I have read in many areas -- bios of Ford and Fonda, for example -- of the fact that they disputed heavily over the film. But what was the exact nature of the dispute? It really doesn't seem all that different from the play -- normal Hollywood considerations set aside? What was Fonda's point of disagreement?
shareI can't halp you with the dispute but there is a funny story about the filming of Mister Roberts.
Henry Fonda obviously knew the play very well having done it for so many years on the stage. When he first received the script for the film version he became very concerned that the story had been doctored far too much.
In many of his scenes he appeared to be accompanied by a female character. She never spoke but as he read through the shooting script it appeared she followed him everywhere. 'Roberts walks to bottom of stairs - dolly goes with him' etc.
Eventually he confronted Ford about this odd new character only to be told that a 'dolly' is the trolley on which the camera sits when it is to be moved on rails to get a tracking shot!!
Maybe he never got over feeling stupid at his mistake.
According to Jimmy Cagney's biography, John Ford pretty much managed to piss everyone off on the shoot but it turned out he was ill and was actually replaced halfway through the shoot.
I think that pretty much everybody who ever worked with John Ford managed to get in a dispute with him at one time or another. Even Ward Bond and THE DUKE.
"I'm goin' to war...with every one of them carpetbaggin' sons a B!#+c#es!"
If you listen to the commentary on The Quiet Man you can hear Maureen O"Hara tell how man times she wanted to kill John Ford....
It is not our abilities that make us who we are...it is our choices
According to Jack Lemmon, Henry Fonda was not happy with the way John Ford had tampered with the film script and told him so. Ford (at that time was about a 100 and an alcoholic) got up and tried to hit Fonda. Fonda was very tall and held out his hand holding Ford back. Ford who was about six inches shorter than Fonda continually tried to hit him but his fists couldn't reach Fonda. Finally Fonda had enough and gave Ford a swift push and Ford fell straight back on the floor. Fonda was very pleased when Ford was taken off the film a few days later and replaced by Mervyn Le Roy. Fonda never spoke to Ford again, yet another actor that Ford had got on the wrong side of.
shareFrankly, Henry Fonda was way too old to play Doug Roberts. Doug Roberts was a former medical school student who dropped out to fight in the Navy. He should have been 27-28 at most. Fonda was about 50 years old at the time. It was the same thing with his friend, James Stewart. Stewart portrayed Charles Lindbergh when he made his famous flight in 1927 ("Spirit of St. Louis"). Lindbergh was 25 when he made that flight. Stewart was about 50 when he made the movie. Why did Hollywood insist (and still does to a lesser extent), on casting actors and actresses in roles they were much too old for? Was their star power that great? I don't think so. The Stewart movie was a failure. I'd say it was a bomb, but I believe in Great Britain, "bomb" means a success.
share[deleted]
Maureen O'Hara has recently related that once she walked into his office after forgetting to knock and caught Ford, who was outwardly very "macho", romantically kissing another man. In his day, homosexuality was not accepted and was in fact considered a sexual perversion, especially in the United States. His inability to accept it in himself may have been responsible, at least in part, for his alcoholism and constant need to be aggressive to assert his "manhood." Ironically, it is now "homophobia," the irrational fear or hatred of homosexuals and lesbians, that is now considered a psychological disorder.
sharepmiano100 says > In his day, homosexuality was not accepted and was in fact considered a sexual perversion, especially in the United StatesHomosexuality may be more accepted now but it doesn't mean it's no longer a sexual perversion. We can pretend all we want but if at any point homosexuality became the norm for human sexual behavior, it would mark the beginning of the end of our species; in other words, extinction of the human race.
His inability to accept it in himself may have been responsible, at least in part, for his alcoholism and constant need to be aggressive to assert his "manhood."Well of course he would have problems. Most of us are adept at detecting even the slightest deviations from the norm; both in ourselves and others. For some, anything that sets them apart, from ears that stick out too far to crooked or bad teeth, can be the source of crippling embarrassment and shame. They'll go to great lengths to keep those traits hidden so as not to attract the attention of others especially those who don't share their traits. My point is, no one needs to point it out, they notice the differences as well as anyone. My point is it's wrong to blame and/or lash out at others for whatever our internal conflicts may be.
Ironically, it is now "homophobia," the irrational fear or hatred of homosexuals and lesbians, that is now considered a psychological disorder.These days all sorts of things are considered psychological disorders; except, of course, the things that actually are.
