. Sex, obscenity, violence, ugliness, deca-

dence, degeneration don't interest me. Excesses disgust me. What I like is

effort, the will to go beyond oneself. For me, life is to be oneself in the face

of friends who you punch in the nose, and then you drink and sing together.
It is the attraction to real women, and not the Miss Bovarys. It's the fresh air,

the great outdoors, the great hopes.

Filmmakers of Our Time: The Twilight
of John Ford

JEAN NARBONI AND ANDRE S.

LABARTHE/1965

"Ford, first take! "

Freeze frame: Ford in his bed, with a cross on the wall and photographs in

frames. Ford, with his famous eye patch, is sitting cross-legged in his pajamas
with one hand on his hip, and the other hand holding a cigar which he
smokes throughout the interview.

q : Monsieur Ford where do you come from? (kneeling near the bed)
,

ford: (leaning towards the journalist) Portland, Maine.

q : Portland Maine?
,

ford: Well, Peak's Island, Maine. P-E-A-K-S.

Q : I'm going to ask you a very indiscreet question , when were you bom?
ford: What is the indiscreet question? Go ahead, ask it first.

q When were you bom?

:

ford: Is that indiscreet? I was born in '95. I'm seventy years old. (A wom-
an's voice off camera interrupts: "You are not. You're sixty-eight.")
ford: Huh? What?

Q : Sixty-eight?

ford: Well, I feel like ninety.

From "Cineastes de notre temps/' produced by Hubert Knapp. Printed by permission of

Institut National de L'Audiovisuel. Translated from French by Jenny Lefcourt.
 ?

76 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

q How did you come to the movie pictures ? If I may say so

: . . .

ford: By train. Chemin de fer. (smiles)

q What have you done before making movie pictures

:

ford: I am trying to think. I was a cowboy.

q When and where?

:

ford: Arizona. Before that, I went to school. I got out of school and went
West. Finally drifted to Hollywood, got into the . . . I've stayed ever since.
1916.

q : But being bom in Maine normally you shouldn't have been a cowboy.
,

ford: (in French) Why not?

o : Because cowboys are people who were . . .

ford: (in French) Sailor, I was a sailor, too.

q : (in French) When were you a sailor? At what time?

ford: (in French) During vacation. You know ... I went to sea. I was a
sailor. And I went West to become a cowboy. washed dishes. I

q : You what? You washed dishes? In the West?

ford: In restaurants. All the way West.

q How long were you a cowboy?

:

ford: Oh, about eight months.

q : Eight months. How did you like it?

ford: I liked it very much. The pay was poor.

q : So you had to quit. No money.

ford: No, no. I just wanted to move on, I was restless and moved on.

q And after that?

:

ford: I went to Hollywood.

q : Being what first?

ford: A laborer, with a pick and shovel. Then I became a propman, assis-

tant director, and eventually a director. I started directing when I was nine-
teen.
 JEAN NARBONI AND ANDRE S. L A B A R T H E / 1 9 6 5 7 7

q When you were nineteen! Which year was it? Oh yes, it was in
: . . .

ford: That later part of T 6. Then the war came along, of course. And after-

wards I came back and I continued directing.

q What was the first picture you directed when you

: were nineteen?
ford: (in French) I don't know.

q : The first picture you made after the war, what was it?

ford: I don't know!

q : I meant after the war!

ford: (in French) I don't know, old man! (in English) I don't know!

q And what is the first picture you remember?

:

ford: (smile crosses his face) I don't remember. The Iron Horse.

q : It was about the construction of the train?

ford: (indicates his glass, in French) Spanish wine tastes good, doesn't it?

It's very good.

o : Yes, very good.

ford: (in French) It's better than what they make today. Ginger ale.

(laughs) Go ahead. Continuez, continuez. Continuez en anglais. Si'l vous

plait.

q : I'll try. I'll try my best.

ford: (in French) I have forgotten everything. I am very, very deaf.

o : (in French) In French you are a little deaf.

ford: Yeah, fighting for France, (smiles)

o : In English you are not.

ford: (in French) A wound in France.

q : Monsieur Ford, you have lived almost the whole of the American history of the
movie picture.
ford: True.

q : When you look back, how do you feel about it? What do you feel about the
way it was done?
 ;

78 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

ford: Well, if I wanted to live my life over again, I would still do the same
thing. Hollywood, I mean, has a bad press. They're wonderful people, the
most noble, a lot of people, the most charitable. They have the best record,
for example the best military record, of any industry in the country. The best
civil record and the best charitable record. Of course, some star, or somebody
who pretends to be a star, gets in trouble, you have headlines in Le soir (draws

a headline in the air) . . . not Le soir what's the other? No, but ... we have a

bad press, but they are magnificent people. Charitable, kind, nice, very nice.
It's the people that you get the scandal from, some of them are not even in
the business.

q : And when you think of the first pictures you made here . . . what did you think

you would achieve when you made your first pictures?

ford: I thought I would achieve a check. For money. That's all I thought
about.

q : And when did you start thinking that there was something more than checks
behind it?

ford: This is my business, my profession, it's the way that I support my

family. I love the business; I like the people; I am not what is called a "career

director."

q What do you mean by that?

:

ford: Some men will make a good picture then they keep on trying. They
won't work for a year and a half; they're trying to beat the last one. I just

keep on going making pictures, good, bad, indifferent. I just like to be around
the studios. I like the people I work with. I'm absolutely without ambition. I

have no ambition. I like pictures. I like to make pictures.

q : Mr. Ford you pretended not

,
to be interested after you have made a film , a

picture, by this picture. Is that right?

ford: "Pretend" is very rude.

q : I'm sorry.

ford: I think of the next picture.

q : You think of the next picture. But does it happen that among the tens —can
you say "tens?" —ofpictures you made, does it happen that there is one, or two, or

several, which you particularly like?

ford: (silence) Yes, but you've never heard of them.

 JEAN NARBONI AND ANDRE S. L A B A R T H E / 1 9 6 5 7 9

q : Yes, why?
ford: They were little pictures. make any money, but lost
They didn't

money, no stars, but they came out perfectly for me. None of the big pictures
. . .
you know . . .

q : Can you name one?

ford: Young Mr. Lincoln, The Sun Shines Bright.

o : He knows them (gestures to other journalist).

ford: I like them.

OTHER journalist: Yes, I like too.

ford: Let's shake hands. (In French) You are very nice.

OTHER journalist: What about The Searchers?

ford: Just a Western.

OTHER journalist: A good Western!

ford: No, just a Western.

q : You know, we have lots ofpeople in France interested by the movies, who think

that the Western is a very important part of the moving pictures. Many intellectuals
think it's the expression of the American soul.

ford: Well, the Western is the best type of picture that's action, mostly
true, all this has happened. But you have horses, you have movement, you
have background, scenery, color. And that's why they're interesting. I think
most of our best pictures are Westerns. I can imagine the French intellectuals
liking them. I like them!

q : It's often been said that you have sort of your own stock company of actors, is

that true?

ford: No, that isn't true. No, that's just a legend. I use anybody. But for
extras I try to use the same people. They know exactly what I want, they do
as I tell them, and they're very grateful.

Q : Monsieur Ford, is there a particular way of directing your actors when you
make a Western?
 ? ?

80 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

ford: Um, um. (Leans back on his bed with one leg up.) It's the same. You
find that every cowboy's a good actor. You pick 'em out, they can speak the
line just as well as any other actor. They're all trained. And they're not afraid.
They just get up and speak their minds and they're good.

o : So why use professional actors

ford: Well, they are professional actors.

q : Oh. Why very often in your pictures do the women . . . they are so often getting
a little . . . over the behinds.

ford: I don't understand. Behind. You mean la derriere?

q Why are they beaten

: by men? Why are they being punished
ford: Who?

q : Women.
ford: Where?

q : In your pictures.

ford: What picture?

o : Donovan's Reef, for example.

ford: Oh, the audiences like it. I've only done it twice. I adapt that from
the French, from the "Apache," they're always beating their women, see?

That's an influence I get from the French. They are always scouring their

women with knives.

q And The Quiet Man.

:

ford: Well, that was funny. You don't think that was amusing?

q : Oui, very funny.

ford: (claps hands) Au revoir, mes amis. I've got to have dinner! I eat, you
know. I've been working all day.
 ?

Ford on Ford 1

AXEL MADSEN/1966.

Our meeting with John Ford took place in a big colonial-style

house, where he lives with his wife, his grandson, and a Finnish couple who
are the domestics. He was flat out with a flu, which already had knocked out
the rest of his family. In sky-blue pajamas and a Scottish scarf, he was sitting
rather than lying on his bed, smoking endless cigars (which he lit with enor-
mous kitchen matches). He was tired but sharp-spirited, moving, ironic.

axel madsen: Are you planning any movies?

john ford: I'm reading a lot of stories. I was out there in Honolulu
reading a pack of scripts about six foot high, and they were all filth, dirty.

And I don't know . . . it's against my conscience and my religion. I'm not
constituted to make that kind of picture, really stupid. They say that's what
the audience wants, sex and violence. I don't agree.

m : What do you look for in a script

f : Oh, I like a simple story, but two stories I'm working on are not simple.
One is a present-day Navy story, and the other is set in Pakistan between
World War I and World War II. If I do the Navy story, I'll have to go up to
Alaska and do it. For the other, I'd have to go to Pakistan, and I've traveled
enough.

Interviewed March 14, 1966. © 1966 Axel Madsen. Ford's original English has been retained.
Reprinted by permission of the author. Translated from Danish by Jan Lumholdt.
82 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

m : When you first came to LA your brother

, ,
Francis , was already here as a direc-

tor and actor.

f : Lucie Love was a serial my brother was doing, and I was an assistant prop
man, and I doubled for him. I drove off bridges, jumped the horses off cliffs.

I was right out of starting college and I was fairly athletic.

m : What was the prerequisite to becoming a director in those days?

f : When I first came out here, the directors were a closely knit club, very,
very, tight, and it was hard to break in. Not any more! They hire them off

the street in New York and send them here. Some guy comes in from Czecho-
slovakia and they give him an office. Oh, it's very easy to become a director
now, as long as you're not American or as long as you don't belong out here.
But in those days, directors were great men. They wouldn't speak to anybody,
very pompous. They had to get their money in cash. No checks.

m : Did you know Cecil B. De Mille?

f : He was a very strange character, a very charming man, very nice, and a

great, great showman. He's probably our greatest showman.

m :
If it was so hard to become a director, how did you manage?
f : An assistant director quit and I stepped up. That's when they first opened
Universal City. Mr. (Carl) Laemmle came out (from New York) through the
Panama Canal and the place was crowded and they put on great shows. And
they had a grand ball on the one permanent stage with a roof on it, and we
the assistants had to act as bartenders. This party went on and on and finally
about six in the morning I got tired and I dug under the bar and went to
sleep. I woke up about eight and I knew we'd have to shoot that day. We had

a crowd, cowboys, a village, and a back street. But none of the directors (in-
cluding Francis) showed up. They were suffering, you know, what is the . . .

French for "hangover"?

But anyway, I was waiting there with the cowboys and the manager rides

up and says, "Mr. Laemmle

coming with a couple of hundred people. For
is

heaven's sake! Pretend you're Francis and start to do something." Well, I

didn't look enough like Francis to do something, but I had a cowboy ride
through the streets shooting. So the manager says, "Do something else." So
I pointed to three boys and said, " As you come through the street, you fall

there, you fall there, and you fall there." And they rode through the streets
 , ?

AXEL madsen/1966 8 3

and "BOOM," fell, because there were a lot of pretty girls in the crowd. Now,
a horse fall is $250. Then you were paid an extra dollar.
Bernie, Mr. Bernstein, who was the manager, said, "Keep on going." So I

said (to the cowboys), "As you ride through this town, I'm going to fire a

shot —there's a big crowd of Indians out there shooting at you—and more of
you people fall." I was shouting through a megaphone. I fired a shot and
every cowboy, I think there were about fifty of them, fell off horses. Well,

they (watching) all thought that was great. I said, "Holy Moses." Bernie said,

"What can you do now?"

I said, "How much does this village cost us?" "Just wood," he said. So
what I some kerosene and poured it over the village, set
did was got hold of
the village on fire, and had the cowboys ride back and forth through it shoot-
ing. Finally, there was no more village and everybody had to leave. And so a

month later, they needed a director to direct Harry Carey. Mr. Laemmle said,
"What's the matter with Jack Ford? He's a good director. He yells real loud."
They said, "He's an assistant." He said, "He's good. Give him a chance." I
was getting $50 a week as an assistant. They cut me to $35 a week and I
became a director. That's how it all started."

m : And that was ,

I believe Cactus, My Pal?
f : The first picture I did was called Sky Pilot. Cactus ,
My Pal I've never heard
of that.

m : Do you remember The Scrapper? The Soul Herder? Straight Shooting?

f : The Soul Herder! That was the first picture I made! With Harry Carey.

m And that's where you got $35 a week.

:

f And Harry Carey was getting $75. His contract was running out and
:

that's why they put me to direct him. They didn't care, you know? We made

one picture a week, and Carey and his wife went back East and met a friend
there in the accounting department of Universal. And suddenly he found
out that he was their biggest seller, the biggest moneymaker on the lot. So
he went from $75 to $1500 a week, and I went to $75.

m : Describe those Harry Carey movies.

f : Instead of doing ordinary Westerns, we did them a little differently.
Carey didn't have chaps. He'd dress like a real cowboy. We'd write the stories
 ,

84 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

ourselves and we had a lot of humor in them, we had fun with them. The
stories were not the kind you see on television. The characters were real char-

acters, and we had a good bunch of cowboys with us.

m : What's the silent picture of yours you like best?

f : Oh, I wouldn't remember. I think Four Sons probably.

m : And what happened when sound came in?

f : Nothing. We just made them with sound.

m : But there must have been a big transition.

f : Yes, I guess there was quite a transition. We silent directors, we all got
our notices or they tried to buy out our contracts at about one tenth of what
they were worth. So we all struck and said, "We'll report every week, see?
Draw our salaries." They imported a lot of New York stage directors and those
pictures were awful, and halfway through they started calling us, "Would
you finish this up?" They'd say, "None of the oldtimer (actors) can talk."
God, anybody can talk! So they got rid of the New York directors and we just
went on making pictures.
My first sound picture was called Napoleon's Barber. I was showing Jose-
phine on her way to Waterloo and her coach had to go over a bridge. The
soundman and everybody raised the dickens: "You can't go outside and
make sound. You gotta go inside. You can't do this and you can't do that."
And I said, "Let's try it." So we went outside and had Napoleon saying,
"What is the name of that village near Brussels called something?" And it
turned out perfectly, so everybody went outside. much easier making
It's

pictures with sound. The problem was developing writers who knew dia-
logue.

m : Who is the screenwriter you are most fond of?

f : Dudley Nichols, who passed away.

m : What was remarkable about him?

f : I didn't say he was remarkable. He was a good, sound, hardworking, ded-

icated writer, and if you wanted to help him, he'd accept your help. If you
gavehim an idea and he didn't like it, he'd say so. But if he liked it, he'd
work hard on it, and he had a very good story sense. So we got along all
 ? ?

AXEL madsen/1966 8 5

right. We were very good friends. We used to go fishing together, which is

more important than making pictures.

m : When were you first in France?

f : Let's forget that.

m : In World War I?
f : Yeah, but I didn't see a hell of a lot of France. Coming into St. Nazaire,

they wouldn't let you off the boat. The last time wasn't too long ago. I went
over to Bayeux on the coast to put some flowers on the graves of some of the
boys I lost. Pretty city, Bayeux. ... I don't like Paris, you know. I like Carca-
sonne, Avignon, Fontorelle. I was in Fontorelle when we liberated it with
Patton's army. We were in front of a church, and one of the nuns asked,
"Etes-vous Anglasi?," and I answered, "The hell I am! Je suis Americain." The
abbess asked if I was Catholic. Since I answered affirmatively, I was asked to
light the first candle' of the Liberation in the abbey. It was one of the high-
lights my life.

m :
Of your sound films before Stagecoach, which do you remember best
f : Submarine Patrol. That was a comedy, that was fun. And The Plough and
the Stars. Well, I got mad at that one. I finished it and took my boat and
sailed to Honolulu, and a new boss at the studio had an assistant director
take ten days of retakes on it. Instead of having the two leads married, they
were "sweethearts." They were on the same bed, but sweethearts, you see.

Screwed it all up. But I understand there was a terrific fuss about it from the
Irish — it took place in Dublin —and in Europe, and they put it back the way
I made it.

m : Did they often tamper with your pictures

f : Oh yes, Jesus! There's nothing you can do about it. You can raise hell,

you can throw bricks through windows, but it's still in the contract that they
want with them. George Stevens is suing the TV people. Do you know any-
thing about that? I wouldn't look at a picture of mine on TV. Just as you're

moving into something, they cut to a dame in a bathtub, detergents. It's

awful. About twenty years ago, I started to look at Stagecoach on TV, but every
time it got interesting they cut to a commercial. . . . I'm an awfully poor
 ?

86 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

person to interview about pictures. I'm not particularly interested in them. I

make them and leave them alone. I walk away from them.

m : Why are you so famous then

f : I don't know. Luck. . . . Did they ever do a story about Guynemer, the
famous ace in World War I?

m : They're doing one in Ireland now The Blue Max, about a World War I Ger-
,

man ace.
f And they're doing
: that in Ireland? A Kraut? That's funny.

m : What about the film they finished for you there? Young Cassidy?
f : Well, I hardly started when came down with double pneumonia. I was
I

down to T39 pounds, now I'm up to 188 and I can't get it off. . . . They offered
me one of those French flying pictures, but that's something I don't know
about. I'm a sailor, not a flier. What I remember about fliers is that they came
into Paris and all they were doing was drinking, dames, and parties. Christ,

it was a beautiful war! . . . But I want to do something I know. I'm an old

submariner. Je suis un vieux matelot. My accent is very Norman. We had a
lot of French-Canadians where I grew up and they spoke very pure, old
Norman.

m : How about Indian languages?

f : I picked up a lot of Navajo. My verbs aren't that good, but I can under-
stand a lot of it, and I can direct them. The trouble was that they would never
speak to me in English, they'd always speak to me in Navajo. There were

interpreters but they weren't very good.

m : What did the Indians think of your movies?

f : They'd never see movies except when we were down there. We'd bring
down a picture they worked on and show it to them in a tent. Oh, they'd sit

there and enjoy it very, very much. They were kind of startled at first, but
they liked them. Comedy they wouldn't understand, but a western would
appeal, something with action.

m : It seems that in Cheyenne Autumn, you tried to show their side of things.
f : I didn't try. I did. That's a true story. The American government were the

heavies, and it showed exactly how it happened, how everything promised

 AXEL madsen/1966 8 7

was broken. ... I love to shoot down there, on the Navajo reservations, and
I'm really the only one they let shoot on their sacred grounds, where the
dead are buried, scenes of their heroic battles. I'm actually an adopted chief
of the tribe: Natani Nez.
They've never been defeated, you know? The other tribes were afraid of
them. They're very quiet peacable people, but in battle they're terrific riders

and very brave. In World War II, a lot of Navajos were in the Navy and they'd
use them as beach masters. They were the ones who translated from the ship
to the beach what to do. The Japanese couldn't break down the Navajo lan-
guage, so they could speak out in Navajo, "Send the second wave," and so

forth. They're great people. I go down there on vacation instead of to Palm

Springs or Las Vegas. If I have a few days, I go down to Monument Valley and
it's very pleasant, solitude.

m : When you shoot a western, how do you decide where to put the camera?

f : I say, this is the best shot here, let's put the camera here. You don't do
that ahead of time, you do it the day you're shooting.

m : But how do you know it's this spot and not that spot?
f : I don't know. You do it by instinct. I mean, here's a river and a tree and
in the background mountains and over there flats, so you shoot the prettiest.

You shoot what would look best on screen. Experience, instinct. That's it.

m And what's the important thing about actors?

:

r You want someone who fits the character. You like to get a nice person
:

who'd be fun around the set. When I work, I work very hard, but we always
have a lot of fun.

m : Do you often do many takes?

f : No, very few takes. I rehearse in a rehearsing room.

m : fust around a table?

f : Yes, and we rehearse and rehearse
we get it fine. Meanwhile, they
until
are lighting the set and arranging things and when they're ready we come

out. And they run through it once or twice and I usually make it in one, two,

three shots. If it runs over three shots, I bring (the actors) back into the re-
 ?

88 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

hearsal room. The scene isn't going well, what can we do with it? Maybe if

you add a line or cut one out there, it helps.

In the old days, you used to go out and make pictures. Now you may pick
a story and present it to the head of the studio. He sends it off to New York.
They make a synopsis that's read before a board, and it's given to the board
members. Now you know the board members aren't going to read it, so they
give it to their wives. See? So, Jesus, now it's going from here to there and
God knows who reads the story.
I've just had one of the best scripts I've ever had, I worked on it for seven

months, and I finally got word back from the office that it was too soft. "Not
enough sex and violence." A beautiful story, one I really liked. With comedy,
pathos, nice characters. No heavies, no shooting, just very nice. "Too soft."
So I got furious and I said, "Take your studio and stick it!" Now you have to
wait, and they come to you with these silly goddamned scripts. There's one
over here: on the first page, a soldier rapes a twelve-year-old Indian girl, on
the second page, the Indians catch him and castrate him. This is great for
me, my type of work!
The British are making pretty good pictures nowadays. They do good sto-

ries that don't necessarily have sex and violence. They know one thing, how
to laugh at themselves.

m : How about the Italians ? They make good movies. Fellini's pictures

f : I've never seen one, but I understand that. We couldn't attempt any-
thing like that here, of course. In Hollywood, there's always the economic
question. The oldtime directors try to keep their salaries up and the new boys
work for nothing. Now know at MGM there's a bunch of boys preparing
I

stories. They're not getting paid. If MGM accepts a story, then they get paid.
But you know, people like Capra, Leo McCarey, they're not going to work for
that kind of money. They want us to cut our salaries, we'd rather retire. To
hell with them! We've got more money than they have! (Laughter.)

m : In the old days , there was money in the movie business. I remember reading
thatTom Mix got $10,000 a week, and that was before there was income tax.
f That's true. Bill Farnum also got it. And in cash. They wouldn't accept
:

checks. Tom probably didn't know what a check was. They'd have to pay
him ten $r,ooo bills every week. And he spent it all and he died broke. Mary
and knew him very well. (Calling to his wife) Mary! Did Tom die broke?
I
 , 1

AXEL madsen/1966 8 9

mrs. ford: No, he had $6,000 in his pocket and a 24 carat diamond in
his belt buckle, which he always said was his fare home, no matter where he
went.

f : But he didn't leave a fortune. Except for what (his wife) Vicky got, of
course.

mrs. ford: She got over a million dollars in jewelry. I remember one day
when he gave Vicky $125,000. For her birthday.
f : That's a helluva present.
mrs. ford: He adored me. There never was a Mother's Day without him
sending me a telegram no matter where he was in the world. He said in the
telegrams, "The other 364 days of the year belong to the world, but today is

yours." He never sent his wife one. She said to him once, "How come you're
always sending Mary one, but you never send me one?" And he said, "You're
not the type!" (Laughter.)
f He was a terrific guy, Tom. And he was very easy to work with, as long as
:

he knew what he was doing, his capabilities. He'd get out there and do some
stunts, he'd work like hell, then he'd sit back and let his crew take care of

everything. He enjoyed making pictures.

m : And you directed how many of them?

f : Quite a few. Don't ask me the names.

m : Did you know Bronco Billy Anderson?

f : I'm not that old. Jesus Christ, I'm only seventy! That was back in 1908 .

was in short pants then.

m : But you did know D. W. Griffith?

f : Oh, sure. When he was doing The Birth of a Nation I worked three days
as a Klansman. I worked as an extra, that's all. Later knew him quite well. A
I

very fine gentleman. And he certainly pulled the business on his feet. He
died broke, though. We all die broke.

m : Did you ever cut your pictures yourself?

f : In the old days, you had to cut your pictures. I mean manually. Now you
just supervise. "Put that back in, cut that out." Not that it makes a difference,
they change them anyway. . . . How did The Greatest Story Ever Told turn out?
 ?

90 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

m : It didn't make any money.

f : Biblical stories ... I don't know, are pretty dull. They all forget that
Christ was a human being. A man. Who was the first American saint? Mother
something. They were talking to me about a movie, and said, "Don't get a I

Catholic to do it. I'm a practicing Catholic. would treat it with too much I

respect." She was a woman, a human being. "Get someone who is an atheist
or a Protestant or a Jew to make it."

m : A picture that's loved very much in France is The Man Who Shot Liberty
Valance, which was sort of a "Fordian" picture: clean, clear, simple.

f : Fordian?

m : Yes.

f : Oh, Fordesque.

m : You know the famous film critic, Andre Bazin. Do you know he wrote beautiful
things about you? (Quotes from a Bazin article, "A la veille de la guerre.")

f : That's very nice. (Pause) Did you ever go to Bayeux?

m : No, but I know they make tapestries.

f : They don't. They did at the time of William the Conquerer. The Tapestry
of Bayeux. I went there right after the War, and everything was locked up. It

was all these Resistance fighters, and we just had a big lunch and we were
full of wine and food. We knocked at a door, and this guy took us down into
his cellar, and there in a safety Then he showed us
box he had this tapestry.

what he swore was the sword of William the Conqueror. He was making fun
of us.

m : Did you do any shooting during D-Day

f : I had to lead them ashore. Yes, I was one of the first men ashore. My
luck, my boat was one of the first to land.

m : On the 6th or yth of June?

f : The 6th. At the first hour, I had these boys, got them placed. Told them
to keep their heads down behind the dunes and photograph, and we filmed
the second wave of ships. Bellevue-sur-Mer, I think that's what the spot was
called. We got lucky, and I didn't lose one of my guys, at least not there.
 7

m : Did you see The Longest Day?

f : No, I wouldn't want to. Because it's not a true story of the invasion.
Zanuck made it. That's the way people believe it was, thousands of people
coming ashore. It wasn't like that. There were groups of thirty or forty, fight-
ing their way up. First we had to knock out the SS.

m : You made films for the Navy during the War.

f : and two, The Battle of Midway and December yth, won Academy
Yes,

Awards. The Battle of Midway I photographed by myself. I had nobody with

me. I happened to be there.

m : You know about F-stops and ASA numbers?

f : Oh, sure. I'm a helluva cameraman. It was my job to sort of look out
when the attack came. All I had was an IMO, a little 16mm camera, and I

kept changing and changing the magazines and putting them in my pocket.
I got wounded badly.

m : But the film was saved.

f : Yes, but it jumped at places. It's been done a lot of times since; they fake
it, making the camera shake. But it happened naturally (to me) because the
explosions were so close.

m : Your first film after the War was They Were Expendable about the real-life

Lt. John Bulkeley.

f : There's a picture of him in the den, our most decorated hero. He's the
one who got MacArthur out of the Phillipines. He's still a great friend of
mine. Each time I had to go to France, he'd come out with a whole flotilla of
PT boats and say, "I'll take you in."

m : What do you think about color photography

f : I prefer black and white. It's much easier to photograph in color. You
have to be a real cameraman to photograph in black and white. But the com-
pany says, "It must be in color."

m : And what about producers?

f : We directors don't know what the producer does. People say, "Who is

producing your latest film?", and I say, "I don't know, I've never met him."
 ,

92 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

(Laughing). We don't pay any attention to him. He's not even an account-
ant. He sits and looks at the rushes, you know? And tells you how it should
have been done, how he wants it. I say, "Go out and do it," and he says, "I

don't know anything about it."

m : And music?
f : I didn't care for the music in The Fugitive. It sounded like Cossack music.
I'm fond of music, but when two people meet in pictures the philharmonic
orchestra has to go into it. A few simple phrases, yes, but too much music!
You can't hear the dialogue.

m : They say you hardly ever use dolly shots.

f : I do, but very gently and slowly. You don't notice them. I like to keep
the audience's attention on [my people's] eyes.

m : How about your latest film Women? 7

f : The company didn't like it. No stars. But I thought Maggie, what the hell

is her name? . . . Margaret Leighton. I thought she was great. I think it's one
of my best-directed pictures, but it didn't appeal to the public. That's not
what they wanted.
The Old John Ford Talks about Westerns

MICHELE MOTT/1966

John Ford, director of the most beautiful westerns in the

world, is in Paris. He has come to preside over the re-release of Fort Apache.
Rediscovering Paris, Notre Dame, and the benefits of leisurely walks, he made
the acquisition of a cane ahead of time.
Then he came back to his hotel. That's where I found him. He had taken
refuge in his bed, which seemed to occupy entirely his large body, covered
in freckles, his yellow hair standing up on his head. He began by telling me

that he was a Vice Admiral, an officer of the Legion of Honor, decorated with
a "croix de guerre." I told him that in France he incarnated the western
above all.

q : Mr. Ford what do you think of the new version that has just been
,
made of
Stagecoach?
a : It's disgusting. Why make a new film when the first is still a huge success
in the entire world? With all due modesty, I would say that the film you are
talking about isn't any good at all.

q : Do you feel the new ensemble of actors?

same about the

a : I, who directed John Wayne, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Victor McLag-

len, the old guard. The old were much better. They knew how to do
. . .

everything: to play a comedy, to inhabit a character, and at the same time,

From Paris-Presse I'intransigeant, July 12, 1966. © 1966 by France-Soir. Reprinted by permis-
sion. Translated from French by Jenny Lefcourt.
94 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

to ride a horse, to be a good shot, to accomplish a physical performance. It's

much harder to work with young people: those who know how to act are
rare.

o : Still, you have a good school in the United States. The Actors Studio.
a : I don't understand what you are saying.

q : The Actors Studio and Elia Kazan.

a : I don't know anything about it. I don't know anything about my friend
Kazan's activities. You can't learn how to act. It's innate. It's inside you. Did
Sacha Guitry go to school? And Claude Dauphin? And Jean Gabin? By the
way, what's become of him? Him, he played with his heart.

q : And according to your heart, could you give a definition of the western?
a : It's a film in which you work with nice people and in nature. You eat

delicious things, you put up tents in the prairie. You have fun. It's nice.

q : Still, the western is something besides this epicurism. In Fort Apache, you
take the Indians' side and demystify the American general that Henry Fonda incar-

nates.

a : I am not trying to make a legend live. I simply recall historic facts. Be-

cause it is based on American history, on people who existed, the western

moves me. Did you know that Fonda went to the location to gather material

before playing the role of the mean general?

q : Is the western still the rage in the United States?

a : Americas, especially New Yorkers, go to see French films. They come out
of the cinema swooning and repeating, "It's marvelous!" They want above
all to appear very sophisticated. But children adore westerns. . . . We will
continue, we must continue, to make western-style films.

q : In France we like westerns a lot. In Spain and Italy, they actually make them
as well.

a : Oh really? I didn't know that. But it seems to me that you have to be

American in order to express the spirit of the pioneers, to discover the Far
West. The western is only for us Americans. Why don't the French do the
 MICHELE MOTT/1966 9 5

story of Guynemer, the best aviator in the world? That would be a project I'd

like to do if I were French.

And George Washington? Who cares about George Washington? It can't
be left up to the French to make a film about him. It's up to me. (Fie smiles,
and straightens his eye patch.) I should be retired by now. But that bores me,
retirement. So, I'll settle for a little film that will make me happy. No, no
more big films.

And John Ford, soothed, lies back on his bed, crushing his pillow.
Telerama's Exclusive Interview with John
Ford in the Flesh

CLAUDE-JEAN P H I L I P P E / 1 9 6 6

When I arrive in the lobby of the Royal Monceau at five o'clock,

Pierre Rissient and Bertrand Tavernier, the press representatives, are pessi-
mistic.

Ford has just politely dismissed a colleague after a few minutes of discus-
sion. He decided to sleep. I will thus wait three hours for him to wake up.
That brings us to 8 PM. And we'll still have to see if he's willing to receive
me. As a journalist, I don't have a chance. Bertrand Tavernier will introduce
me as a personal friend.

At eight o'cldck, the old pirate wakes up. Everyone is bustling about his
bed, lavishing attention on him. I enter on tiptoe. I am introduced. Hand
shake. John Ford in his pajamas, hoary, clean-shaven, blotchy, smoking a

cigar while feeling his prominent stomach. He is impassive like a Tibetan

bronze sculpture. ... He smokes cigar after cigar, perfectly relaxed. He asks
to shave. He is brought a razor, a mirror, and shaving cream. He shaves in
front of us, without modesty, simply. It's as if we were in a Texas fort, in the
middle of a scene in the barracks.
He resolutely refuses to talk cinema. As soon as there's talk of one of his

films, he scowls and pretends never to have seen it. Everyone is surprised,

provokes him, even accuses him of lying. Nothing helps. John Ford hasn't
seen John Ford's films. And when, by chance, he sees one on television, the

program is so packed full of commercials that he turns off the set.

From Telerama, July 3r-August 6 1966. Reprinted , by permission of the au-

thor. Translated from French by Jenny Lefcourt.
 CLAUDE-JEAN P H I L I P P E / 1 9 6 6 9 7

But in a way, without meaning to, he is constantly talking about his films.
The themes of his conversation are those of his work, beginning with Ire-

land, family, travel, intermingled motifs in his life and films.

He dreams out loud: "The sea ... I was brought up close to the sea. If I

hadn't been a director, I would have been a sailor."

John Ford has a yacht which is his second home. So I ask: "Do you like to

travel?"

"No," he answers, "I have traveled too much. I have seen every country
in the world as far as Tibet. Now I prefer staying home."
"You often evoke the war. Is this because you like it?"

John Ford throws up his arms. Then the answer comes after some time:
"So you know another way to leave home for a while?"
His turn to ask us a question: "Does the army in France have a political
influence? In the United States, the American Legion, which rallies all the
veterans, is very powerful."
"Do you approve, of this intervention of the military in political life?"
"No, not at all. It could be very dangerous."
If the accusation of militarism amuses him, that of racism makes him
jump.
"I am the first," he says, "to have made a black the main character of a
western (Sergeant Rutledge) . How could I be a racist, me who saw so many
black soldiers fall on the beaches of the Normandy landing? I consider the
blacks to be full-fledged American citizens."

John Ford is open about his religious sentiments. The journalist who came
before me represented I'Humanite. When he learned that it was a Communist
journalist, Ford asked for his rosary to give to the unbeliever.
"I am Irish," he tells me, "thus, Catholic. This doesn't stop me from being
anticlerical. One can be a fervent Catholic and hate sermons. I choose my
priests like I distribute my films." Let's note that the next day, Sunday, John
Ford will attend the mass at Notre-Dame of Paris.
Four hours have passed, interspersed with laughter and even songs, those
Irish ballads which the marvelous old man hums with a hoarse voice. John
Ford invites us to have dinner with him. He eats egg casserole accompanied
by a Bordeaux. One should see the mischievous patience with which he
holds out his glass while he waits for it to be filled to the rim. Like his charac-
ters, he drinks bottom-up.
 ,

The Fourth Dimension of Old Age

CLAUDINE T AV E R N I E R / 1 9 6 6

When he arrived, we accosted him like one accosts a sage.

We sat around his bed, our chin in the palm of our hand, a hungry stare
fixed on him. We were waiting for him to speak. Because in our country,
artists are voluble. They explain, they explain a lot of very interesting things,
very complicated, very intelligent, we ruin our fingers writing down their

words. But this one doesn't speak.

Not bothered by our stares either, he remains there, sitting on his bed
calmly smoking his cigar. The ashes fall on the sheets.

ford: I don't know myself. All these people who come to interview me
know a lot more about my films than I know myself. In Hollywood, we don't
talk much about cinema. When we shoot, we start very early, because we live

very far from the studios and we have a long way to travel. And in the eve-
ning, we go home. We all live pretty far from one another. Duke Wayne lives
more than fifty kilometers from my house. That is why we don't get together
very often. And as soon as we have finished a film, we head far off from
Hollywood, some for Honolulu, others for New York. . . . When am alone,
I I

read a lot. Mostly history books. I love history. I probably know the history
of France better than all of you.

q Who are your favorite writers?

:

ford: Liam O'Flaherty, who was my cousin, Edward Morrow when he

writes, Frances Parkinson Keyes, Balzac, the Russian novelists, Conan Doyle.

From Cinema no. 137. June 1969. Reprinted by permission of the author. Translated from
French by Jenny Lefcourt.
 ? ?

Once a year I reread The Three Musketeers. I hate Hemingway. Faulkner isn't

bad.

q : Since you say you never heard so much talk about the cinema what do you
,

talk about with your friends

He punctuates his words, always implacably serious.

ford: We talk about baseball and sex. Mostly about baseball.

We laugh. He doesn't laugh.

q Do you never laugh?

:

ford: Yes, I laugh all the time. But inside.

He likes asking abrupt questions, and suddenly asked Claude-Jean Phil-

ippe if his father was a peasant, and to Bertrand Tavernier:

ford: Are you superstitious?

bertrand tavernier: No, and you?

ford: Yes. I decided to be two years ago.

BERTRAND TAVERNIER: Why?

ford: It adds spice to life.

bertrand tavernier: And ghosts, do you believe in them?

The old man props himself up on his pillows and prepares to tell us a
story. He looks at us first, one after the other, with his lone blue eye.

ford: Once in Ireland, I spent the night at the home of an old uncle of
mine who had a chateau. He gave me his father's room, who had passed
away long ago, an old friend of my father's. That room had a pretty bad
reputation. During the night, I was woken up by a noise. opened my eyes
I

and saw an individual standing before me. I was wearing old clothes and
particularly a lace jabot. He stood before me without saying anything and
soon I recognized the great uncle.

Q : Weren't you scared

ford: No, because I knew that he had come just to see what the son of his
old friend looked like.
 , ; ,

100 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

Never in our lives had we heard such a short ghost story.

In public, he seems not to remember anything about his films. "I've never
seen them," he says, which is probably half true. Only half because he is

capable all of a sudden to talk about certain details concerning The Iron Horse
and if someone hums an air while telling him that it is the music from Fort
Apache he stops suddenly.

ford: No, it's not Fort Apache, it's Yellow Ribbon. That's a great song.

q : You put a lot of folk music in your films?

ford: As much as I can. I love songs. Besides, they have recently become
very popular in the U.S.A. with the new singers.

Now, he ismore outgoing because he feels that we aren't there to dissect

him, but to chat between friends on a voyage, and he even consents to talk
to us about his films.

ford: The films that I prefer are The Sun Shines Bright whose main charac-
ter is very close to me, and Young Mr. Lincoln. I am also very proud of The
Long Voyage Home , How Green Was My Valley, Drums Along the Mohawk , She
Wore a Yellow Ribbon Cheyenne Autumn. ,
I adore Le Sergent Noir ( Sergeant Rut-
ledge, he pronounces the title in French). They didn't want to let me do that
film because they said a film about a "nigger" wouldn't make any money
and because it couldn't be distributed in the South. I got angry and I told
them that they could at least have the decency to say "Negro" or "colored
man" instead of "nigger," because most "niggers" were worth more than
they were. I found that out when I debarked on Omaha Beach: there were
dozens of bodies of blacks spread out on the sand. When saw that, I under-
I

stood that it was impossible not to consider them as full-fledged Americans.

And you know the funniest? The film makes a lot more money now in the
South. Not with the whites, of course, but in the black cinemas where it is

shown all the time. I have been told that in congregations, in little auditori-

ums, people rent projectors to be able to see this film. They are so happy to

see a hero of their own race. Not a good, nice black, but a real hero.

I also like The Fugitive. I find my work on that film remarkable, if I do say
so myself. People say so much bad about it. But I think it's one of my best
films. It's like 7 Women. The American critics say terrible things about it. But
I am very proud. It's a story about women only. Almost all bitches. It is a
 CLAUDINE T AV E R N I E R / 1 9 6 6 1 0 1

story of bitchery. But they hated it. They are all Communists, those critics,

and plus they hate the cinema.

q : Which ones don't you like?

ford: Oh, I don't know. Tobacco Road The Plough and the Stars , which was
,

massacred. When I finished the film, they redid the editing and an assistant

re-shot a quarter of the film. Bom Reckless , that's not my type of story.

q :And Steamboat 'Round the Bend?

ford: It was a very good film, but Zanuck arrived at Fox and he didn't
have the least sense of humor. He cut all the gags out of the film. The two
others that I shot with Will Rogers are better, especially Judge Priest, which is
a success and very funny. That's a good film. It was the same character as in

The Sun Shines Bright. Air Mail, that's good too. It's in that film that we impro-
vised a character during the shooting. There was an actor named Slim Sum-
merville, who hadn't made a film for a long time. He couldn't find work.