[quote][Homosexuality may be more accepted now but it doesn't mean it's no longer a sexual perversion/quote]
It's a widely held view that those who have a problem with others' homosexuality are often masking their own latent tendencies. This certainly seems to be the case with Ford if this story is true.
The John Ford / Henry Fonda dispute.
John Ford was actually a great admirer of Henry Fonda's work. Ford used Fonda in a number of his important films over the years, and in pivotal roles (Tom Joad in "The Grapes of Wrath", Wyatt Earp in "My Darling Clementine", Col. Owen Thursday in "Fort Apache"). Until he discovered that John Wayne could give good leading performances, Ford chose Fonda for many of his most important projects. Ford also respected Fonda who was, like Ford, a US Navy veteran in WW II.
The movie rights to Mister Roberts were purchased by 20th Century Fox, headed by Darryl Zannuck. Though popular as a play on Broadway in the late 1940s, the story was not a typical patriotic Navy story, given its subject matter (captain as martinet, exec as rebel). Zannuck originally wanted to use the part of Doug Roberts to lure Tyrone Power into signing a long term contract with Fox (Power liked the part, but not the long term contract). Then, Marlon Brando was considered, but he was signed to do "The Egyptian", and he could not free himself from that commitment. Then William Holden was considered. But before any final decision was made, John Ford made it known that he would not consider directing the film unless Henry Fonda could play Doug Roberts. Given Ford's stature in Hollywood, and his long association with Fox, Zannuck relented. Fonda won a Tony playing the role on Broadway, and felt he knew "where the laughs were". Indeed he did. But Ford wanted to make a John Ford picture, about Honor, Courage, Duty, and above all, Respect of Military Service. These two approaches of Fonda and Ford became increasingly divergent. Things came to a head in a meeting with the two men present. It is rumored that Ford sucker punched Fonda in that meeting. Soon after, Ford came down with a mysterious illness and left the production. Mervyn LeRoy was brought in to finish up (with uncredited help from the story�s author, Joshua Logan). Fonda and Ford never worked on a film together again.
Ironically, Fonda would appear with Ford almost 20 years later, in a documentary about Ford � �The American West of John Ford�, and the two men (along with Jimmy Stewart and Duke Wayne) reminisced, with great affection, about the old days. The mutual respect and admiration each showed for the other was plain to see. A complicated man, that John Ford. Most of the people who worked with him feared and/or hated him (no less than James Cagney was once asked to use one word to describe John Ford: �Malice�). But all of them wanted to work with him again and again (and many did).
I understand all that, but Henry Fonda was still way too old to play Doug Roberts. I know the parts insecurity, vanity, ego, artistic differences, studio politics, the desire for the maximum box office draw, and everything else played and still play in movie casting. However, some things just rub me the wrong way.
"Mr. Roberts" was far from the only instance of a film with an overage leading man. They still do it today. Leading men in their 50s and 60s still play adventurous, romantic roles, often opposite female leads younger than their own daughters. Fortunately, they're getting away from that. However, older American leading men (backed by vain older filmmakers with young trophy wives) jealously held on to the leads for so long, it wasted the baby boomers (Hurt, Kline, Selleck, etc.). Most of them had to wait until at least 35 to get good roles.
Most of the current crop of young leading men in Hollywood are British, Irish, or Australian. Young American male actors, with a few exceptions (Damon, Affleck, DiCaprio), have been relegated to playing comic bunglers, stoners, slackers, and college students until they're past 30. They're so typecast, no one takes them seriously in adult roles. I admit that the past few years have shown significant improvement. I hope it continues.
I feel very strongly about this and I am not a young man. I am 58 and I felt this way when I was 18. I will feel this way until I am dead or 98, whichever comes first (HA!).
Textbook Miscasting...
If you want to see an even more egregious example of miscasting involving Ford and Fonda, look for a 1947 film called "The Fugitive". No, it is not the story of Richard Kimble, but a working of a Graham Green story - "The Power and the Glory". The story takes place in Central America. It centers on a Catholic priest who has lost his way and broken his vows (including a few biggies, like sobriety and celibacy), and now questions his faith. Ford (a Catholic with similar problems) wanted to make this his most personal film. They were all set to go with the perfect choice for the lead role - Jose Ferrer. Ferrer would have been perfect - a Hispanic man who could portray noble bemusement and sympathetic tragedy at once.