Since actors have to eat from time to time, I took him with me and we added
a character who didn't exist in the scenario.

q Do you like comic scenes a lot?

:

ford: Yes. I am a director of comedies who makes sad films. I don't like
happy endings. I like when they are melancholic.

q : She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is a sad film?

ford: Yes. It's a beautiful film. It was the one that the General MacArthur
preferred. He saw it once a month. The last time I saw it, it was with him.
And you know, in his speeches, he cited phrases from the dialogue or took
pieces of John Wayne's final speech ("Old Soldiers never die"). Visually, I

wanted to find the colors of Remington's paintings; and I had to fight with
the chief cameraman who sent me written notes, affirming that he was in
complete disagreement with my directives. During the shooting of the storm
scene, he declared a few times that there wouldn't be anything on the nega-
tive. He got an Oscar for the film.

q And The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence?

:

ford: It was a story full of pathos and tragedy. I had to fight for seven
months to impose it. The banks didn't want it; besides nowadays nobody
reads scenarios.
 ?

1 0 2 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

q : Did you really collaborate on Hondo?

ford: Yes, I filmed the exterior scenes and action scenes in the desert. I

don't know how many exactly. Ten days at least. did everything I that hap-
pens in the desert. But I didn't do the indoor scenes. You know, I have often
shot scenes in other films. I shot a film with Gary Cooper that way, I don't
remember the title anymore. He had a small role. And I also did the difficult,
spectacular scenes in Marco Polo.

q And Young Cassidy?

:

ford: I shot for two days. The scenes with Julie Christie. I saw the film.
They changed the end. Mine was much better, more violent.

q : Did you know Sean O'Casey

ford: No. I never met him, but I like his theater. He was a rebel.

q : You collaborated on The Brave and the Beautiful?

ford: Oh! Yes, I remember that film. I don't remember the name of the
director. Only his first name: Budd. young one had something, he
I felt that
was gifted. What was his name? Ah! Boetticher, Budd Boetticher. He had
some trouble with the studio he worked for, so I helped him.

q What profession would you have chosen if you hadn't been a filmmaker?
:

ford: Marine. Besides, I am a "matelot" (in French). That is why I like the
nickname that the Navajo Indians have me: Natani Nez, which means Tall
Soldier, Great Soldier. I am not a soldier, but a sailor. . . .

I am a man from the North. I was born in Maine, one of the first states to
have abolished segregation. I hate the spirit of the South and I can't talk
about it. . . .my wife, who came from the South,
When I got married,
brought her black nanny with her. We didn't need her. didn't want to send I

her South because over there they don't know how to treat Blacks. So we
bought her a house near us. It's a nice house. She is happy. She lives there

now with her whole family. . . .

It is our last dinner with him. The atmosphere is really relaxed.

ford: I don't understand the French. They spend hours in front of their
menu as if it was a very serious subject. As long as I have confidence in the
chef, I find that all the choices are equal!
 CLAUDINE TAV E R N I E R / 1 9 6 6 1 0 3

He teases us, he is in good spirits. He orders his oeuf cocotte. He drinks his
beer, some B and B (Benedictine and Brandy), wine too, but he assures us
that wine is water, that it has nothing to do with alcohol. And on this subject
he informs us that the Irish have the best wine in the world because there is

an illicit traffic between France and Ireland: fishing boats import French wine
to Ireland and return to France filled with Irish wool. Ford is enchanted. He
is having fun and can tell stories between friends. He is on his own territory.

He even sings old Irish songs, inviting us to sing with him.

And here, Ford talks to us of himself.

ford: My childhood profoundly marked me. My father was very often

homesick and wanted to return to Ireland. Since he lived in Maine, it was
very easy. All he had to do was take the boat. And since I was the youngest,
he took me with him. So, I spent my childhood between Ireland and
America. I went to school in Ireland, and I left again for America. Until
twelve, I didn't have a real home.

But it is beginning to get late. Ford isn't so young, he is tired, we accom-

pany him to his room. I remain in the salon. His good mood is gone. I hear
him repeat a few times like a wounded animal:

"It's over. They won't let me make any more films."

I'm eager for him to fall asleep. I don't want to hear that sentence any-
more. But he repeats it again and again.

"They won't let me make any more films."

 6

Notes of a Press Attache: John Ford in Paris

BERTRAND T AV E R N I E R / 1 9 6

Like all who met him, I sat down with his filmography in hand
and asked him myriad questions, telling myself that all those people who
had tried the same tack didn't know his films well and hadn't known how to
speak to him about them. Well, it was a total flop. So I had to be content
with listening and watching. And I tried to become his friend during the
days we spent together.
It is not difficult to become his friend. Pierre Rissient, Jacques Ita, and I

had been with him for a few minutes when he asked us to call him Jack, not
"Mr. Ford." After an hour's time the ice was broken and we understood. We
understood why well-known actors, upon getting a mere telegram from him,
were willing to drop a job and travel long hours just to record a commentary
or even simply visit him. We understood why some people became attached
to him after meeting him for just a few minutes. And professionally, we un-
derstood how he was able to give some scenes so much warmth, to extract
so much emotion from some performers.
Everything about John Ford commands respect. There was no softness in
him, but instead a conquering, irresistible warmth, which often hides behind
aggressiveness, and a quick, unpredictable humor, which he uses with dia-

bolical deftness. The accusation of craftiness made by some soon collapsed.

Clearly, Ford has never attempted to move or please by following the fashion
or stacking the deck. ... To be sure, Ford was old, very old, more than his

Originally printed in Positif, no. 82, March 1967. 7-22. Reprinted in Film Comment
,
vol. 30,

no. 4. July/ August 1994. 66 + Reprinted by permission

. of the author.
 BERTRAND TAV E R N I E R / 1 9 6 6 1 0 5

age [seventy-one]. He still loved drinking but didn't tolerate alcohol as well
as he used to, and he was terribly diminished by his wounds. At times, he
was frightening, when his right side became paralyzed and prevented him
from walking, or when his eyes became bloodshot. But his weaknesses were
always physical — his mind remained clear. Very often, he surprised us with
the swiftness with which he understood a tiny detail, with the way he was
able to lead a conversation. We were not dealing with a mentally impaired
old man but with a sick person who had been unconscionably allowed to
travel alone.

According to witnesses we were able to question, in particular Romain

Gary, who had known him for seventeen years, it was after completing Chey-
enne Autumn ['64] that Ford aged ten years in two. The preparation of Young

Cassidy ['65], the trip to Ireland, the location scouting probably didn't help
any. Neither did the meetings with old friends, the parties, the pub-hopping.
As a result, it was a seriously wounded man we had in front of us. A wounded
man who, perhaps rightly, would not concede defeat.He fought off fatigue

and sometimes won amazing victories, like the day we took him to watch
Claude Chabrol shooting Le Scandale [U.S.: The Champagne Murders]. He
seemed to live again, he looked five years younger. He was happy. . . .

It didn't take us long to realize that interviews bore him stiff. That was not
what he had come for. Had we listened to him, they would all have been
bunched together on the last day, and he would have spent [his visit] taking
walks around Paris and meeting old friends. For press agents, the situation
seemed disastrous. If fatigue and poor health, which made him unavailable
for half of each day, were to be compounded with uncooperativeness, or at

least visible boredom, the press coverage threatened to be limited. At that

point we hit upon the idea of introducing the interviewers not as journalists
but as friends of ours. This strategy yielded excellent results. As soon as Ford
felt he could trust people, that he was not being spied upon, he started talk-

ing, telling stories, sometimes even giving information on his work. There

was even one fantastic evening . . . but I am getting ahead of myself.

Otherwise, his dealings with journalists followed a kind of ritual. The
same questions and answers kept recurring.
"Why have you made so many Westerns?"
"For health reasons. Westerns are a chance to get away from Hollywood
and the smog. You live in the open, sleep under a tent, eat from a chuck
106 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

wagon, barbecue your meat. It's great fun. At night, you get together and
sing songs."
"Why did you become a film director?"
"I was hungry."
"What do you think is most characteristic of Hollywood?"
"The incredible number of churches. There are more than in any other
town in the world, and what's more, they are full."
"What do you think of the remake of Stagecoach ?"
"It's lousy. That sonofabitch Martin Rackin [the producer] had a dumb
idea. I saw the movie and I think it's terrible. If I say so myself, I had done a
couple of nice things [in the 1939 version] and they were new at the time,
too. Why try to do it again?"
"Do you go to the movies?"
"No, never. Because you can't smoke."
Of course, we occasionally had to give up our stratagem. We were a little

scared when it was the turn of Samuel Lachize, the film critic for L'Humanite
[the French Communist Party's official daily paper]. Ford had asked a num-
ber of times if people might not shout "Yankee go home!" at him, and he
had ranted against the Communists, in typical American fashion. Neverthe-
less,we introduced Lachize as a Communist critic. Ford didn't bat an eye:
"Let him come in. I don't mind talking with a Communist I'm a liberal." . . .

Now, to our amazement, the interview went without a hitch. The two
men immediately took to each other, and Ford didn't try to dodge the ques-
tions.He had them repeated to him, and answered at length, which was
most unusual. He got angry only once, when Lachize told him that some
people detected (wrongly, Lachize added) some racist aspects in his work:
"The people who say such things are crazy. I am a Northerner, I hate segre-
gation, and I gave jobs to hundreds of Negroes at the same salary the whites
were paid. I had production companies hire poverty-stricken Indians and
pay them the highest Hollywood salaries for extras. Me, a racist? My best
friends are black: Woody Strode, and a caretakerwho has worked for me for
thirty years. I even made Sergeant Rutledge, about a character who was not
just a nice black guy but someone nobler than anybody else in the picture.
They wouldn't let me make that picture because they said that a movie about
a 'nigger' wouldn't make any money and couldn't be exhibited in the South.
I got angry and told them they could at least have the decency to say 'Negro'
or 'colored man,' because most of those 'niggers' were worth better than
 BERTRAND TAV E R N I E R / 1 9 6 6 1 0 7

they. When I landed at Omaha Beach, there were scores of black bodies lying

in the sand. Then I realized that it was impossible not to consider them full-

fledged American citizens."

Ford returned to the subject several times and we had a hard time calming
him down. He even mentioned the treatment of the Jews in the U.S.S.R. That

was the only time he made a critical reference to his interviewer's ideology.

His tone remained relaxed, but he had been stung. Suddenly, he called out

to me, with his booming voice, asking for his rosary. He then handed it to

Lachize, saying, "Take this, it's a gift. Come join our group." Lachize was
dumbfounded. Ford took the rosary back. "I'll pray for you at Notre-Dame,"
he said as they parted. . . .

One evening he talked at length about his youth, about how he met his
wife: "She had a higher rank than I did. I was a sergeant and she was a lieu-

tenant in the nurses. Robert E. Lee and George Washington were among her
ancestors — it was a great family —yet when she married this penniless Irish
kid, they didn't object. And they're still not complaining about the mar-
riage."

He also talked about the war, about how he had repulsed an Italian attack:
"I was in command of a flotilla of landing barges, sailing in Indian file. Only
the first and last ones were equipped with weapons. Suddenly, Italian planes
appeared. We were in a tough spot. So I ordered top and rear boat to fire. At
the first shell, the Italians vanished. They must have thought they were deal-
ing with a new kind of warship, heavily armed, and they wouldn't come
near."
He decided to discuss religion and declared himself anticlerical: "I hate

preaching, but what I hate most is Irish priests. Besides, I select my priests
the way I cast my pictures. I hate sanctimoniousness."
"What are your political opinions?"
"I am a liberal Democrat. And above all I am a rebel."

"Which presidents do you admire most?"

and John Kennedy. I loved Kennedy. He was a fantas-
"Lincoln, Roosevelt,
tic man, humorous, intelligent, generous. His assassination was a terrible
blow to America. Despite what some have said, the Communists, the Rus-
sians are not behind his death. Oswald was a wretched fool who caused the
country immense harm, what with Johnson being such a despicable man.
He is a murderer."

"What about Bobby Kennedy?"

108 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

"He's far from being as good as John. He is an ambitious go-getter. Do you

know that Kennedy's father was responsible for my making The Informer [at
RKO]? ... I didn't vote in the last election —Goldwater didn't have a serious
platform and I hated Johnson."
"What do you think of organizations like the American Legion?"
"When they want to influence the way people vote, they become awful.
One shouldn't allow such paramilitary outfits to meddle with politics. I hate
people who want to tell you what to do."
This was practically the last time Ford discussed politics during his stay.

There was one mystery, however, that we wanted to clarify:

"Is it true that you were one of the first to protest against McCarthyism?"
"Yes. I don't like Communists, but I can't stand people being persecuted
or deprived of their freedom. I protested measures taken against directors or
writers who were suspected [of Communism]. I was the first one to do so."

And of course Ford spoke of the West and Westerns:

"I knew Wyatt Earp. I heard the story of the O.K. Corral from him. I was

my brother [Francis] 's assistant director and we made Westerns. The extras
were real cowboys, actual friends of Earp's. He often came around to see
them, and so I had a chance to speak to him. He was very tall, a man of few
words, remarkably calm. He wasn't a good marksman, but he was very bold
and so he would come very, very close to his opponent before shooting. This
is way it happens in my picture [My Darling Clementine, '4 6]. No one was
the
fast on the draw in the West —
that's a gimmick for fancy television cowboys.

You pulled your gun and walked toward your enemy; you let him shoot first,
then you tried to aim better than he had. Look at Stagecoach and My Darling
Clementine. As for Doc Holliday, all he had in mind was to get himself killed.
He looked for fights so that he could get shot."
"Do all your Westerns have a historical basis?"
"They do. Fort Apache is a variation on Custer's Last Stand. We changed
the Indian tribes and the location. Fonda liked the part very much. In the
military he had met many colonels, and he was himself given the rank of
colonel at the end of the war. All he had to do was spend a few weeks in the
West to get the feel of the country.
" Liberty Valance [The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, '62] was based on his-

torical fact, too. It was a fine story. I fought to make it."

"The theme of the family is very important to you. Why?"

"You have a mother, don't you?"
 ,

BERTRAND T AV E R N I E R / 1 9 6 6 1 0 9

"Who are your favorite directors?"

"Leo McCarey — I love Make Way for Tomorrow. Frank Capra. And a whole
bunch of other people, like Raoul Walsh, who's a fellow a little like me, ex-
cept that he is handsomer and more of a ladies' man; one of his pictures, The
Honor System had impressed me a lot. Tay Garnett, Henry King. like Sammy I

Fuller, too; he puts a little too much violence in his films, but unlike many

others he doesn't do it for base commercial reasons —he is an upright, honest

guy. I don't like John Huston, he is a phony."'

That same evening ended on quite a moving note. Ford had just talked

about his family, his son, his daughter, who was married to [actor/singer]
Ken Curtis. When asked about Curtis's singing voice, he said: "Yes, he has a
nice singing voice, except for the day I punched his face because he beat my
daughter. It's hard to sing without teeth."
Then, after a couple of similar stories, Ford started talking to us about folk
music and singing old Irish songs. One
them told of [French] Generalof
Hoche's crossing [in 1798], his failed landing, and the hopes it aroused among
Irish insurgents. We found that Ford knew all the songs heard in his films.

He corrected some of our mistakes: "There's a girl who sings all those old
songs wonderfully, Connie Towers, Constance Towers [lead actress in The
Horse Soldiers , '59, and Sergeant Rutledge, '60]. No one knows more old tunes
than she does. Try to find her records."
After several songs, he went to bed, and it was then that he said, or rather

kept repeating: "I can do whatever I want now because I'll never make an-
other picture. They won't let me make one. They won't let me do another
picture."

These words created dismay among us. He repeated them again and again,
as though they were a statement of unavoidable fact. This haunting thought
came up in many interviews. "I am a tough old retired director," he often
said.

"Retired?"
"Well, half-retired. I'm waiting for someone to give me the go-ahead. I'm
studying an offer from Samuel Goldwyn Jr. I want to make only a picture I
like. I turned down many projects that I didn't approve of morally. Today, in
the United States, directors film disgusting stories, and they don't even know
how to shoot them. The French are much more gifted and more intelligent.

I would like to make a picture on the American Revolution, although it's a

taboo subject."
110 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

"You're mostly interested in stories set in the past?"

"Why do you say that? It's not true. I'm only interested in good stories. I

don't ask myself if they're set in the past or not. And then, do you think the
history of today's America is fun? I love to study the history of countries and
races."

. . . Once we managed to glean a bit of information:

in a while,
"In The Wings of Eagles ['57], Ward Bond plays me. Republic was the . . .

studio where I had the most freedom. I did everything the way I wanted. . . .

Black-and-white photography is much better than color. It's much more dif-
ficult to do fine photography in black and white. My finest color picture is
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon ['49]. . . . Maureen O'Hara is one of the actresses I

most dislike. Everybody thought I was her lover. Actually I hated her and she
hated me, but she was right for the parts. I liked Joanne Dru [She Wore a
Yellow Ribbon and Wagon Master, '50] and Elizabeth Allen [Donovan's Reef, '63;

Cheyenne Autumn, '64].

Ford had difficulty understanding why one should want to reissue his old
films. One title prompted the following comment: "Ah, Wagon Master —
that's the purest, most simple Western I made. The British love it. They made
me come to Oxford or Cambridge to talk about it. Can you imagine me lec-

turing?"
"Do you dislike speaking about your films?"
"No, I don't. I just don't remember them. It's so far away. And then, the
title often changed between shooting and the picture's release. Peter Bogda-
novich came to my house to do a big interview for television. We're not
progressing very fast, because he asks me about a picture and I tell him I

didn't do it, then it turns out that the title had been changed."
"Your first big picture was The Iron Horse ['24]."
"It became big only by accident. We had started doing an ordinary pic-
ture, and then we got snowbound. We had nothing else to do, so we shot
film and gradually the story developed. Many things happened, births,
deaths, marriages, all of it in frigid weather. There was only one sunny day,
and what we shot that day couldn't be used; those shots had to be done
again in bad weather. It was an extraordinary experience. Fortunately, Union
Pacific came to rescue us."
When Ford was told that I wanted to become a film director, he took me
aside and started giving me advice:
"Careful, not too many camera moves. All the young kids who are starting
 BERTRAND T AV E R N I E R / 1 9 6 6 1 1 1

out want to do crazy things with the camera. It's useless. The simplest conti-

nuity is the most efficient: a shot, then a reverse angle. You must spend more
time with the actors and the dialogue than with the camera. Anybody can
think up a difficult camera move, but very few people manage to retain the
same feeling between a long shot and a closeup, to keep up the quality of
emotion."
"Have you ever used a crane?"

"Never. It's awful. When am I asked why. I hardly ever move the camera,
I answer that the actors are better paid than the stagehands and grips, so it's

normal that they should work and move about a little more. You should
never use technical gimmicks to create emotion."
Elia Kazan has told me that it is precisely this quality he loves in Ford's
films: "He was the first to dare use very lengthy long takes, going against
Hollywood rules. He wouldn't cut to a closer shot. No one has been able to
generate as much emotion as Ford does in long shots; watch The Grapes of
Wrath and Young Mr. Lincoln ['39]."

"It's odd," Ford says, "I have a friend, his name is Elia Kazan, who often
comes to see me. He tells me that before starting a picture he screens a lot of

mine several times. I think this method is dumb. Yet he's a fine fellow, very
intelligent. He must not be a great director."
The ten days or so that I spent working with John Ford in Paris were one
of the sources of inspiration for Round Midnight ('86). All those days and
nights spent keeping him from drinking, hiding glasses under couches,
under the bed, trying to protect him, I relived while writing that film, and
especially while shooting it with Dexter Gordon.
It was Pierre Rissient who got the first shock, when he met Ford at the
airport. Ford came off the plane completely smashed, unable to stand up, so
that he had to be put in a wheelchair. We had to deal with an invalid.
We fought hard, tirelessly taking turns at his bedside, drinking half the
drinks he ordered. That was not enough, unfortunately. In a recent article,
Irish journalist Peter Lennon recalled that he gave up trying to arouse Ford
from his alcohol-induced stupor and settled for interviewing me instead.
However, we did manage to keep him clear-minded for a few hours a day. In
the worst moments, we
him from firing the captain of his yacht, against
kept
whom he would fly into sudden fits of anger. He then would decide to call
him on the phone to dismiss him. We had a chance to intervene in some of
these insane conversations, worthy of W. C. Fields's delirious outbursts. . . .
1 1 2 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

[POSTSCRIPT] I saw Ford again a few years later when Pierre Rissient had him
come to France in an effort to set up a production of Boule de Suif. Fie was
more sober and looked in better shape. It was then that Leslie Caron rejected
the title role in this project, arguing that Ford was not as modern a director
as Nanni Loy because he never moved the camera, while Loy used traveling

shots. That's the film expertise of actresses for you.

Ford on Ford 2

AXEL MADSEN/1967.

Ford is in bed, saying he has had a rough day.

axel madsen: Are you preparing a film?

john ford: I decided to retire. said, "What I the hell, at my age," I've

worked hard enough and I can go fishing. But since I decided to retire, I've

never worked so much. I've had more scripts to read, people kept sending
them, all dirty, filthy, so I said, "Oh, to hell with it." You as a Protestant can
do them!

m : Last year, you mentioned a film you might do in Alaska, a Navy story.

f : I doubt we'll make it. I could get the cooperation of the Navy as an ex-
Admiral, but there's also the Pentagon. I'd have to go not to Alaska but al-

most to the North Pole, and they haven't enough ships.

m : So are you thinking of teaching at UCLA, the way Josef von Sternberg had been
doing?
f : No, I couldn't teach them how to make dirty pictures. I think I'll take a
vacation, and then hope to make a movie.

Interviewed April 4, 19 67. © Axel Madsen. A version of this interview was published in John
Ford: En Dokumentation, ed. Per Colum. Danish Film Museum, r968. The Danish portions of
the original transcript of the interview were translated by Jan Lumholdt, who preserved
Ford's original English. Printed by permission of the author.
 ? ; , , ? ,

114 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

m : Which one
f : It's called April Morning from a historical novel by Howard Fast. It wasn't
a best seller but it was very popular. It's a simple family story, a beautiful,
lovely story that ends with the battle of Lexington. It's not a battle story per
se, like a Yugoslavian picture with thousands of horsemen. It's not a story
with hundreds of people, just a few.

I talked to the French about this movie, and they were enthused. After all,

the French did win the Revolutionary War for us. There were four French
regiments at the battle of Yorktown. I'm considering doing a picture in
France, a very interesting one. It's a great French classic, a short story, and
don't ask me the name of it. I won't tell you because the producer has forgot
to register the title.

m : I thought producers were smart.

f : Did you? (Laughter.)

m : Do you prefer to make films about exceptional people?

f : I can't answer that. I have no fixed principle. I mean, if a good story
comes along, I'll do it regardless. My best pictures are made about little peo-
ple, pictures you've never seen. The one I'm most proud of is The Sun Shines
Bright.

m : What about your latest pictures The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and 7
Women?
f : They're not my favorites. I prefer little pictures that cost less than half a

million dollars. Young Mr. Lincoln is one of my favorites.

m : We were impressed by Seven Women. The screenplay and casting are very
good and you constantly move between the moral and
,
social significance.

f : Never mind about Seven Women. You asked me what the best pictures
were. I said The Sun Shines Bright and Young Mr. Lincoln and a picture I made
in Ireland called Three Leaves of a Shamrock which was a trilogy, three very

simple, beautiful stories. The studio didn't like it. No stars, sex, or violence.

m : In many of your pictures there is a dance, a rare moment when your people, in

a difficult period of their lives, relax. Can you explain

 , ,

AXEL madsen/1967 1 1 5

f A short dance is always good, some of our American folk dances are inter-
:

esting. In The Long Voyage Home it was a very natural thing to do when men

had been for months at sea.

m : Did you ever see the remake of Stagecoach?

f : I looked at a quarter of it with another director, William Wellman, and
he said, "Let's go to the can." So we both went and threw up and left the
theatre. (Laughter.) He was a helluva guy. He was with the Lafayette Esca-
drille in 1918. He shed a little blood for France, as I did.

m : Do you remember Four Men and a Prayer that you made in 1938 with Loretta
Young ? You had a stairs scene that reminds everybody of The Battleship Po-
temkin.
f : I didn't want to do that picture, and I raised hell, but I had it under
contract. I made it but I didn't see it. As for taking it from Potemkin I never
saw that one.

m : Were there many films that you didn't want to make?

f : Oh, Christ, a lot of them. But in those days you were under contract.
Now we're all freelancers.

m : Do you know that John Wayne is going to make a picture about the Vietnam
War?
f : Perhaps. I think he's having a little trouble with it.

m : Do you see each other frequently?

f : No, he lives miles and miles away down in Newport. We talk on the
phone.

m : Were the parts he played in movies often changed specifically to suit him?
f : I He sort of plays himself. He'd been my second
couldn't answer that.
assistant prop man, and I put him in Stagecoach. Walter Wanger didn't mind.

The budget was so low we made it in three weeks, what the hell. Westerns
were taboo in those days. After Stagecoach everybody started doing them. ,

m : Stagecoach is kind of a milestone in the evolution of the Western. Were you

conscious of that when you made it?
 7 ? , ?

1 1 6 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

f : Of course not. I liked that the story was a bit unusual. A lot of action,

good characters. Now How the West Was Won had a big budget, but it was
not particularly successful here because of American youth. The teenagers
can
;
t understand it. To them an American Indian is the somebody to be
killed, he is the enemy. In my pictures, the Indians are the heroes. So that
one wasn't successful, but I like it.

m : And you like Monument Valley.

f : That's why I do Westerns occasionally. It's not that I'm particularily fond
of Westerns, but I like to get out in the open spaces. I like to get away from
this space, away from the smog.

m : When you originally brought films to show the Indians , how did they react
f : They were amazed. They'd never seen a picture before, and they didn't
recognize themselves. Every night we'd show one. No emotion, but they ob-
viously liked them because they'd gather and say, "Another picture tonight."

m : How were they to work as actors

f : Great. The Navajos are the best riders in the world. They are good actors,

much simpler to work with than a similar group of white extras.

m : Talk about your cinematographers.

f : Gregg Toland and Joe August were the best two cameramen we had, but
they're all good now, all alike. I'm myself the best cameraman in the world,
and I'm a very modest person. No, I'm kidding, but I'm a very good camer-
aman.

m : The big studio bosses in the early days? Weren't they rather easy to get along
with , once they had given their OK
f : They were very easy. In those days, we had no budgets. We went out and
made a picture. When we started out on The Iron Horse a blizzard came up
and it lasted for two days. I said, "Hell, let's start anyway." We were there for
three or four weeks, and finally the boss, Sol Wurtzel, came up and said,

"Jesus, we've got a big picture here. Take all the time you need."

m : Did you know John Steinbeck? What did he think of the shooting of The
Grapes of Wrath?
 ?

AXEL madsen/1967 1 1 7

f : I He never bothered to come

don't think John has ever been to a studio.
and see. The only author I ever knew who showed any enthusiasm about a
picture was Eugene O'Neill for The Long Voyage Home. Once a month in the
evening they'd set a screening room aside and he'd come in and look at his
picture. They'd give him a huge tray so he could smoke his cigarettes. He'd

sit there alone, or sometimes he brought his wife, sometimes a friend. He's
the only author who liked what I did with his work, which is a great compli-
ment since, after all, O'Neill is a great playwright.

m : Did you enjoy making films more in the old days

f : Oh, yes. Now it's a task, too many people at the top. To use a paraphrase:
never have so few been directed by so many from so far away. You know?

m : Aren't there others in your family who want to make movies your grandsons?
,

f : They're in Vietnam.
 ?

Burt Kennedy Interviews John Ford

BURT KENNEDY/1968

Ford was interviewed by Burt Kennedy, who has demon-

strated his facility with the Western with such films as Mail Order Bride, The
Rounders, Return of the Seven, Welcome to Hard Times, The War Wagon, The
Train Robbers.

Kennedy: I never saw The Iron Horse.

ford: You weren't even born when I made that one.

Kennedy: I know. I have heard that The Iron Horse was your favorite picture.
Is that true

ford: No. "The next one" is my favorite picture. Well, maybe there's one
that I love to look at again and again. That's The Sun Shines Bright, a Judge
Priest story by Irvin S. Cobb, who was a pretty damn good writer. had I

Charles Winninger in that one and he was excellent. That's really my fa-
vorite.

The only trouble was that when I left the studio, old man [Herbert] Yates

didn't know what to do with it. The picture had comedy, drama, pathos, but
he didn't understand it. His kind of picture had to have plenty of sex or
violence. Yates fooled around with it after I left the studio and almost ruined
it.

Originally printed in Action, vol. 3, no. 5. September/October 1968. Reprinted in Directors in

Action, ed. Bob Thomas. Indianapolis, 1973. 133 - 39 - Reprinted by permission of the Directors
Guild of America.
 BURT kennedy/1968 1 1 9

Kennedy: The Quiet Man— That was a wonderful picture.

ford: Yes. I like that one. There again I had trouble with Yates. He kept
complaining, "It's all green. Don't they have any browns or blacks in Ire-

land? Why does it have to be all green?" I had a lot of fun with old Herb on
that one. He wanted to call it The Prize Fighter and the Colleen. I felt that was
an awful title because it tipped the story that Duke [Wayne] was a boxer.

Well, Yates said that he had received lots of letters from exhibitors who told
him that they preferred his title to The Quiet Man. I asked to look at the
letters, and he showed them to me. "What a strange coincidence!" I told
him. "All these letters have the same date and they say the same thing."
Obviously he had sent out a letter that was practically mimeographed and
asked the theater men to write in letters. And they did. But I still wouldn't
go with his title.

Kennedy: I've made practically all Westerns and I keep hearing the remark , ,

" Why don't you change the mold?" Has that ever happened to you?
ford: No one has ever told me what kind of picture to make. When [Me-
rian] Cooper and were starting our own company, made four or five West-
I I

erns in order to make some money. They were potboilers, but they served a

purpose.

Kennedy: I love to make Westerns.

ford: So do I. It's a great life —just like a paid vacation. I love to make
Westerns. If I had my choice, that's all I would make.

Kennedy: Have you seen any of these Spanish or Italian Westerns?

ford: You're kidding!

Kennedy: No, they have them, and a few have been popular.
ford: What are they like?

Kennedy: No story, no scenes, fust killing—fifty or sixty killings per picture.

. How do you prepare for a picture?
. .

ford: Well, you ask yourself a few questions: What are you going to say?
What is your format? Right now I'm wrestling with a story about the OSS. I
made a promise to Wild Bill Donovan on his death bed that would make I

an OSS picture, so I've got to do it. Right now I'm wading through piles of
 ? 1 ??

120 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

reports and histories and trying to break it down into some kind of a format.
I'm suffering from a wealth of material. But you try to get a format for each
picture. For instance, on She Wore a Yellow Ribbon I tried to make it as Rem-
ington as possible, though it didn't quite come out that way. On another
picture I might try to make it as if it were seen by Charlie Russell.

Kennedy: I was just down in Sedona [Arizona] shooting a picture, and I liked
that location.

ford: Yes, Sedona is okay, but it's too small, too confined. If I'm going on
location, I'd rather go farther, to some big place like Monument Valley.

Kennedy: Did you ever have any trouble getting the studios to let you go to the

right places

ford: No.

Kennedy: We're always bucking to go to a good location, but the studio always
wants you to shoot it on the back lot.

ford: I never had that. I wouldn't make a Western on the back lot. They
could get somebody else.

Kennedy: Did you ever have any problems with big-money actors

ford: No, I never ran into that problem.

Kennedy: now have their own companies.

Well, you know, the actors

ford: No, I never had that. I wouldn't work with an actor's company. Oh,
I did some pictures with Duke when he had his Batjac, but I wasn't working

for him. I never had any trouble with actors; if anybody kicked up a fuss, I'd

say, "Okay, we'll get somebody else."

Kennedy: What do you think of the various wide-screen processes

ford: I still like the conventional-sized screen.

Kennedy: So do 1. think the 1.83 ratio is the best.

ford: You're right. It still has height and you can get composition. It's so
hard to get good composition in a wide screen. I like to see the people and if

you shoot them in a wide screen, you're left with a lot of real estate on either

side.
 "

BURT kennedy/1968 1 2 1

Kennedy: I like to tell a small story against a big background. It seems to me

that you did that in The Searchers.

ford: Yes, and that was in the ordinary-size screen. But then, I still like to

work in black and white.

Kennedy: Why?
ford: You like spinach? It's all a matter of taste. But anybody can shoot
color; you can get a guy out of the street and he can shoot a picture in color.

But it takes a real artist to do a black-and-white picture.

Kennedy: Speaking of artists, I had Bert Glennon as cameraman on one of my

first pictures. He kept telling me to look through the camera, and finally I told him,
"I don't have to; I know it's going to be a good shot. " Bert said, "Yes, but you won't
haveme every time on a picture.
ford: Yes, Bert was a god-damn good cameraman. It's a good idea to get a
cameraman you know well and can trust.

Kennedy: I use the same actors in pictures over and over again.
ford: Yes. I did that, too. It's good to have actors you can trust, ones who
will know their lines and be there.

Kennedy: I fight to get good actors in small parts. I find you not only get a
better performance, but you save time, because they know their job.
ford: That's a good idea. It pays to get good actors. I remember in The
Searchers I had a scene where all an actor had to do was go through the door
and take his suspenders off. I did the scene thirty-five times, and the actor
still didn't do it right. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Finally I asked
him, "Did you read the script?" He said he didn't. I said, "For Crissake, don't
you realize what you're doing? You're going to bed and leaving your wife
outside with Duke Wayne." The actor said, "Christ I know that. Most
didn't
of us who play small bits never read the script. We just come in, find out
what the director wants, do the part and leave." I shot the scene one more
time, and the actor got it right in the first take.

Kennedy: Many times the studios will send actors only the few pages that

they're involved in. That's a mistake.

 ?

1 2 2 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

ford: Of course it is. Every actor is better if he knows what the hell the
story is about. I always give everybody a script and we have a reading with
the whole cast the day before the picture starts. I want to let all of them know
what they're doing.

Kennedy: I find myself spending more time in the cutting room with the cutter

after the picture is over ,

and I won't let anybody see the picture until I've made my
final cut. I find if I stay in the cutting room, then the picture doesn't become the
work of a committee.
ford: You're right. You can't make pictures by committees. At one studio
I had all the executives coming to the rushes, including the lawyers, and
they started giving me lots of advice. I stopped that. I never let the cast see
the rushes. I did that once, and the next day every character in the picture
changed. One of the actresses said, "Oh, I look so old. Can't you put in a
fade-back where I look young and beautiful?" After that I wouldn't let any
actors see the rushes.

Kennedy: How much preparation do you do the night before shooting

ford: None. come home at six o'clock in the evening and I'm through.
I

Ifind it much better to get there in the morning for a cup of coffee and sit
around and talk to the actors about what they're going to do that day. I figure

I work hard all day and when I come home I deserve a rest. Nobody discusses
pictures in the house. My wife never sees pictures; she only goes out at night
to Anaheim to see the Angels play. Do you work at home at night?

Kennedy: No, no. I used to, but I've found that I got locked in and couldn't
change my thinking when I got to the set and found things were not the same as I
had expected.

ford: Yes, you can walk into a set and find it altogether different. But if

you have preconceived notions, you may lose the atmosphere entirely.

Kennedy: One thing I do —I'm awfully aware of wardrobe. I always see the
fittings of any of the characters in the picture.

ford: We all do, don't we?

Kennedy: No, I don't think so.

ford: I guess you're right. I've seen some pictures that made me say,

"Why in God's name did the director ever let the star wear that costume?"
Or "Why did that woman wear such a dress?"
 BURT kennedy/1968 1 2 3

?"
Kennedy: Is it true that you "cut in the camera

ford: Yes, that's right. I don't give 'em a lot of film to play with. In fact,

Eastman used to complain that I exposed so little film. But I did cut in the
camera. When I take a scene, I figure that's the only shot there is. Otherwise,
if you give them a lot of film, when you leave the lot the committee takes
over. They're all picture makers; they know exactly how to put a picture
together and they start juggling scenes around and taking out this and put-
ting in that. They can't do it with my pictures. I cut in the camera and that's

it. There's not a lot of film left on the floor when I've finished.

Kennedy: I'm the same way ,

too. I've never lost a sequence in a picture. I think
my cut of War Wagon was only eighteen seconds longer than the final release — the
studio took out a scene with Kirk Douglas in his bare fanny. They don't have much
film to play with when I'm finished either.

ford: You know, I think you've been copying me, Burt.

Kennedy: You know, you're absolutely right.

John Ford

DOCUMENTARY FILM GROUP/1968

In April 1968, John Ford visited the University of Chicago at

the invitation of the student Documentary Film Group. Mr. Ford partici-
pated in a question-and-answer session after a screening of a 16mm version
of The Long Voyage Home which seemingly had been "edited" for home
,

viewing.

ford: A disgrace, a rotten blasted shame. I'm humiliated by this print.

They've cut it up for television and in the process someone has lifted three

connecting sequences bodily out of the film. What a crime! The people who
watch this on television must think I'm out of my mind.
(Laughter from the audience.)

ford: There's nothing funny about it. It's like having the best pages blot-
ted out of your M.A. thesis. If it weren't for the good nuns present from my
own religion, I'd say "Goddamned television!" (Smiles impishly.) But the

good nuns are present, so I won't.

q What got you to make The Long Voyage Home?

:

ford: The sea had always meant a great deal to me. I wanted to do a story

about the sea, about ships, but every story I got, they always sneaked a girl

From Focus no., 5. October 1969. 3-4. Reprinted by permission of Doc Films, the University

of Chicago.
 ?

DOCUMENTARY FILM GROUP/1968 1 2 5

aboard. It's true! I was talking to Eugene O'Neill (he was a very dear friend of
mine) about it, and he said, "Jack, you must have seen my trilogy, The Long
Voyage HomeAnd I said I had. So he suggested that the plays could be
strung together to make a picture, and I said, "That's a wonderful idea." So
we knocked it out. And what's more, Gene liked the film.

q : How did you get those special effects in Hurricane?

ford: Those were all studio sets.

q : How do you decide where to place the camera

ford: Say I've got three people, what's the best way to photograph them?
What's the best background? How shall I separate them? If it's an important
scene, I may want to take individual closeups. Instinct, something can't be
taught.

q : Did you feel that.The Grapes of Wrath was consistent with your other films?

ford: Yes, very much so; it's the kind of story I do like. I like to work with
people, characters; my whole method is to read a book or story, and I try to

put on the screen what the author is trying to say. I was reared in poverty, so
the picture appealed to me. I enjoyed making it very much. I know John
Steinbeck very well and I talked it over with him and just tried to do it as it

was. John liked it very much when it was finished.

q : Were the Bostonians in Donovan's Reef overdone?

ford: Oh, no. You can't overdo them.

q : Do you think film schools such as USC and UCLA are a good idea?
ford: I think film schools are a very good idea. You learn something; then
it's not something completely new you're going into.

q What other directors and pictures do you like?

:

ford: I just saw A Man for All Seasons Freddie Zinneman ,

sent it over. It

was a great movie; Freddie's a very fine director.

q What was your approach to working in color in 7 Women, for instance.

: —
ford: I tried to keep the film down to a monotone, to start, and later on,
when the girl (Anne Bancroft) put on the kimono, I went into rather vivid
126 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

color for a sudden change. But the first part was pretty much in monotone. I

kept it in browns, blacks, and whites, kept all the reds out of the thing.

q : Has your attitude toward the western changed in your career?

ford: No, still the same as ever. I never go to see a western and I'd never
think of reading a western novel or story. I only make them to get away from
the smog of Hollywood. . . . I'm just a hard-nosed working director.

q : There are no changes between The Iron Horse in 1924 and The Man Who
Shot Liberty Valance?
ford: Ah, Liberty Valance! Yes. The man didn't kiss his horse and ride off

into the sunset.