Unfortunately, Ferrer was just becoming involved with the Broadway production of the role of his life - Cyrano de Bergerac - and had to turn Ford down. He would win the Tony, and later the Oscar for that role, so as career moves go, he was right to choose this over working with Ford. In a bind, Ford went with his "old reliable" friend - Henry Fonda. Fonda is good, but his strengths - that of a quiet, noble, honorable American Midwesterner, are all wrong for this part. Ford surely knew this, but could not get financial backing for the film (he was also producing it) without a "name" in the lead. Perhaps he felt that if he had to have a "name", he would go with one he could trust.
Hollywood... that fascinating marriage of Art and Industry.
Fonda's "good guy" image hurt him later on as well. "Once Upon a Time in the West," an otherwise excellent Western film, was a financial failure because the public could not accept him as a villain who murdered a little boy in cold blood.
Later on he made another Western with his supposed best friend, James Stewart. I forget the name but I remember the story. Stewart was the hero and Fonda was the villain. His character shot Stewart's character in the leg and later attempted to murder him. Not only was the film a flop, but people from all over the world wrote Fonda, berating him for wounding and trying to murder his old friend.
Ironically, very early in their careers, it was Stewart who started out playing villains. Even Clark Gable played villains when he started out. There's a famous scene in the unremarkable 1931 film "Night Nurse" in which Gable punches out Barbara Stanwyck, the heroine. Stanwyck went on to be one of the great "screen bitches" of all time.
Of course, the most outstanding/egregious example of miscasting was when John Wayne was given the role of Genghis Khan in the 1956 film "The Conquerer" If you can find an example worse than that, I will drink to your health.
I think the Western with James Stewart as the good guy and Henry Fonda as the bad guy that you are referring to is 'Firecreek' 1968.
Miscasting - a few good uns -
Too old - Bob Hope aged 65 as a WW2 sergeant in 'The Private Navy of Sgt O'Farrell'.
Spencer Tracy aged 56 (looked much older) as Robert Wagner's brother in 'The Mountain' 1956 - grandfather would have been more appropriate.
Gary Cooper aged 56 as a romantic lead in 'Love in the Afternoon'.
Totally unsuitable for the part - Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian in 'Mutiny on the Bounty' 1962
Yul Brynner as Solomon in 'Solomon and Sheba' 1959
Tony Curtis (with his Bronx accent) as a medieval knight in 'The Black Shield of Falworth' 1954
but the worse -
One British TV program had an actor who looked like Phil Silvers playing Ronald Reagan!!!!!!!!!
I checked IMDb and it was indeed Firecreek. Thanks. As for Tony Curtis in "Black Shield of Falsworth," at least we can thank him for that immortal line, "Yondah lies da castle of my faddah." Don't be too hard on Yul Brynner. They hired him for "Solomon and Sheba" at the last minute after the original lead, Tyrone Power, died of a heart attack while filming a sword duel.
Not to carry it on to ridiculous lengths, but here are some of my favorite miscastings:
Way too old (and looks it) Spencer Tracy as a WWII combat vet in "Bad Day at Black Rock."
Harrison Ford as Anne Heche's love interest in "Six Days, Seven Nights."
Michael Keaton as the title character in "Batman." I don't care what Tim Burton said; he was too goony-looking.
Janeane Garafalo as the romantic interest in any movie whatsoever.
Maurice Chevalier as an Italian priest with a French accent in "Jessica."
Too old Angie Dickinson taking on undercover missions for women 15 years younger in "Police Woman."
Joan Collins in almost every mini-series she was in after "Dynasty." Someone should have told her to stop playing roles for women in their thirties.
"A Touch of Mink" - Gary Grant and Doris Day were both way too old for roles that called for people in their thirties.
Dominique Sanda as Paul Newman's love interest in "Mackintosh Man." At the time, he was pushing 50 and she was 24 and looked 17. No wonder she went back to France.
Kevin Costner as "Robin Hood." And it wasn't just the accent or lack of it.
Charles Bronson as a teenage Susan George's boyfriend in "Twinky." It should have been called "Creepy."
You can find hundreds of instances of Hollywood miscasting, but to return to the thread topic....
Fonda always said that one of the things that upset him about Ford's handling of Mister Roberts was that the director insisted on bringing what Fonda termed "his boys-will-be-boys" sense of heavy-handed "fun" into the film. This was not untypical of Ford's films, indeed prevalent in them from the late 40s. Ford found a kind of goonish horseplay between men uproariously funny for some reason and usually insisted on having one or more sequences with slapstick or silly-ass sort of humor thrown in, no matter what the tone or plot of the rest of the movie. In a film like Roberts, set amidst an entire crew of sailors in the Pacific, Ford couldn't resist inserting many scenes of idiotic, even downright moronic, behavior for the men, because he thought such stuff was funny. (Most service comedies of the 50s and 60s portrayed US servicemen as slow-witted dolts or con men anyway -- think South Pacific, for starters.)
The stage version of MR is a much more adult, restrained piece that derives its humor from straight situations and character interplay, not from depicting crewmen with IQs of 50 talking slowly, with Joisey accents, and racing around making like the Keystone Kops -- the sort of scene Ford frequently resorts to in the film. Look at Ford's other movies from this period and you often find such behavior -- The Searchers in my mind is nearly ruined because of a couple of such dumbed-down, wholly inappropriate scenes Ford insisted on sticking in the film. Humor is one thing and can be useful in drama, but Ford's heavy-handed, almost Neanderthal taste in humor was always a detriment to his films when allowed to run unchecked. (Sometimes he restrained himself and made similar such scenes less obvious, but even these got repetitive -- look how many films he made that included scenes of men busily tossing things around a kitchen or dining area [a favorite Ford locale] or other places, in a somewhat restrained semi-slapstick fashion: Fort Apache, The Searchers, Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Donovan's Reef, The Horse Soldiers, The Wings of Eagles...the list goes on and on.)
Anyway, Fonda did indeed know this play and his character inside out and was understandably upset when Ford reworked it to emphasize moronic slapstick and heavy-handed "humor" when the material needed a light, restrained touch. Whether Ford sucker-punched Fonda, Fonda hit back, or whatever the exact details of their final fight may be, things had to have been pretty bad for Ford to have been in effect fired off the film. It's been said that you can't tell where Ford left off and Mervyn Leroy came in, but I disagree: Ford's vulgarian style disappears after the ship is thrown out of port (the "drunk" scenes of the crew returning from liberty just before this are excellent examples of Ford's over-the-top, overbearing style). Notice how after that the crewmen's actions are more restrained, the humor becomes a bit gentler and derives more from what's going on than forced horseplay, and the real narrative of the play finally comes to the forefront.
When over the years people would tell Henry Fonda how much they enjoyed Mister Roberts, he would always ask them if they meant the play or the film. It was almost always the film, of course, and he'd reply that they really hadn't seen Roberts unless they'd seen the play, and he was right.
As to casting the lead, Fonda was not the first choice despite his Broadway experience. William Holden was the first approached but turned it down flat, saying it was Hank Fonda's part. The next choice was Marlon Brando, who did want to play the role, but fortunately he had another commitment and couldn't do it (this was at the time when Brando wanted to poach any Broadway role, however unsuited he was for it -- Guys and Dolls, The Teahouse of the August Moon). Only then did Fonda finally get the part, ironically at John Ford's insistence. Fonda hadn't made a film since 1948 (he'd had a brief unbilled cameo in a small 1949 film), so his box-office standing was uncertain in 1955, but the film despite its flaws was a big hit. The trivia section on this site says they offered the lead to Tyrone Power but I'm certain this was not the case, although Power's name may have been floated for it -- he had played the role in the London production in 1950 and from all accounts had done a very good job, on a par with Fonda.
As to age, well, Fonda was 50 but was made up to look a little younger, so I guess some suspension of disbelief might be in order. At least he had really been in the Navy during the war. There are certainly far worse cases of age miscasting around (and actors always get away with this better than actresses, part of the Hollywood double standard). Someone mentioned James Stewart as Charles Lindbergh in The Spirit of St. Louis in 1957, and that's a good example of stretching the age thing really far. Stewart was 48 while they were filming that picture, and his attempt to portray Lindbergh (who was 25 when he made his Atlantic flight, and of course even younger in many of the incidents depicted in the film) just didn't come off. Actually, the make-up job on Stewart wasn't so bad; it's not easy knocking a quarter-century or more off someone's real age, which is why the norm is to have younger actors play older ones on screen -- it's easier to raise someone's age than to lower it. The real problem was that everybody knew Stewart was too old for the part, made worse by the fact that he played Lindbergh as Jimmy Stewart. There was no sense this was Lindbergh; Stewart simply couldn't disappear into the character, nor made any effort to do so. Stewart got the role because he desperately wanted to play Lindbergh, his hero, and as a flyer he loved stories of the air anyway. But he only got the role after the original choice, John Kerr, turned it down because he objected to Lindbergh's pro-Nazi, pro-Fascist, anti-Semitic and racist politics and beliefs and wanted no part in glorifying him. Stewart, an arch-conservative himself, had little problem with Lindbergh's political extremism and just wanted the role. Despite their misgivings, the producers finally relented and gave him the part. The movie was indeed a flop, but that had nothing to do with Stewart's box office appeal, which was generally high at that time; the film simply wasn't interesting to audiences, in no small part due to Stewart's age and unconvincing portrayal. And by the way, everyone connected with the film was shocked; they'd all been convinced they had a winner on their hands.