Ford in Person

MARK HAGGARD/1970

John Ford has made two recent appearances at the University

of Southern California in Los Angeles, both times as the honoured guest of

USC's Alpha chapter of DKA, the national honorary cinema fraternity. In the

spring of 1969 ,
DKA sponsored a thirty-film Ford retrospective and, in the

spring of T970, a monumental, semester-long "History of the Western,"

which included five of Ford's best-loved films.

On both occasions, Ford was brief, colourful and candid, more often than
not revealing himself most fully between the lines. He doesn't like to talk
about films in an abstract, analytical fashion, but he is a born storyteller, and
there is nothing he would rather do than regale a few friends with stories

about the making of films and the actors and fellow craftsmen with whom
he has worked. . . .

On the first occasion, on a Saturday night in March of 1969, Ford was intro-
duced to the audience by writer Peter Bogdanovich and the then-president
of DKA, Father Frank Frost, S.J., who was, fortunately, dressed in his clerical
collar.

Ford began: "Members of DKA—ladies and gentlemen—guests. . .

." Here
he paused for a moment, then turned to Frost and added, "Father . .
." and
the audience laughed. "Beg your pardon," he said, "I forgot all about you.
And with Saint Patrick's Day coming up." There was another laugh, and then
Ford turned back to the audience.
"First," he said, "as an Irishman, I've gotta wish you all, may the day be

From Focus on Film 6 Spring . 1971. 31-37. Reprinted by permission of Tantivy Press.
128 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

clear and the road be clear before you. Monday is Saint Patrick's Day and
tonight all the friendly sons of Saint Patrick" —he looked at his watch—"no,
they're not getting unfriendly yet." [Laughter] "In about an hour, they'll start
getting unfriendly and they'll be hitting each other over the heads with
bottles . . .

"Well, you're probably used to these pedagogic, pedantic treatises on how

to make a motion picture —the theme, the theory, and everything else. Well,
I can't give you a talk on that, because I don't know how, I haven't got the
mental capacity, the capability, for doing that. I couldn't read it, be-
cause" —he held his hand out in front of his face—"it'd have to stand out
there some place, because I have split focus in this eye. As a matter of fact, I

think I'm quite a guy for coming up here tonight. I've been in bed with a
couple of cracked ribs all week, and I didn't want to disappoint you. You just

saw —what were you looking at, what picture?"

"The Searchers " said Bogdanovich.
,

"Oh!" said Ford. "There's one thing that strikes me about The Searchers:
this is really an almost all-out USC cast." [Laughter] "Oh, it is! That's not
supposed to be a joke. There's Michael Morrison, whom you know better as
John Wayne; Ward Bond; Jeffrey Hunter (he had his freshman year here);
Jackie Williams, whom you won't know he was a famous polo player here; —
Russ Saunders; oh, there's several others whose names slip me at the mo-
ment. But it's practically a USC cast."

Here Ford's voice became softer, and he said: "Of course, Ward has gone
and left us, and Duke and I —Duke Wayne, mean —this is something that
I

has gone out of our lives. We were a great trio together. Ward was a — just a

wonderful guy. . . .

"So I thought I'd tell you a couple of stories about incidents that hap-
pened on location. I don't think people tell you about those things. They get
a dictionary and write a thesis and read that to you. . . .

"Ward Bond was a great big, ugly, wonderful guy. But he was a terrific

snob. This was the greatest snob I have ever known. Now, I don't understand
snobbery. Ward's father was a coal miner —which is a very honourable pro-

fession. (My father was a saloonkeeper —which is even more honourable)."

[Laughter]

"But Ward was striving for better things. We were down —working down
and every night he broke up the card game, see, and he put on a
in Florida,
white dinner coat with a red cummerbund and went out. I says: 'Where are
 MARK HAGGARD/1970 1 2 9

you going?' and he says: 'Out with some society people.' So Wayne and I and
Bob Montgomery, we had a cab waiting and we sneaked after him. We
sneaked in and watched him, and there was Ward sitting at the head of the
table, at the wine" — here Ford
and he had ordered the wine, he was looking
—
pantomimed Bond examining the wine bottle "and he says: 'Hmm . .
.'

Now he didn't know anything about wine, mean I ..." [Laughter] " 'Is that
the best year you have? Do you have a . . . umm . . .
'48?' —which happens to
be one of the worst vintages ever made, you know—and he says: 'That'll be
—
And he was very tight he never bought anything for us — and here
all right.'

he was buying, and I says: 'Who are those people?' and he says, 'That fellow's
"
the leading druggist in Dubuque, Iowa!' I says: 'Well, that's really society!'

[Laughter]

"Duke and I were always spending most of our time thinking up tricks to

play on Ward. If we spent half the time, just one quarter of the time, reading
the script or trying to help the story, we'd have made better pictures. . . .

"Ward always wanted to be the leading man, and he was very jealous of
—
Duke. They were the best of friends all three of us were, the very best of
—
friends but he was always jealous of Duke, and he used to say: 'I should be
playing that part, of course, you know that,' and I says: 'Yeah, sure you
should, yeah.' " [Laughter]
"But we would have more fun with him, and, as I say, we should have
thought more about the picture and less about playing jokes on Ward. I sup-
pose the 'Dear Mabel' joke is not in your time." Here Ford raised his voice to
"
a falsetto and crooned: 'Oh, Mabel, dear, Mabel darling.' Anybody familiar
with it? Hm? 'Mabel darling.' Well, we used to pull that —
one on that goes
back, I mean, my God, to the flood." [Laughter]
"Well, I'm going on location. We had to land DC-3S in. And we carefully
picked out a very lush gal. She was really stacked. She was going to do a bit

in the picture. (She was up there for legitimate purposes.) But we had her
well schooled, and we carefully put her in the first plane, and the assistant
got strict orders to get her in the first car and send her out to hide. And then
Ward was in the second plane, see. And he got out there and did the usual
kicking about his room —y'know, he wanted a southern exposure—he kicked
about everything, didn't like his part, and I says: 'Well, fine, go home,' and
he says: 'Oh, well, y'know, don't wanna do that . .
.' " [Laughter]

"The first night we sat down for dinner —we're all in Gouldings —and
there were about ten of us at the table, and this girl came in, this" — and here
 —
130 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

Ford sneaked a brief look at Father Frost

— "with all due deference to Father
who I said was very well stacked —and she came in dressed as a waitress, and
with an autograph book, and says: 'Mr. Bond, you are my favourite actor. I

think you're just wonderful. Why do they have you playing these old parts?'
"
'Well', says Ward, pointing to me, 'ask him, ask him.' " [Laughter]
"And she says: 'I think you're just sweet. Would you like a steak? I've got
one laid aside for you, a very special steak.'
"
'Yeah, a steak, honey. What's your name, dear?'
"She says: 'Mabel.'
"
'Oh, that's a beautiful name.' " Ford pantomimed Bond signing his au-
tograph.
"
—
'Dear Mabel! with love, Ward.'
"And he looks at us with triumph, and the girl went off, and somebody
says: 'Hey, what about our food?' and she says: 'I'll get it as soon as I serve

Mr. Bond.'
"Well, this kept up for two days, and she was fussing around Ward, and
Ward was preening himself, and he was really in great shape. And then she
told him, she says: 'You know, my husband's working on the Atchison, To-
peka, and Santa Fe, and he'll be in the day after tomorrow. It's too bad —I'm
going to miss walking in the moonlight with you, darling.'
"And he says: 'Well, where do you live?'
"And she says: 'Well, you know that bunch of cabins —I'm on the end
cabin, I'm all alone there.'
"
'Oh,' he says, 'how about me dropping in tonight?'
"
'Oh, I'd love that,' she says. 'Look, honey, bring a six-pack of beer and a

watermelon.' " [Guffaws]

"He says: 'They have watermelons here, don't they?'
"And she says: 'Well, they don't serve the help and ah'm from the South,
you know' —she's suddenly changed her accent— 'and ah love watermelon.'
And, anyway, they made this pact.

"Nine-thirty he appeared —a six-pack of beer, a watermelon under his

arm
"
— put the beer down and knocked. 'Mabel, dear? . . . Mabel?'
'Is that you, Ward?'
"
'Yes, darling.
"
'The door is open.'
"So he picks up the six-pack and goes in, and we're all inside with frontier-
type pistols, and there's eight of us, and we went BANG! BANG! BANG!
BANG! BANG! —anyway, Jesus— BANG! It was awful!" [Uproarious laughter]
 I

MARK HAGGARD/1970 1 3 1

"Well, Ward lit out of there —he made O. J. Simpson look like a tortoise.

He dropped the six-pack, but he still carried the watermelon under his arm,

and he sprinted out into the desert. I got the lead wrangler, I said: 'Mount
up some horses and go out there and pick him And we went BANG! up.'

BANG! BANG! BANG! until all six shots — so eight times six—ahem —
flunked mathematics" [Laughter] "What's that come to?
"Well, we pulled jokes like that on him, that's one I always remembered.
And meanwhile, I mean, I don't want you to think I'm saying anything de-
rogatory about Ward, God rest his soul — he was a wonderful guy. I miss him
and Wayne misses him, and something has gone out of our lives. He's the
godfather to my children and my grandchildren, and he's a very dear
friend".

"Didn't he once play you in a picture? " said Bogdanovich. 1

"I don't remember," said Ford quickly, looking at his watch again, causing
another ripple of laughter. "Anyway, a lot of funny things happened on loca-

tion. You try to take advantage of them and use them in the picture and
sometimes they work out. Now—has anybody really got an in-ter-esting
question that they might want to ask?" There was no immediate response,
and Ford didn't wait for one. "God help us, no," he muttered. "Good!" he
exclaimed, and began taking his mike off.

Before leaving, he paused to explain to the audience that he had asked

DKA not to show The Quiet Man in the only available print, which was black-
and-white, "because the colour is part of the dramatic structure of the story.
In black-and-white, the scene does not go over."
In February of the following year, at the time of his seventy-fifth birthday,
Ford paid another visit to USC. This time, as he entered the room, the audi-
ence serenaded him with a chorus of "Happy Birthday." He seemed pleased.
On this occasion, Ford was accompanied by Dick Amador, an old Navy
comrade, and was introduced by Father Frost, who, since last year, had
grown a beard. As Father Frost slipped the mike around his neck, Ford said:

"Oh, we're going to get the last rites again, hm?"

He began by explaining that when Father Frost came to his house earlier,
"I —
didn't recognise him since he's turned hippy. But now I recognise him,
in this light . . .

"Well, Father Frost, ladies and gentlemen" —he began chuckling— "I al-

most said: 'fellow alumni.' It's very funny. When —got kicked— mean,
I left I

when I left college . .

." He suddenly looked at Father Frost. "That's a story
 I

1 3 2 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

which, despite your beard, it's too difficult to tell you —why I suddenly left

. . . well, let's not mention any names." [Laughter] "Now they want me to go
back, and they want to name their school of dramatic arts 'The John Ford
School of Dramatic Arts,' and I says: 'Hell, they kicked me out once, I wanta
stay kicked out.' " [Laughter] "I was gonna say, I almost said 'fellow alumni.'
Because I was an assistant director and when I left school there were many
."
gaps in my education . . Suddenly Ford stopped, noticing out of the corner
of his eye thatsomeone had leaned over to whisper something to Father
Frost. "What were you whispering about, huh?" he said.

"He wanted you to talk about Clementine some time," said Father Frost.
"But he didn't want to interrupt."
"The movie," said Frost.
"You're not interested in why I almost called you 'fellow alumni'?" [Enor-
mous laughter] "Well, anyway. . . . There were many gaps in my education,
and there're still many gaps in it. But the strange thing ... I come from the
state of Maine, and for some reason they do not teach American history.
They have Greek, Egyptian, Roman, French, and English, but we were never
taught American history. So one day someone says to me: 'There's a fellow
here who's an associate professor at USC. He's a real ham at heart, and he
loves movies, and I wish you'd use him whenever you can, he's a nice fellow.
He teaches night school.' So I went up to this fellow and said: 'You teach
American history?' and he says: 'Yes.' And I says: 'Well, let's make a deal. I'll

use you asmuch as possible.'

And went down there two, sometimes three nights a week—down to the
I

American history class. So I now know what the Gadsden Purchase is —

never knew before. And so settled the —what'd you want to know about
I

Clementine ?" [Laughter]

"Before you talk about that,' said Father Frost, "I think the people in the
audience are probably wondering who the man on your right is."
"This is my executive officer, Chief Petty Officer Amador," said Ford. "We
were in the Navy together for twenty years, and he's just out now, he's done
his And a very, very good man. When I became Admiral, I
twenty years.

wanted to promote him to Lieutenant Senior Grade — and he screamed. Be-

—
cause he'd get $8o a month less that way" Ford chuckled "than if he were —
a Chief Petty Officer.

"About Clementine the only story I know about it Wyatt Earp moved
,
—
out here and lived some place beyond Pasadena, and his wife was a very
 MARK HAGGARD/1970 1 3 3

religious woman, and two or three times a year. . . . Can you hear me all

right?"
"Yes," the audience answered.
"I can use my bridge voice, you know!" yelled Ford loudly. "Cause I have
commanded ships!" [Laughter]. Resuming his normal tone, he continued:
"And when she d go away on these religious conventions, Wyatt would
;

sneak into town and get drunk with my cowboys; Along about noon, they'd
sneak away and come back about 1:15 swacked to the gills — all my cowboys
and Wyatt — and I'd have to change the schedule around. And he told me the
story of the fight at the O.K. Corral. And that was exactly the way it was
done, except that Doc Holliday was not killed. Doc died of tuberculosis about
eighteen months later. And that's about the only story I know about Clement-
ine —except that the finish of the picture was not done by me. That isn't the
way I wanted to finish it. However . .
."

"How did you want it?" someone asked.

"It was so long ago I've forgotten, but it wasn't that way at all. I think I

wanted the girl to stay there and teach school, and I wanted Wyatt to stay
there and become permanent marshal —which he did. And that was the true
story. Instead of that, he had to ride away. But, uh . . .

"I've been in a terrible automobile crash, and I broke a rib and cracked
three others, and my doctor forbade me to get out of bed and come down
here. He says: 'Where are you going?' and I says: 'USC.' and he says: 'Oh,

that's all right.' Y'see, he's a graduate of USC." [Laughter]

"So —ladies and gentlemen, that's about all I've got to say, and I thank
you very much for this warm welcome."
"I'm sure there are many questions if you think you could answer a cou-
ple," said Father Frost.

Ford looked at him with some irritation and then said sternly: "The prom-
ise was — [laughter] " —there would be no question and answer period that I

was to come in and say hello and beat it and get back to bed." It was obvious
that Ford meant it. There was a long silence and, all over the room, faces fell.

"However," said Ford quickly, " a couple of quick questions — if I can answer
them. Shoot!"

q : "Do you believe that filmmaking is more a matter of instinct than ..."
"Oh, definitely. Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamen-
tals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about motion
 "

134 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

pictures is: photograph the people's eyes. Photograph their eyes." He ges-

tured to his chest and said: "Everything is from here up.

"You see, we have these instant geniuses now in the business, and they're
all overcome with gimmicks —these gadgets, this camera, this wonderful-
looking monster. And so they move it here, up, down, all over, so you get
seasick."

"I went out to watch a couple of friends of mine doing Hogan's Heroes —
John Banner and Werner Klemperer —and they had a new director there, and
he moved the camera here, then the camera went up, then he moved over,
then he went down, then it went up and he shot down at 'em. Meanwhile,
he didn't watch the actors, didn't look at the actors once. Along about the
tenth take he says: 'That's great! Print And one of the actors says: T missed
it.'

two lines in that,' and the director says: 'Oh, it doesn't make any difference.'
And a German actor, who was supposed to speak with a German accent by —
this time he'd lost the German accent and was speaking pure English. But

the director wasn't watching that.

"But forget about the camera. Get a good cameraman —he knows more
about a camera than you'll ever know —and say: 'I want to get So-and-So and
So-and-So in, and I want it very close, because I'm not going to shoot any
close-ups in here. If I shoot close-ups, I'm going to move one group here and
one there so I can take individuals.' But get a good cameraman and work
with your people. Look at their faces. See their eyes. You can express more
with your eyes than you can with anything else. And that's about all."

Ford then noticed a girl in the front row and said to her: "How about you
going into pictures? Hm? You're a good type." To the audience he said:

"She'd photograph very well. What a shame I've retired."

q : "We heard that you were working on a new picture.

"Well, not actually. I'm supervising the story of Chesty Puller, who was our
most famous Marine, the most decorated Marine in history. I'm not actually

directing it, I'm supervising it —nobody's directing it, we're just putting it to-

gether. I did go back to V.M.I. and Washington and Lee to do some scenes
back there. We went back to do Robert E. Lee's tomb, where Chesty goes to
say goodbye to him."
Ford's voice took a more personal tone as he added: "Chesty's a very dear
friend of mine. We were in Korea together, and he kept me out of harm."
Almost to himself, he added: "All I did was lose an eye.
 MARK haggard/1970 135

"He's a very close friend of mine, and a great guy, and the greatest Marine
the world has ever known. And Pm sort of supervising it. The Marine Corps
sent over a lot of new material to us that has never been shown — I mean,
real battle stuff that they've never given to the news weeklies or anybody
else, because they thought at the time it was too —not too horrible—but, I

mean, you see boys falling and that sort of thing. The real attacks. And
then. ..." And here Ford began going off into a private revery again, almost
forgetting the audience. "... I got some great stuff when we were chased off

the reservoir, during the blizzard. I had a camera — I

photographed that —in
a real blizzard, and ... I just opened the camera wide open, and it came out
beautifully. Have the retreat from the reservoir ..."
"I hope we can get a print of that to show down here," said Father Frost.
“This Is Korea?"
"No, the, uh . .
."

"Oh! . . . Oh, you can get it, as soon as we finish. It takes a long time,
y'know, to get all this footage. I don't want too much war stuff in it. I want
to make more of a human story about Chesty. Because he's a wonderful guy.
I would like to make it his personal story. I don't want it filled with war stuff.

I mean, the war stuff will be brief and to the point."

In the back of the room, a bearded, shaggy-haired ex-Marine from UCLA
("UCLA —that figures," said Ford later) stood up. "Is it true," he said, "that

Chesty Puller tried to trade in three Navy Crosses for a Congressional Medal
of Honor?"
"No," said Ford disgustedly. "He has five Navy Crosses." [Laughter] "No,
that isn't true at all. That isn't true. But he wasn't made Commandant of
Marines because he was too tough, and by that time everything was soften-
ing up. No, that is not true at all. Chesty should have received the Medal of
Honor. He deserved it. But he does have five Navy Crosses. But as far as him
politicking for a Congressional Medal of Honor, that isn't true at all. I don't
know where you get that story."
"He's an ex-Marine and probably heard some scuttlebutt," called out a
helpful soul from the audience.
Someone else began to ask a question, but Ford turned back to the ex-
— —
Marine. "What were you did you serve in Korea or in World War Two?"
asked Ford.
"No, after that — I stood Chesty Puller's last inspection," said the ex-Ma-
nne.
1 3 6 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

"Well, don't you agree that he was a great guy?" said Ford.
"Uh . . [Laughter] "I did then, yes."

"Yeah. Well, he And I'll bet he knew you by your first name Cecil,
still is. —
or Cyril, or whatever your name is." [Laughter] "He was a great guy and he
took care of his men." Then, almost to himself again, Ford added: "He took
care of everybody but me ..."

q : "How do you make your Westerns look so authentic, so real?"

"Instinct again, I guess. I have been a cowboy and I punched cows for awhile.

The boss's daughter, believe it or not, fell in love with me. She was six-foot-

two and weighed about 210 pounds ." [Laughter] ". so I stole a horse and
. . . .

rode away ." [Laughter] ".

. . and came to California." [Laughter] "But I have
. .

been a cowboy and I know the West pretty well."

"
q : Did you run out of money when you were making The Searchers? A critic

wrote at the time that you ran out of money."

"That's partly true. They start down—on every picture, towards the
bearing
finish, they start bearing down on you. That's why the ends of pictures are
not as good as the beginnings. 'Hurry it up, hurry it up!' You know, you're
overbudget and everything. And this was —that's partly true."
q : "Do you think it hurt the picture ?"
"No, I don't think so. I didn't pay any attention to them. I gave them an
evasive answer." [Laughter].
Ford answered another brief question, then graciously took his leave. As
he stepped down from the podium, he gestured to his lapel, on which rested
his DKA fraternity pin. Then he stretched out his arm and waved a last fare-
well.
 ?

John Ford Talks to Philip Jenkinson about Not

Being Interested in Movies

PHILIP J E N K I N S ON / 1 9 7 0

philip jenkinson; Were you interested in movies way back?

john ford: Not really—not interested in them now actually. It's a way
of making a living. ,

j : Was filmmaking in 1917 as primitive as everyone suggests

f : I hardly think that ''primitive" is the right word. We had no lights and
we had —just a board and over that we stretched cambric cotton
a big stage

to hold the light off— and there'd be five or six companies working side by

side. We thought it was rather nice. We all knew one another and visited
back and forth. We'd go over to the actors and say, "Do you mind coming
over and playing a butler for us?" Well, not a —
butler we didn't have butlers
in those days: they were mostly Westerns.

j : When did you become interested in Westerns?

f : When I left school I went to college and didn't like it. So I left and
worked in Arizona as a cowboy, and eventually ended up in Hollywood. I

like tomake Western pictures because I like to get out and live in the open:
you get up early, you work late, you eat dinner with an appetite, you sleep
well, and I do like the people you meet and work with. That is really my only
interest in Westerns. As story material I am not particularly fascinated by
them. It's not my metier by any means. None of my so-called better pictures
are Westerns.

From The Listener, December 2, 1970.

138 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

j : What do you remember of The Lost Patrol, made in 1934?

f : We had one of the first of the so-called "producers" on this picture. We

had a shot where the British cavalry were supposed to come to the rescue
and it was very hard. When it was time to come on, this airplane flew over

their heads and of course the horses scattered. The plane finally landed in a
little satellite airfield they had, and this idiot producer got out with a big
cigar. Of course it spoiled the shot for that day and we had to wait until the
next day. He said to me: "Jack, I've been looking over your schedule. You
start working at seven, then you quit at eleven, and start working at 2:30 or

three. Look at those hours you're losing. If you worked right on through,
you'd finish five or six days ahead."
I said: "Cliff, you can't work in this heat."
He said: "It's wonderful, I love it. It's great."

I said: "I'm sorry, I've got to line this shot up," and he wandered away.
We finally got the shot and I said, "Where's Mr. So-and-So? Yes, the so-called

producer who flew in last night."

"We've just taken him to the hospital with sunstroke."

j : There's a story that on the film Wee Willie Winkie, after the death of Victor
McLaglen, you spontaneously suggested that they include a funeral scene.
f : Well, we were out there and I said: "It's a mistake in the story to kill

McLaglen off, because he's one of the leading characters, but at least if we're
going to kill him him a funeral." It was in the rain, so I said,
off, let's give
"Let's shoot it in the rain." Which we did. That's all there is to it. Just enough
to fill in a day's work.

j : It looks like a sequence that would have taken a week to shoot and instead you ,

tell me you did it all in a day.

f : Oh no, we didn't do it in a day. Nothing of the sort. We did it in about
an hour and a quarter.

j : Stagecoach was the first time you filmed in Monument Valley. Why did you
decide to shoot there?

f : I used to stay occasionally with the chap who ran the trading post, and
he said, "You know, the Navajos are starving. I understand you're going to
do a Western. If you come up there and do it, you'd probably save a lot of
lives." I think we left about $500,000 there. A man that rode a horse, if he
 PHILIP JENKINSON/1 970 1 3 9

provided his own horse, got ten dollars a day, the women got five dollars,
and the children got three dollars a day. It put them on their feet and they
appreciated it. If anybody else tries to come in there, they object. They don't
want anybody in there but me.

j : Do you see the systematic destruction of the Red Indian as something inevita-
ble, or a blot on American history?
f : That's a political question. I don't think it has anything to do with pic-
tures. All I could say is "No comment." I wasn't alive then, I had nothing to

do with it. My sympathy is all with the Indians. Do you consider the inva-
sion of the Black and Tans in Ireland a blot on English history? Being Irish,
it's my prerogative to answer a question with a question. Do you consider
that a blot on English history?

j : I don't know enough about it

f : It's the same thing.

j : Can you tell me about the incredible story of your filming of the Battle of
Midway?
f : What was incredible about it?

j : You running out there with a camera under direct attack.

f : I did what?

j : You were making shots and directing shots while the place was literally being
blasted to bits.

f : That was what I was getting paid for. There's nothing extraordinary
about that. I was on this turret to report the position and the numbers of
Japanese planes to the officers who were fifty feet under the ground, and
meanwhile I had a little 16mm camera. I just reported the different things

and took the pictures. That was what the Navy was for. What else could you
do?

j : In between making "A" pictures, you turned out scores and scores of"B" films.
f : One of the troubles with directors is that they make a big picture —which
might be a hit —and then they try to top it. And they usually fall flat on their
faces. So I try to make it as a rule: if I make a big picture which is a hit I do a
 ?

1 4 0 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

cheap picture next. Relax for three or four weeks while preparing another
story. Usually, of course, to my mind the little picture is better. My favorite
picture, for example, is one you've never heard of called The Sun Shines Bright.

j : What aspects of American society at this moment dismay you the most
f : I'm worried about these riots, these students. I'm worried about this anti-
racism (sic). It doesn't mean the Negroes are doing it. They're being influ-
enced by outside. Some other country. They are agents, the people who are
doing things, that are being arrested . . . and the poor Negroes are getting the

blame. That's why I think our ancestors would be . . . bloody ashamed of us

if they saw us now. But things will get better.

j : Your films often depict bloodshed yet I get the feeling you hate violence.
,

f : I do, and my pictures do not always show violence. Very, very few of
them do. And if they show violence, it's over quickly. I suggest more than
it

anything else. I hate violence in pictures just as I do all this sex and incest
and all the things that are going on now.
Ford on the Lido

DEREK MALCOLM/1971

I was surprised to be accorded an interview. John Ford was not

fond of critics, though sometimes behoven to them. Perhaps since this was
the August 1971 Venice Film Festival, where a special retrospective had been
mounted, supervised by Peter Bogdanovich, he relented. But I still knocked
on the door of his suite at the Excelsior Hotel on the Lido with some trepida-

tion. What could I possibly ask him that he hadn't been asked before? But
the fact that I had once been a jockey, and knew a bit about horses, might
stand me in good stead. Ford might even think me a human being rather
than a critic.

His wife answered the door, looking worried. She said she was terribly
sorry but that they'd both come down with a bug, and John was in a worse
state than she. It didn't look as if an interview was possible, though I could
try later. Just as I was about to withdraw, I heard a voice coming from the
general direction of the bathroom. It said, loud and clear, "Come on in. can I

deal with two shits at once!"

Mrs. Ford raised her eyes to heaven and let me in. And Ford, then an old
man, trundled in and said, "You English?" "No," I said, "I'm Scots." "Oh,"
he said, "That's better. . . . (pause) . . . What yer wanna know?" Horses, I

thought to myself, horses.

"Well," I said, "I've always wondered where you got the horses for your
Westerns." "Not from Scotland, that's for sure," said Ford, but, warming to
the unexpectedly unintellectual question, "They have to be specially

Printed by permission of the author.

1 4 2 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

trained. Most of the actors can't ride them properly. They have to be quiet as
hell."

"What about John Wayne?" I ventured gingerly. "Duke?" he said, possi-

bly half joking, "We have to dope them for him."

The "interview" lasted an hour and a half, with intervals where Ford dealt
summarily with one "shit" in the main room and several in the bathroom.
He liked the idea of talking to a jockey. But when I came to write it up, there
wasn't an awful lot of substance to it, though much entertainment. And The
Guardian where
, I was a critic, hadn't the sense of humor, or of Ford, to print
it. Not even on the racing pages.
 , ,

A Very Special Tribute to a Very Special Guy

KAY GARDELLA/1 971

Director John Ford might not have invented either the

Western or that ambulatory national monument, John Wayne, but most
movie-goers think he created both, and it's far too late to try to change any-
body's mind.
Now seventy-six and mending from a broken hip, Ford possibly would
rather be remembered for such classic films as The Informer but the tribute
,

he'll be paid on CBS-TV tonight will further weld him to the saddle-and-

saloon school of movie-making.

Called The American West of John Ford the hour-long show will star his
—
three favorite horsebackers Duke Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Henry
—
Fonda and, in a brief bedside segment filmed in his Bel Air, Calif., home,
the wry and sometimes irascible Old Man himself.
"There are no creative people at the head of studios any more," he said
while sitting upright in bed, a half-spent cigar clenched between his teeth.
"Pictures are being controlled from Madison Avenue and Wall Street. Darryl

F. Zanuck is the only movie maker left, and he's out now. I feel very sad,
particularly when it's a business I love. Still, you remain here, always hoping
that someday it will come back and be the industry it once was."
Ford shifted his weight and tried to find a more comfortable spot for his
aching hip.
"I'm a student of history," he continued. "I like the Western because it's

From the New York Sunday News Section 2, December 5, 197T. © 1971 the New York Daily
News , L.P. Reprinted by permission.
 ,

1 4 4 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

made on location. But there's a sameness about them. There's always the

same old church, the same old shootout, two doubles in a saloon faking a
fight and the same old Western town."
A TV set rested at the foot of Ford's bed. He said he doesn't like television

and rarely has it on.

"All I watch is baseball," he said. "TV doesn't interest me. Most of the
shows I've seen I don't like. They're done in too much of a hurry. They don't
have endings. As for movies, they're all cut to pieces. Particularly my own.
They're massacred! That's why I don't watch my movies on TV. Anyway, I

don't like to watch movies. I like to make them."

Ford's home is a sort of Western museum —a pair of gloves worn by Buf-
falo Bill in his Wild West shows, a war bonnet from the Battle of the Little

Big Horn, and a prominently displayed bumper sticker which reads: "God
Loves John Wayne."
John Ford loves the big guy, too. Wayne, in Ford's opinion, is the No. i
star in movies today. The two men are close friends and have worked to-

gether many times. It figures, since Ford is a man's man, a reputation he

thoroughly enjoys. He readily admits a preference for films about men in a
man's world, but he's not anti-women, as some critics have implied.
In fact, he said, his Oscar-winning film, The Quiet Man belonged as much
to Maureen O'Hara as it did to John Wayne, the picture's leading man.
"My leading ladies all liked me," he said with more than a trace of pride.

What does John Ford think of John Ford?

The director smiled and rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin.

"I prefer to think of myself as a hard-nosed, hard-working director with a

sense of humor and no temper, temperament, or inhibitions."
Yes, John Ford Knew a Thing or Two about Art

LARRY SWINDELL/19 73

He said he was pleased that I wasn't scribbling a lot of notes

while we talked. That always bothered the hell out of him, because it de-
prived a meeting of its personal side and he preferred doing things on a per-

sonal basis.
"If I say something worth remembering, you will," John Ford said, "and
if it isn't memorable, why bother to write
down?" it

He loathes tape recorders, too, but would permit them among friends.
"Now that they've decided my work belongs to the ages, they try to get me
to talk about it. I don't enjoy that, and it has been my humor to spend my
time doing things I enjoy. But they're going to quote me anyway, so I help
see they get it right." I told him a tape recorder wasn't my style.
He showed me a compact little book called simply "John Ford," then
newly published in England but authored by a young American critic named
Peter Bogdanovich, apparently esteemed by Ford as both friend and disciple.

America's most honored film director was obviously proud of the book with
its eloquent anthology of stills from his movies.

him with
Yet he tried to conceal his pleasure. They'd been lacquering
praise for most of his long lifetime but he hadn't adjusted to the odor. He

was still embarrassed by fame, and a gruff scorn of praise had become part of
the public John Ford.
He was pleased, too, that I had already heard of Peter Bogdanovich, who

From the Philadelphia Inquirer, September 16, 1973. 8-10. © 1973 the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Reprinted by permission from The Philadelphia Inquirer.
1 4 6 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

he said was making his own first picture. He said Peter had what most of the
early directors but few of the later ones had: "A pure love for the activity of
making pictures." The words were slow and careful, and emphasis on the
word activity told me it was a conscious substitute for the customary "busi-
ness" or "art."
Yes, John Ford said he knew a thing or two about art. He spelled it with a
capital F.

That was five years ago. I had met John Ford twice, but many years earlier.
He obviously wouldn't remember me, so I made no reference. The previous
contacts had been sort of official, but this was the first and only "personal"
meeting and I felt lucky in having the invitation. Ford, who was then
seventy-three, had not been "giving interviews" for several years and would
devote his idle time to his pals or to himself only. But something in a letter

I'd written had won his confidence and interest.

He was glad someone with "a good feeling" about the movies was doing
a biography of Spencer Tracy. His secretary telephoned that I could have an
hour with Mr. Ford in his Beverly Hills office. The hour grew into a complete
afternoon. I didn't overstay; we were just enjoying ourselves. Besides, he said,

"I don't have a damn thing to do except just be here and refuse visitors. I

think I'm retired now. I may never make another picture, much as I'd like to.

I'm too old and blind and tired."

One eye had been covered by a black patch for several years, and vision in
the other was suspect. When he read, it was with great effort and his nose
almost touched the print. But even twenty years earlier he had looked some-
how ancient, and perhaps only his refusal to compromise being comfortable
had allowed him to endure. He was the raffish prize in an otherwise impecca-
ble office —wearing a battered cap, gray tweed jacket, green polo shirt, white
corduroy and dirty white tennis shoes.
slacks,

I had been warned he could be impatiently mean, but things went well

from the start. I noted the niceness of Dixie, his secretary, and Ford said she
was a Texican and they're good people. I said I was a native Texan and that
got him going.
Really? From where? I said a little town called Quanah at the southeast tip

of the Panhandle, near the Red River. He'd been there and had slept over-

night in the Crawford Hotel that I assured him was still there. He was de-
lighted that was a "Texican" with a faint
I trace of Comanche blood, and

from a town named for one of his heroes.

"Quanah Parker was a remarkable chief and a great American. Ford re-
flected, "who finally saw that the white man would have to be accommo-
 ,

LARRY S W I N D E L L / 1 9 7 3 1 4 7

dated. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. Of course, he was half white, but you
knew that already."
Yes, the saga of the Parker family was folklore back home. John Ford and
I reviewed almost-matching versions of Cynthia Ann Parker's extraordinary

tragic life: taken at six by Comanches who massacred the rest of a Texas
settlement; growing up as squaw to Chief Nocona and mother to Quanah
before her recapture by the Cavalry many years later; then imprisoned with
white eastern relatives, pining in her old age for the warrior son who became
the architect of peace between his two peoples.
"I always intended to make a picture about Quanah Parker. I discussed a
script first with Dudley Nichols and then Lamar Trotti, but the war came and
that diverted us. There's a fictional suggestion of Cynthia Ann in The Search-
ers but it's hardly the same.
"Now take Cheyenne Autumn. It was very disappointing to me in a per-
sonal way, because I couldn't get inside a whole tribe of people. But if you
can get inside a Quanah Parker, he can represent the tribe. But I'd say you're
going to have to make the picture."
He never said movie, or film: it was always picture —the term most often
employed by Hollywood oldtimers for whom moviemaking was a primarily
visual adventure.
We talked about his work and I held my own, even showed off a bit; and
he was flattered that I didn't just carry on over Stagecoach and The Informer
and The Grapes of Wrath. My own favorites in the Ford inventory included
such relative obscurities as Steamboat Round the Bend They Were Expendable '
,

and The Prisoner of Shark Island and ,

I could tell he was pleased, as well as

grateful to be talking with someone whose liking for pictures wasn't impres-
sively intellectual.

He said The Sun Shines Bright was his favorite job and that surprised me
until he clarified that he was talking about what he liked, not what he
thought was best. "When they ask me what I consider is my best picture, I

often say Stagecoach if I answer at all, because it usually shuts them up with-
out an argument. Hell, I don't know what could make one picture best or
even better. I don't have that kind of mind."
He protested that his intelligence was only ordinary, but that if he'd been
smarter perhaps he wouldn't have become "this great director you keep hear-
ing about." I didn't ask, but he identified Claire Trevor in Stagecoach as "pos-
sibly the best actress I worked with, or as good as any ... so true in

performance as to be almost overlooked." Then he smacked his lips for em-

 — ,

1 4 8 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

phasis. '"But the best actor I worked with was the one you're writing about.
You are here to talk about Spence, aren't you?"
I was, and we did. What made the meeting so vital was that John Ford
alone had brought Spencer Tracy into the talkies —obstinately, because no-
body at Fox wanted to take on a stage actor not endowed with conventional
good looks. When the Tracy biography was published, some reviewers cited
Ford's memoir of Up the River 1930 as an especially satisfying passage. Here
it's reprised in condensed form, John Ford talking:

"The Fox executives sent me to New York to assess the new plays and
scout young actors. I needed a male lead for Up the River; it was my next
assignment and a prison picture, so on my first night in town I saw a prison
play The Last Mile with Spencer Tracy as Killer Meers.

"I liked it so much that I went back the next night, and was tantalized by
Spence. I began to see that he had it all —the consummate power of an actor.
So, hell, I went a third time, and introduced myself to Spence backstage. He
took me to the Lambs Club for what turned out to be quite an evening.
"We stayed until about four o'clock when think they threw us out. Most I

of the time we only talked baseball, but liked Spence so much knew had I I I

to have him in my next picture, whether it was Up the River or something

else. The way it turned out, I was supposed to see six plays in six nights but I

saw The Last Mile every night I was there.

"Spence had tested for several studios but nobody wanted him. They said
he was ugly. But I had an ornery streak, and Fox gave in. Up the River turned
out all right and Spence was perfect. Unlike most stage-trained actors, he
instinctively subdued himself before a camera. And he was as natural as if he
didn't know a camera was there.
"We didn't work together again until The Last Hurrah almost thirty years
later. But I always wanted him — he was everybody's first choice. Once Irving

Thalberg agreed to loan Spence to me for The Plough and the Stars but then
Irving died, and just about that time Tracy was becoming an important
M-G-M star and that bastard Mayer reneged on our deal.
"When say Spencer Tracy was the best actor we ever had,
I I'm giving you
something of my philosophy of acting. The best is the most natural. Scenery
never got chewed in my pictures. prefer actors who can just be. That's why
I

I Wayne a good actor for pictures, although he would be defi-

consider John
cient on any stage. And that's why put together my own stock company for
I

people to joke about. I used my friends in pictures because I like an atmo-

 ,

LARRY S W I N D E L L / 1 9 7 3 1 4 9

sphere in which people can work well together. Besides, knew what they I

could do, and I don't coach acting. I don't even understand it, the way
George Cukor and John Cromwell understand acting.
"George Stevens can take an ordinary performance and edit it into a bril-
liant one, the way a good newspaperman trims a reporter's story to make it

read better. I admire that, but for me the orgasm of picture-making is yelling
the final 'Cut!' Then I'm ready to start a new project, and someone else can
edit my last job."
Dixie had gone home, the sun had gone down outside and I sensed that
my host was tiring. I got up from my chair to do the decent thing but I was
rudely commanded to sit back down, while John Ford reflected.

"The simple fact is, my interest is pictorial. As a small boy I liked to draw
and had a kind of talent for composition.
"I was a kid out of high school and the movies and Hollywood were both
very new. My older brother Francis was established in pictures so I joined
him. I did some camera work and, sometimes, a little writing. There were no
unions, it was a carefree activity, and I was nineteen when I directed my first
two-reeler.
"Well, pictures have changed a lot. Most of today's so-called film criticism
baffles me and we have too many critics who lack affinity for public taste.
But I try not to grumble, for I was fortunate to work in a field that was young
and raw and new.
"Sure, I took a lot of crap from studio types. I compromised. But it wasn't
like today when the motion picture industry is too goddam big and compli-
cated. On comparative terms had I a lot of freedom, and I had a hell of a lot

of fun making pictures and that was important.

"They ask if I believe in the future of motion pictures and I say yes because
I do. But not so eloquently as I believe in their past."
Then he studied me with one moist eye and said, "Now tell me where
we've met before, for I know we have."
Surprised, I told him that about fifteen years earlier I had twice contacted
him on behalf of The Great Films Society, an early study group of which I
was a member while still in my teens, and with all my hair.
He had consented to be our guest for the inevitable panel discussions fol-
lowing screenings of first The Iron Horse and then The Lost Patrol. He was
curious that I had not referenced our background, and I was embarrassed.
And about then, I took my leave.
150 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

When the book was published, I mailed a copy to John Ford, with a mes-
sage of gratitude inscribed in large characters to facilitate his reading it. I

never heard from him. The next time I was in Los Angeles I resisted an urge
to call on him again, for I had no reason to see him other than admiration,
and feared a turn-down.
Now I regret such reticence. About a year ago one of my friends from the
film colony said he had happened to mention my name during whatever
business he was conducting with that grand old Irishman, and John Ford
had said that he and I are real good pals.

Well, my pal died a couple of weeks ago. He was born Sean O'Feeney, the
youngest of thirteen children, in Maine; but sixty of his seventy-eight years
were spent in Hollywood where he adopted the professional surname of his
older brother. He mastered his craft in silent pictures and became the fore-

most director of the prewar talkies. Afterward his reputation declined until
critics in the '60s Film Generation decided, against his scoffing, that any
John Ford movie had an extra dimension that made it timeless.
Perhaps he was America's greatest movie director, or perhaps he was
merely what he said he was —an overrated technician with some talent for
composition. I have some talent for memory, and I'm going to give John
Ford the best of it. He gave me a full afternoon out of one glorious life.
One More Hurrah

WALTER WAGNER/1973

In the bedroom on Copa de Ora Road in Bel Air, Ford, in green

pajamas, looked like a pixyish pirate. The famous black patch over his left
eye was in place (to protect it from daylight). He'd been home from the hos-
pital for only three days following surgery for the cancer that would soon
kill him. This was the last interview of his life.

Because of his visitor's last name, Ford assumed he was German. Herr
Wagner wie geht es Ihnen? he
,
rattled off in excellent German. Luckily, his

visitor did speak German. After several other amenities and polite small talk
in German, the conversation switched to English.
"I should offer you a drink. This is gin and stout."
"No, thank you. I don't drink."
"Well, neither do I. But the doctor ordered this to put on weight. It tastes

and smells horrible, but I have to drink two before dinner."

"It looks like root beer."

"Oh, God, now you've killed it for me."

"Sorry."

I've never written a book about my life because it's been too complicated. I

have written articles. I have even written short stories. I will confess they are
children's stories, but the idea of sitting down and writing a book is rather
beyond me. My grandson contemplates doing it. I wouldn't have the pa-

From You Must Remember This. Putnam: New York, 1975. 45-54. © 1975 by Walter Wagner.
Used by permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc.
1 5 2 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

tience, though on second thought if I told the truth it probably would be

very exciting. But the truth about my life is nobody's damn business but my
own. Perhaps I should amplify. Pve done so many things, been somany
places, that I
;
m afraid an autobiography would be too episodic. And there
are certain things in my life that I would like to forget. I didn't murder any-
body or rob anybody but I got mixed up in a couple of revolutions and that
sort of thing. . . .

My father came to this country to fight. You can call it the Civil War, but
my wife is from South Carolina, so we call it the War Between the States in
this house. My father had two brothers and a brother-in-law. One was in the

Confederate Army, and two were in the Union Army. When he arrived, the
war was over. I asked him once, "Which side were you going to fight for?"

And he answered, "Either side."

My wife's father was a Confederate, and both her grandfathers were Con-
federate colonels. Sherman burned her house down. She wasn't alive at the

time, of course. But she was brought up on those stories. I had two uncles in

the Union Army and one in the Confederate Army. In deference to my wife,
I keep quiet about the ones in the Union Army. If you go down to the library,

you will see a regimental flag that was made about the time of Appomattox.
It came down to my wife. It's a very faint, very old Confederate flag. Ask my
daughter Barbara to show it to you. She is a student of history, but it's all

Louis XIV, XV and XVI. Right now she's on a Henry VIII kick.

As a kid I was fascinated by the nickelodeons of that period. Any time I

got a nickel or a dime I would go to the movies.

How did I get to Hollywood? By train. Oh, you mean why did I come to

Hollywood? I had a brother who was quite a considerable star in the film

world, Francis Ford. I decided to follow him out here because I was at the
University of Maine on an athletic scholarship and I didn't make it. I think I

was there about eight or twelve days, I forget which. Incidentally, about an
hour ago I received a letter from them asking if they could name their School
of Dramatic Arts after me. I'm going to tell them to go ahead. It's a great

honor.
I remember the last night on the train. I was coming tourist, and I had to

go without dinner because I had no money in my pocket. So I arrived penni-

less, as the expression goes.

I started my career as a ditchdigger. In other words, I got a job on the labor
 WALTER WAGNER/1973 1 5 3

gang at Universal when Carl Laemmle, Sr., was running the studio. Then my
brother made me an assistant propman. I then became an assistant director.

How became a director is a long story,

I but if you have the time, I'll tell it

to you.

There was a big party one night for Carl Laemmle at the studio. There
were seventy-five to one hundred guests, all very important, most of them
from the East. They had never seen a studio before. The assistant directors,

of which I was one, and the propmen acted as bartenders. We worked all
night and managed to get an hour's sleep, or a half hour's sleep, under the
We still had to show up for work at eight thirty in the morning. But
bar.

none of the directors showed up. was on my set on the back lot, and my
I

director hadn't shown up either. They were all sleeping it off.

Isadore Bernstein, the general manager of the studio, was a very fine man,
a very dear friend of mine. As a matter of fact, he was the best man at my
wedding. He came riding up on his little pinto horse and said, "For God's
sake, Jack, do something, Mr. Laemmle and all his guests are coming down
here, and they want to see some action. I can't find any of our directors.

You'll have to direct something. This is the only set with riders, extras and
so forth."
I asked him what I should do.
He was frantic, and he said, "Do anything! Show them some action!"
I thought, What the hell can I do? By the time Laemmle and his guests
showed up I had an idea. I told the cowboys — I think I had about twelve of
them —to come riding through the street, whooping and yelling, and to
shoot at the buildings, then to pull up at a hitching post, turn around and
ride back again. They did it all great.

Mr. Bernstein came up and said, "That's fine. Do something else."

"What the hell more can I do?"

He said, "Mr. Laemmle's guests are all thrilled and fascinated. They have
never seen horsemen, cowboys before."
I told him I'd try to think of something. I went up to the cowboys and
said, "When I fire a shot, I want two of you fellows to fall." In those days
they got two dollars for a fall. Now it would be about two hundred and fifty.

So they came whooping down the street again, and I fired a shot. And all

twelve of them fell off their horses. I thought that was a little incongruous, a
little stupid, one shot felling twelve men.
1 5 4 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

Mr. Bernstein came riding up again, and I told him, "I didn't want that. I

only wanted two or three to fall."

He said, "Oh, that's great. They don't know the difference. That's fine.
Keep it in. Is it in the can?"
I said yes.

Then he said, "Now do something else."

I told him I had run out of ideas.

"Oh, you'll think of something. I'll go back and talk to Mr. Laemmle and
his guests and keep them busy. You go ahead and think of something spec-
tacular for the cowboys to do."
I was stumped. What could I do on that street? It was just a makeshift
street, with wooden buildings and false fronts. Then I had a brilliant idea, or
at least at that time I thought it was brilliant. In the natural course of the
story we were shooting — I forget the name of the film now—the saloon was
supposed to catch fire and burn down. It was a cheap street, and I thought
why not burn the whole goddamn street down?
I had all the buildings set afire, and I told the cowboys that this time I

wasn't going to pay them for all falling unless I specified it. So they rode
down the street again, shooting and yelling while it burned.
Mr. Bernstein said, "Gosh, that was great."
I said, "You asked for something spectacular." Then I told him I was really

out of ideas.
Mr. Bernstein said, "Well, I'll get Mr. Laemmle's guests away and we'll try

to find another set whose director isn't drunk so we can show them some-
thing else."
"Thank God," I said.

I gave orders to put the fire out and stop the cameras. When Laemmle and
his guests left, I was exhausted.
The aftermath of this was that it looked so good on the screen that they
enlarged that little two-reel picture into a five-reeler. It turned out to be a
very exciting picture. About four months later Harry Carey, who was an im-
portant silent star, needed a director for one of his Westerns.

Mr. Laemmle said, "Let Jack Ford direct it. He yells good."
So I became a director, and I was scared to death. But Harry was a very

dear and very close friend and remained so until his death. Harry helped me
immeasurably. Then I directed another picture from a story I had written,

and I do remember the name of this one. It was called The Sky Pilot.
 WALTER WAGNER/1973 1 5 5

I don't know how many films I've made. Peter Bogdanovich, who did an
article about me, the son of a bitch, I think he added them up and there were
a hundred and thirty-two. I call Bogdanovich a son of a bitch because his

article was inaccurate in many ways. He had me talking out of the side of my
mouth in very bad vernacular. After all, I did major in English, and I'm from
New England, and am proud of my accent and very particular about my
I

grammar. He had me practically speaking argot. He wrote the article with

my permission, and he was going to expand it into a book. But he did not
get my permission for that.
Frankly, remember none of my silent pictures with any warmth. They
I

were all hard work. My first silent hit, if may use that expression, was The I

Iron Horse. It was a great epic of its time. I think it grossed seven million three
hundred thousand some odd dollars. That was an astounding figure for those
days.
I had no difficulty whatever making the transition from silents to talkies.

By the way, neither did John Gilbert. John actually had a very good, resonant
voice. He'd been an actor on the stage, and he knew his business. He did a
talkie, Queen Christina with Greta Garbo. Then he stayed off the screen for a
,

while and died. But that thing about him having a weak voice is untrue. He
had a good voice.

That story about Victor McLaglen being drunk when he starred in The
Informer is an ill-founded rumor. It is actually a libelous statement. There is

an axiom in the picture business that nobody under the influence of alcohol
can play a drunk. And I believe that. All the famous drunks that we have in
the picture business and the people who play drunks are teetotalers when
they work. You can't play a drunk while you are under the influence. Victor
had to run too many gamuts of emotion, bravado, nervousness, fear, some-
times all in one scene, and go back to bravado again and resume the whole
thing. He had too much to do to take a drink. He had some very tough lines.

After all, he was not an Irishman, and he was playing an Irishman in this. He
had to assume an Irish accent, which he did splendidly. It is untrue, abso-
lutely untrue, that he was drunk while we were shooting.
I was surprised when The Informer won an Academy Award. You don't just

pick up a story, do a picture of it, and say this is an Academy Award picture.
I chose it because it was a very good, very sound and substantial story, a good
character story.
Stagecoach was a typical Western, lots of emotion, lots of action, although
156 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

at that time it was slightly out of line. I mean, the girl who played the lead
was a prostitute. The boy, John Wayne, was an escaped convict. In those days
you didn't do that sort of thing. But it had a happy ending, and that's proba-

bly why I liked it.

As it turned out, I received no criticism because I broke new ground with

Stagecoach. But I got a lot of followers, copiers.
I had no specialapproach to The Grapes of Wrath. Darryl Zanuck called me
in and just told me to go out and make it. He was the boss. And I was under
contract to Fox at the time.
It had a good story, too. It was a story I was in sympathy with. I was born
on a farm. We weren't rich or really comfortable or well-to-do. Because I was
pinching poverty while I was growing up, I had complete sympathy with
these people.
It was just another job to be done to the best of my ability. I didn't wave
any magic wand or look into a crystal ball. I just went out and did it. It was
a lot of fun because I was back working again with Henry Fonda, really one
of my favorite actors, really my favorite actor. Why is he my favorite actor?
That's a stupid question, isn't it? I will answer the best I can without being
rude. Because he is a great and immensely talented performer.
I finished Grapes of Wrath under budget and turned it in. With Darryl I

didn't have to worry about how it would be cut because he was a great cutter.
The night I finished I got on my boat and started to sail to Honolulu. Before
I left, I had a meeting with Darryl, and I said, "I think it's a good picture. It's

meaty and down-to-earth. But I think it needs a happier ending. I hate to see
the picture end with Fonda walking across the dance hall and disappearing
into the darkness. I think it should end with the mother."
He said, "That's a good idea. Let's think it over."
I on the midnight tide. I was three days out and had a good forward-
sailed

ing breeze and I was at the wheel when a phone call came from Darryl.
"Listen to this," he said. "Listen to this scene I've written. I've looked at
the picture twice since you left, and I agree with you that it needs a happier
ending. It needs an ending of hope for the future. Listen to this carefully.

Can you hear me?"

I told him we had a very good connection.

He read me the scene and asked if wanted I it rewritten.

told him no, that it was great.

I

Then he said, "Who's going to direct it?"

 WALTER WAGNER/1973 1 5 7

I said, "Darryl, it's only a two-shot. I'd appreciate it if you went out and
directed it yourself."
"Okay," he said, "I'd like to."

So he did it himself in one take. And they put it in as the end of the
picture.

To use a familiar expression, Darryl is the last of the great tycoons. The
last of the great operators, the last of the great executive producers. The man
is really a genius. We've remained very close, very dear friends. As a matter
of fact, I speak to Darryl more often than to many of my so-called friends out
here. He calls from New York, and I haven't asked him what he's doing since
he left Fox. I'm afraid to. It might break my heart.
I was at sea again when heardI that The Grapes of Wrath had won the
Academy Award. Henry Fonda was with me, and he heard it on the radio.

We were fishing. Henry is a great fisherman. As a matter of fact he's hooked

on it. He's mad for fishing even though he never catches any fish.

I never went to an Academy Award ceremony. Why should I? I don't like

those things.
If I do have a favorite picture, it goes back before The Grapes of Wrath. The
picture I like to look at occasionally, even on television, is Young Mr. Lincoln.
That I think is my favorite because it was a good picture and I liked Lincoln
and I like a simple story.
I've always used a great deal of music in my pictures, although I don't
have a good ear. I like country music, Western music. I go from the sublime
to the ridiculous. I like classical music at times. I like your namesake, Herr
Wagner.
I don't approve of some of the changes I've seen in Hollywood. I don't
like pornography. I hate to go to a theater and look at pornography. I don't
think it has any place on our screen. I think we made pictures better years
ago than we are making them today.
The Quiet Man was made in my mother's and father's country, Connem-
ara, Ireland. It was a lot of fun doing the picture. We got breaks on the

weather, and when the weather wasn't particularly good, we still went out
and took advantage of the bad weather. When the picture was shown in
Ireland, all the critics were angry. They didn't like it. Every one of them came
—
up with the same statement that Mr. Ford had used a green filter on his
camera to make the hills and the fields green. I really blew my top at them,
and I had to laugh. I'd never heard of a green filter, and you can't use a filter
158 JOHN FORD: INTERVIEWS

on a Technicolor camera anyway. So I wrote each one of the critics a nice

letter saying, If you would get out of that goddamn apartment and take a bus
ride into the country, you would see that the hills of northern Ireland are

green. But these stupid guys, these city dwellers living in Dublin, saying that
I used a green filter —that really got my goat.
I have no idea why I have survived in this business. Luck, I guess. But I do
believe in the American Dream. Definitely. Definitely. I think if you work
hard enough, you will succeed.
To be quite blunt, Imake pictures for money, to pay the rent. I do think
that there is an art to the making of a motion picture. There are some great
artists in the business. I am not one of them. I think Frank Capra is an artist.

George Cukor is a great artist. So are George Stevens, George Sidney, and
William Wellman. No, Wellman isn't an artist. He's just a goddamn good
director.

A director can either make a film or can break it. He must be conversant
with the subject. He must hypnotize himself to be sympathetic toward the
subject matter. Sometimes we are not. Being under contract you make pic-

tures that you don't want to make, but you try to steel yourself, to get en-

thused over them. You get on the set, and you forget everything else. You say
these actors are doing the best they can. They also have to make a living. As
a director I must help them as much as I can. I think a director can help an
actor or an actress, and he can also help the cameraman, the electricians and
everybody else. I think he brings a great deal to a film.

I want to thank you very much. People call and make appointments and ask
if they can drop by. They are all friends. But if they're supposed to be here at

three, they usually show up at five fifteen —so your entire day is helter-skel-

ter. And so now am I not receiving any visitors. None of them are punctual,

but you were punctual.

Walter, you asked me why I didn't write my autobiography, and I told you
that I've led sort of a peculiar life. And I also told you that I was never arrested
for anything. I haven't committed arson or petty larceny or anything of that
sort, but during World War Two, for example, I was in the OSS. I've had a

checkered career. I've alternated my life between motion pictures and the
Navy. I retired as an admiral of the Navy. I think you know that.
During my spare time I've been mixed up in a lot of things. I've made
tours of colleges and universities and spoke, not very well, but in a colloquial
 WALTER WAGNER/1973 1 5 9

manner and tried to get some humor in it, tried not to make my talk dry as
dust.

Maybe I've given you the wrong idea —that I'm wanted for murder in Min-
nesota —but I've done so many things and been so many places. There are
no warrants out for me. I am just telling you that everybody thinks of a

motion-picture director living in Bel Air or Beverly Hills in a big house with
a lot of servants and driving a Rolls-Royce. But we do have other things to
do while we're waiting for our next picture. I like to get out and travel.
remember coming back from a trip once during the war, and I talked
I

before this audience, and I was telling them about some of the strange places
I'd visited for the OSS.
This very supercilious and sarcastic man came up to me and said, "Tell

me, Commander Ford, when was the last time you were in Tibet?"
I said, "Exactly ten days ago, sir." He looked so sort of flabbergasted. Then
he said, "I don't believe it." And I replied, "Screw you. It happens to be true."

I hope I haven't been abrupt with you. I hope I haven't been rude. You
see, people have been asking me these questions for more than fifty years,

and no one's yet come up with an original question.

You say someone's called me the greatest poet of the Western saga. I am
not a poet, and I don't know what a Western saga is. I would say that is

horseshit. I'm just a hard-nosed, hardworking, run-of-the-mill director.

 ,

INDEX

Abbey Players, 13 Bogdanovich, Peter, 127, 128, 141, 145-46

Actors Studio, 94 Bond, Ward, 27, 52-53, 128; Wings of Eagles,
Alice Adams, 16 no
Allen, Elizabeth, no Boule de Suif, 112

Amador, Dick, 131, 132 Bulkeley, John, 68, 91

American Legion, 108
American West of John Ford, The 143 ,
Cactus, My Pal, 83
Anderson, Bronco Billy, 89 California, University of, at Los Angeles, 61,
April Morning 114
63, 113, 125, 135
Argosy Pictures, 67
Cambridge University, 57, no
August, Joseph, 116; The Plough and the Stars,
Capra, Frank, 12, 25, 88, 109, 158
19
Carey, Harry, 44, 52, 83-84, 154
Caron, Leslie, Boule de Suif, 112
Balzac, Honore de, 98
Chabrol, Claude, 105
Bancroft, Anne, 7 Women, 125
Champagne Murders, The, 105
Banner, John, Hogan's Heroes, 134
Cheyennes, 63
Battleship Potemkin, The, 115
Chicago, University of, 124
Bazin, Andre, 90
Bellamy, Madge, The Iron Horse, 65-66 Christie, Julie, Young Cassidy, 102

Bergman, Ingmar, 62, 63

Cinemonde, 29, 30

Bergman, Ingrid, 63 Clarke, T. E. B., 39

Bernstein, Isadore, 82-83, 153-54 Cobb, Irvin S., 53, 118

Bill of Divorcement, 16 Cody, Buffalo Bill, 68, 144

Birth of a Nation, The, 42, 89 Cody, "Iron Eyes," 71

Blue Max, The, 86 Cohn, Harry, The Last Hurrah, 41

Bluestone, George, 35, 37 Columbia Pictures, 41

Boetticher, Budd, The Bullfighter and the Comanches, 146, 147

Lady, 102 Connelly, Michael (uncle), 64-65

1 6 2 INDEX

Cooper, Gary, 52, ro2 tions, 60, 62, 114, 125; on the American
Cooper, Merian C., 34, 67, 119 Dream, 158; on American presidency, 48,
Cromwell, John, 149 95, 107, 157; on the American War of Inde-
Cukor, George, 149, 158 pendence, 72-73, 114; on the American
Curley, James Michael, The Last Hurrah, West, 50, 51, 52, 53, 56, 63, 86-87, 94, 108,
41-42 144, 146-47; on ancestry, 58, 62, 64-65, 99,
Curtis, Ken (son-in-law), 29-31, 109 107, 152; on audiences, 25, 47-48, 56, 57, 71,

Custer, George, 59, 108 92, 94, 116; on Bayeux, 30, 85, 90; on begin-
ning to direct, 58, 76-77, 82-83, 106, 149,

Dailey, Dan, When Willie Comes Marching 150, 153-54; on being interviewed, 11, 30,

Home, 53 58-59, 85-86, 96-97, 98, 100, 104, 105-07,

Darwell, Jane, 53 no, 141-42, 145, 159; by Bogdanovich, in-

Dauphin, Claude, 94 terview of, 127, 128, 155; on breaking into

De Mille, Cecil B., 52, 82 movies, 27, 42, 62, 66, 70, 76, 82, 89, 137,

Directors Guild of America, 61 149, 152-53; on casting, 4, 7-8, 16, 17, 39,

Directors Guild of America Award, 54 40, 80, 87; on Catholicism, 48, 59, 81, 85,

DKA, 127, 131, 136 90, 97, 124; on childhood in Maine, 68-69,

Documentary Film Group, 124 70, 75, 86, 102, 103, 125, 150, 152; on cine-

Donovan, Wild Bill, 119 matography, 4, 16, 19, 39, 56, 66, 87, 91, 92,

Douglas, Kirk, 123 93, in, 116, 120-21, 123, 125, 126, 133-34; on
Doyle, Arthur Conan, 98 the Civil War, 43, 64, 152; on color versus
Dru, Joanne, no black-and-white, 20, 91, no, 121, 125-26,

131; on comedy, 39, 53, 67, 80, 85, 86, 88,

Earp, Wyatt, 51, 68, 108, 132-33 93, 101; on Communism, 35, 44, 97, 101,

106, 107; on critics, 12, 22, 47, 48, 52, 54, 57,

Farnum, William, 88 64, 71, 100-01, 145, 149, 158; on death, 150,

Fast, Howard, April Morning, 114 151; on Democratic Party, 28, 107; on di-

Faulkner, William, 99 recting, 12-13, 1 7, 19, 3b 32, 46, 71, 73, 87,

Feeney, John (father), 28, 103, 128, 152 88, no-n, 121, 122, 125, 126, 133-34, 138,

Fields, W. C., in 139-40, 148-49, 158; on drinking, 26, 74,

Fitzgerald, Barry, 27 77, 97, 103, 105, in, 151, 155; on editing, 8,

Fonda, Henry, 52, 71, 93-94, 143; Fort Apache, 39, 60, 89, 123; on education, 76, 130-31,

94; The Grapes of Wrath, 156, 157; Young Mr. 137, 152; on family life, 43; on film schools,

Lincoln, 24 125; on France, 29-31, 32-33, 44, 60, 72, 77,

Ford, Barbara (daughter), 29-31, 109, 152 85, 86, 87, 93-112, 114; on friendships in in-

Ford, Dan (grandson), 117 dustry, 8, 14, 24, 31, 59, 71, 73, 74, 78, 84-85,
Ford, Francis (brother), 67; J. Ford in mov- 87, 88, 115, 128-31, 157; on friendships with
ies, 27, 28, 70, 82, 108, 149; in J. Ford films, cowboys, 68, 108; on friendships with Na-

70 tive Americans, 54, 55, 59, 68, 71, 73, 86, 87,

Ford, John: on Academy Awards, 7, 9, 13, 26- 102, 116, 138-39; on ghosts, 99-100; on
53, 54, 58, 64, 71, 155; on acting, 4,
2 7, 41, health, 26, 30, 60, 62, 104-05, in, 128, 133,

16, 17-18, 19, 39, 52, 67, 69, 71, 87, 93-94, no, i34, 143, 146, 151; on Hollywood, 42, 48, 49,

120, 121, 122, 148, 149, 155, 156; on adapta- 59, 62, 72, 74, 78, 82, 88, 106, 117, 134, 143,
 ,

INDEX 1 6 3

149, 157,’ on home life, 8, 14, 24, 44, 81, 98, 51, 80, 81, 88, 102, 114, 118, 140; on war ex-

144, 151; on horses, 23, 43, 56, 141-42; on periences, 32, 33, 58, 67, 68, 72, 77, 85, 86,

Irish issues, 15, 17-18, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36-37, 87, 88-89, 93/ 94/ 100, 107, 132, 134-36, 139/

42, 48, 63, 68-69, 97, 103, 105, 127-28, 139, 158; on westerns, 3-4, 22, 25, 33, 35, 45, 46-

157-58; on Jews, 107; on lighting, 19; on 57, 62, 68, 72, 73, 79-80, 82-84, 86, 89, 93,

Metropolitan opera, 60; on money mat- 94, 101, 102, 105-06, 108, 115, 116, 119, 120,

ters, 22, 33-34, 45, 57, 67, 78, 79, 83, 84, 88- 126, 132-33, 136, 137/ 143-44/ I55~56; on
89, 101, 114, 119, 120, 138-39, 158; on women in his films, 53, 73, 80, 92, 100-01,

Monument Valley, 56, 87, 116, 120; on 134, 144, 147, 156; on writing non-film
music and singing, 60, 74, 92, 97, 100, 106, projects, 151-52, 158

109, 115, 157; on non-film interests, 30, 43, —Works: Adventures of Marco Polo ,
The , 102;

60, 74, 97, 98-99, 113, 144, 159,' on outdoor Air Mail, 101; The Battle of Midway, 58, 91,

dramas, 5, 44-45, 87, 102; on personal ap- 139; Bom Reckless, 101; The Brave and the
pearance, 22, 26, 29, 32, 34, 35, 42, 46, 75, Beautiful 102; Cheyenne Autumn, 55, 56, 59,

81, 93, 104-05, hi, 145, 151; on pleasures of 63, 64, 86-87, loo, 105, no, 147; December
movie-making, 73, 87, 94, 105-06, 119, 137; 7th, 58, 91; Donovan's Reef, 80, no, 125;

on politics, 28, 44, 63, 107, 108, 139; on pre- Dmms Along the Mohawk, 24, 100; Fort

paring for a film, 16, 122; on problems di- Apache, 44, 73, 93, 94, 100, 108; Four Men
recting in Hollywood, n, 12, 18, 19, 41, 42, and a Prayer, 115; Four Sons, 62, 84; The Fu-
63-64, 65-66, 67, 85, 88, 89, 101, 102, 103, gitive, 42, 92, 100; Gideon of Scotland Yard,
114, 115, 118-19, 122, 123; on producers, 18, 38, 39/ 40; The Grapes of Wrath, 24, 25, 34-
22, 23, 42, 60, 63, 91-92, 101, 138, 157; on 35/ 42, 53/ 54/ 62-63, in, 116-17, 125, 147,
race and racism, 44, 54, 63, 69, 97, 100, 102, 156-57; Hondo, 102; The Horse Soldiers, 43,
106-07, 140; on realism, 4, 9, 17, 20, 44, 64, 55, 109; How Green Was My Valley, 42, 53,
68, 73-74, 80, 94, 108, 133; on screenwrit- 54, 100; How the West Was Won, 55, 61, 116;
ing and screenplays, 16, 38, 59-60, 64, 81, The Hurricane, 25, 125; The Informer, 7-9,

83, 88, 101, 113; on self-image, 31, 42, 66, 71, n-13, 15, 18, 25, 31, 34, 42, 53, 54, 61, 63-64,

72, 73, 74, 78, 97, 109, 128, 144, 147, 155, 158, 143, 147, 155; The Iron Horse, 5, 53, 64-66,

159; on sex in movies, 45, 48, 49, 59, 62, 68, 71, 77, 100, no, 116, 118, 149, 155; fudge

74, 81, 88, 89, 113, 114, 118, 140, 157; on Priest, 13, 27, 101; The Last Hurrah, 41-42,
shooting 1.85 ratio, 120-21; on silent cin- 148; The Long Gray Line, 31, 33; The Long
ema, 3-6, 62, 64, 67, 68, 83-84, 88-89, no, Voyage Home, 24, 25, 31, 52, 53, 54, 100, 115,

116, 137, 149, 150; on star system, 11, 17, 144; 124-25; The Lost Patrol, 23, 138, 149; The
on stock company, 27, 28, 68, 148; on tele- Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, 53, 101, 108,
vision, 40, 55, 66, 72, 85, 96, no, in, 112, 114, 126; Marked Men, 3-4; Mary of Scotland,
157; on themes of movies, 13, 25, 33, 49, 62, 10, 13, 16; Men Without Women, 14, 27-28;

71, 108, no, 114, 124, 125, 126, 156; on transi- My Darling Clementine, 36, 61, 68, 108,

tion to sound, 84, 155; on traveling 132-33; Napoleon's Barber, 84; The Plough
abroad, 30, 31-32, 67, 81, 82, 98, 159; on and the Stars, 13, 15-20, 25, 85, 101, 148; The
traveling to California, 44, 74, 76, 136, 137, Prisoner of Shark Island, 8, 147; The Quiet
152; on unions, 12, 149; on unrealized film Man, 28, 31, 38, 42, 49, 53, 54, 61, 68-69, 80,
projects, 14, 25, 60, 72-73, 81, 86, 95, 109, 119, 131, 157-58; The Rising of the Moon, 30,

112, 113-14/ 119-20, 134, 147; on violence, 38, 39, 40, 114; The Scrapper, 83; The
 , ,

1 6 4 INDEX

Searchers 31, 33, 34, 35; 53; 56, 121, 128, 136, Greatest Story Ever Told, The, 90

147; Sergeant Rutledge 97, ioo 106-07, 109;

;
Grierson, Benjamin, 43

7 Women, 73, 92, 100-01, 114, 125-26; Sex Griffith, D. W., 42, 89
Hygiene, 67; She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, 48, Guynemer, 72, 86, 95
52, 53; 56, 100, 101, no, 120; Sky Pilot, 83,

154; The Soul Herder, 83; Stagecoach, 21-23, Hart, William S., 51-52

24, 25, 31, 36, 42, 49, 53, 54, 55, 85, 108, iis- Harvard University, 35
16, 121, 138-39, 147; 155-56; Steamboat Hawkins, Jack, Gideon of Scotland Yard,

'Round the Bend, 101, 147; Straight Shooting, 39-40

83; Submarine Patrol, 85; The Sun Shines Haycox, Ernest, "Stage to Lordsburg," 22
Bright, 31, 53, 79, 100, 101, 114, 118, 147; They Hemingway, Ernest, 26, 99

Were Expendable, 68, 91, 147; This Is Korea, Hepburn, Katharine, Mary of Scotland, 16

135; Tobacco Road, 24, 25, 100; The Tornado, Hickok, Wild Bill, 51

58; Up the River, 148; Wagon Master, 45, 52, High Noon, 52, 54
53; 57; no; Wee Willie Winkie, 138; When Hoch, Winton, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,
Willie Goes Marching Home, 53, 67; The 100
Wings of Eagles, no; Young Cassidy, 59-60, Hogan's Heroes, 134
86, 102; Young Mr. Lincoln, 24, 53, 79, 100, Holliday, Doc, 108, 133

105, in, 114, 121, 157 Hollywood Museum, 61

Ford, Mary McBride (Smith) (wife), 29-31, Honor System, The, 109
107, 122, 152; friendship with Tom and Hunter, Jeffrey, The Searchers, 128
Vicky Mix, 88 Hurst, Brian Desmond (cousin), 30

Ford, Patrick (son), 30 Huston, John, 109

Foster, Preston, The Plough and the Stars, 17

Four Provinces Films, 40 Ince,Thomas, 67

Frost, Father Frank, 127, 130, 131, 132 Iowa Writers Workshop, 35
Fuller, Sam, 109 Ita, Jacques, 104

Gabin, Jean, 94 James, Jesse, 23

Garbo, Greta, Queen Christina, 155 Jennings, Al, 68

Garnett, Tay, 109 Johns Hopkins University, 35

Gary, Romain, 105 Johnson, Lyndon, 108

Giant, 54 Johnson, Nunnally, 25, 34
Gilbert, John, 155 Jones, Buck, 44, 51-52

Girl of the Golden West, The, 60 Jones, Pardner, 50, 51, 68

Glennon, Bert, 121

Gods, Graves, and Scholars, 58 Kazan, Elia, 94, in

Goldwater, Barry, 108 Kennedy, Burt, 118-23
Goldwyn, Samuel, Jr., 109 Kennedy, John F., 48, 63, 107

Gordon, Dexter, Round Midnight, in Kennedy, Joseph, The Informer, 63, 108

"Grandma Bernle Learns Her Letters," 62 Kennedy, Robert, 107-08

Gray, Hugh, 61, 62, 64, 66, 67 Kerr, Deborah, The Sundowners, 54
Great Film Society, 149 Keyes, Frances Parkinson, 98
 INDEX 1 6 5

Killanin, Michael, 38 Morning Glory, 16

King, Henry, 109 Morrow, Edward, 98

King Kong 34 ,

Klemperer, Werner, Hogan's Heroes, 134 Navajos, 71, 86, 87, 102, ri6, 138-39

Knight, Arthur, 61, 62, 66, 67 New Theatre, ir

Kurosawa, Akira, 67 New York Film Critics, 53, 54, 58
Nichols, Dudley, 10, 12-14, 21-23, 25, 64, 84-

La Boheme, 60 85, 147; on Ford, 14; on Stagecoach, 22-23

Lachize, Samuel, 106-07 Nocona, Chief, 147

Laemmle, Carl, Sr., 82-83, 153-54 Novels into Film, 34-35, 37

Lafayette Escadrille, 115 Nugent, Frank S., 39

Last Mile, The 148 ,

Lee, Robert E., ro7, 134 O'Brien, George, 52

Leighton, Margaret, 7 Women, 92 O'Casey, Sean, 59, 102

Lennon, Peter, in O'Flaherty, Liam, 2r, 98

Lexington, Battle of, 73, 114 O'Hara, Maureen, 68, no; The Quiet Man,
L'Humanite, 97 144
Lincoln, Abraham, 107, 157 O'Neill, Eugene, 25; The Long Voyage Home,
Little Big Horn, Battle of, 144 11 1, 125

Little Women (1933), 16 Ox-Bow Incident, The, 53

Longest Day, The, 91 Oxford University, 57, no

Loy, Nanni, 112
Lucie Love, 82 Parker, Cynthia Ann, The Searchers, 147

Parker, Quanah, 146-47

MacArthur, Douglas, She Wore a Yellow Rib- Parrish, Robert, 73

bon, 48, ior Philippe, Claude-Jean, 99

Man For All Seasons, A, 125 Place in the Sun, A, 54

Mail Order Bride, ri8 Puller, Chesty, 134-36

Make Way for Tomorrow, 109

Marie Antoinette, 22 Queen Christina, 155
Mary, Queen of Scots, 16
Mayer, Louis B., 148 Rackin, Martin, Stagecoach (1966), 106
McCarey, Leo, 88, 109 Rebecca ofSunnybrook Farm, 41
McLaglen, Victor, 27, 138; The Informer, 7-9, Red River, 53

12, 17, 71, 93-94, 155; Wee Willie Winkie, 138 Reid, Cliff, The Lost Patrol, 138
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 88, 148 Remington, Frederic, She Wore a Yellow Rib-
Metropolitan Opera, 60 bon, 56, 101, 120
Midway, Battle of, 26 Republic Studio, rro
Mitchell, Thomas, 27; Stagecoach, 49 Return of the Seven, 118
Mitty, Walter, 50 Riskin, Robert, 12

Mix, Tom, 44, 52, 88-89 Rissient, Pierre, 104, nr, 112

Mix, Vicky, 89 RKO-Radio, 7

Montgomery, Robert, 129 Rogers, Will, 50, 52

 , ,

1 6 6 INDEX

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 48, 107 Train Robbers, The, 118

Round Midnight hi Trevor, Claire, 53; Stagecoach, 49, 147
Rounders, The 118 Trotti, Lamar, 147
Russell, Charles, The Searchers, 56, 120 Twentieth Century-Fox, 8, 101, 148

Universal Pictures, 3, 83, 153

Saunders, Russ, 128
Schneiderman, George, The Iron Horse, 65
Virginia Military Academy, 124
Screen Actors' Guild, 7, 12

Screen Directors' Guild, 12

Wagon Train, 52
Screen Writers' Guild, 7, 12, 13
Walsh, Raoul, 109
Sergeant York, 52
Wanger, Walter, Stagecoach, 115
Shane, 53
War and Peace, 31
Shields, Arthur, The Plough and the Stars, 18
War Wagon, The, 118, 123
Sidney, George, 61, 66, 158
Warner Brothers, Sergeant Rutledge, 63
Simpson, O. J., 131
Warner, Jack, Cheyenne Autumn, 63
Sino-Japanese War, 18
Washington and Lee University, 134
Southern California, University of, 125, 127,
Washington, George, 95, 107
128, 132, 133
Washington, University of, 35-36
S.P.C.A., 23
Wayne, John, 36, 44, 68, 71, 73, 98, 116, 120,
"Stage to Lordsburg," 22
128, 129-31, 142, 143, 148; The Horse Soldiers,
Stagecoach (1966), 93, 106, 115
56; The Long Voyage Home, 52; Men With-
Stanford, Leland, 43
out Women, 27-28; The Quiet Man, 119, 144;
Stanwyck, Barbara, The Plough and the Stars,
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, 52; Stagecoach,
17
H5/ 156
Steinbeck, John, The Grapes of Wrath, 116-
Welcome to Hard Times, 118
17/ 125
Wellman, William, 115, 158
Sternberg, Josef von, 113
Wertzel, Sol, The Iron Horse, 116
Stevens, George, 54, 149, 158
William the Conqueror, 90
Stewart, James, 52, 93-94/ 143
Williams, Jackie, 128
Strode, Woody, Sergeant Rutledge, 63
Wilson, Woodrow, 48
Summerville, Slim, Air Mail, 101
Winninger, Charles, The Sun Shines Bright,
Sundowners, The, 54
118

Taft, Robert, 28 Yates, Herbert: The Sun Shines Bright, 118; The
Tavernier, Bertrand, 96, 99 Quiet Man, 119
Thalberg, Irving, 148 Young, Loretta, 115

Three Godfathers, The (magazine serial), 3

Three Musketeers, The, 99 Zanuck, Darryl F., 8, 91, 143; The Grapes of
Toland, Gregg, 116 Wrath, 156-57; Jesse James, 23; Steamboat
Towers, Constance, 109 'Round the Bend, 101

Tracy, Spencer, 146; The Last Mile, 148; Up the Zinneman, Fred, 54; A Man for All Seasons,

River, 148 125

 BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 9999 04289 735 3

 No looker {he property of the
Boston Public Library.
S$S@ of this® material benefits the Library,
Biography / Film

"You can have a weak, utterly bad script and a good —

cast will turn it into a good picture. I've thwarted mor
than one handicap of that kind with the aid of two or
three really fine actors."

This is the first collection of interviews with John Ford

(1895-1 973), whom many aficionados of fine films consider
not only the best American filmmaker but also one of the
most extraordinary American artists of the twentieth century.
His accomplishments comprise perhaps the best film biog-
raphy of all time Young Mr. Lincoln ), the best war film They
( (

Were Expendable), a masterly romance The Quiet Man), a (

sublime film of childhood How Green Was My Valley), classic

(

adaptations from fiction The Grapes of Wrath, The Long

(

Voyage Home), and the American Western, on which he left

his indelible signature Stagecoach My Darling Clementine,
( ,

Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Man Who S'
Liberty Valance, and The Searchers).
Although his was a brilliant career (he made 150 movies),
Ford was not a self-promoter. His sarcasm, impatience, and
occasional mean-spiritedness were quick to surface during
interviews. The legend is that he was the interviewee from
hell. Yet there were times when he let the walls down and
spoke openly and even generously. This book includes at
least a dozen such lucid encounters with him, many reprinted
for the time. Also for the first time, several French inter-
first

views have been translated into English and show how with
French critics Ford enjoyed making conversation.

Gerald Peary, a professor of communication and journalism at Suffolk

University in Boston, is a film critic for the Boston Phoenix and editor
of Quentin Tarantino: Interviews (University Press of Mississippi).

CONVERSATIONS WITH FILMMAKERS

University Press of Mississippi
www.upress.state.ms.us

ISBN 1-57806-398-1

90000

Cover photo:
9 781578 063987 Photofest