But audiences had no such problem with Henry Fonda as Mister Roberts.
1. Your well-written and thoughtful response is obviously well-researched and obviously true. Your criticisms of Ford are well-founded. It was said that he liked and used those scenes because of his own boorish behavior when he was drunk, which was often.
2. Men in war will indeed blow off steam in ways that to people who have never been in war (I have) seem "goonish, idiotic, and downright moronic," but you are correct that Ford went way over the top. As a former military officer during WWII he should have known better. Fonda liked a good time and a laugh, but not when it got in the way of the film.
3. I believe I am the "someone" you are talking about regarding "The Spirit of St. Louis." I am sorry, but the real Mr. Roberts would have been no older than 31 in 1945, and Fonda didn't look anywhere near that. He was successful in his role because he was so strongly associated with the character and the subject matter was more interesting to the audience. Some critics say the film was popular because of the hijinks, not in spite of them. Slapstick comedy was still very popular in the mid-1950s. Thus they were more willing to suspend disbelief. I also suspect many people went just for the sake of seeing Fonda in his first movie in seven years.
4. I have seem the play (starring Robert Hays who is no Henry Fonda), and have read the book, as well as seen the movie. My father, a WWII Navy combat veteran, also saw the play and read the book, and told me the author knew what he was writing about. Much as they claimed to hate WWII movies, vets of that war still took their families to see them - probably to laugh at how ridiculous they were. I do the same for Vietnam movies, and no doubt my son will do the same thing for Iraq-Afghanistan war movies.
5. James Stewart was an arch-conservative, but he was not pro-German like Lindbergh. His courageous war service is well-documented. Fonda also served honorably. Lindbergh's sympathies were not as widely known then.
6. I consider our disagreements minor. You are obviously very knowledgeable and I enjoyed your post, which was very informative.
There's a few points that I'd like to add on this -
From several people's recollections there was more to it than the dispute between Ford and Fonda that resulted in Ford being fired as director, namely that Ford was around a 100 years old at the time and was also an alcoholic, and by that I mean he really had a problem, he was so bad that he couldn't do his job as director properly. If I remember correctly, immediately after his firing he was sent away to a sanatorium to be dried out!!!!!!
Also, despite the fact that he directed a number of excellent movies John Ford was not a very nice person, in fact he could be a first class tyrant and had a number of petty bigoted and childish beliefs - he had an intense dislike of British actors and Italian-American actors!!!!
On the set of 'Four Men and a Prayer' he practically coerced David Niven into a night of heavy drinking on his birthday, assuring him that he would have very little acting to do next day. Then the following morning he complained to TCF studio head Daryl F Zanuck that Niven had appeared on the set drunk!!!! Nice guy, huh!!!!!
On the set of 'Mogambo' he was constantly rude to British actor Donald Sinden, belittling him and treating him like trash. On another occasion he was equally rude and belittling to Frank Sinatra constantly making derogatory remarks about his Italian ancestry etc.
This is ironic because although Henry Fonda's family came to the United States from Holland, they were originally Italian. According to Fonda himself they were Italian Protestants who had moved to Holland to escape persecution for their religious beliefs.
Aside from that, Fonda was a proud liberal who no doubt clashed with Ford over political and social issues. Both men were hypocrites. Fonda's treatment of his first wife (Jane and Peter's mother) was shameful. According to Maureen O'Hara, who accidentally walked in on him and caught him, Ford was a closeted homosexual who also persecuted actors he knew to be gay.
Fonda was proud of the fact that he never missed a performance of Mister Roberts on Broadway -- including the evening following the suicide of his wife (Jane's and Peter's mother) in 1950. He was an emotionally insecure man who remained remote, or lost in his characters, as a way of delaing with life, something that was hard on his kids, though they all finally came to terms later in life. I don't hold this against him, but feel sorry for him.
Interesting about Ford's politics, which were not easily classifiable. On the surface Ford was thought to be a conservative. He had gone along when John Wayne and Ward Bond had asked him to join them in founding something called the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals in 1944, dedicated that early to weeding out suspected Communists from the industry, and was generally counted on the Hollywood right. Yet in 1950, when Cecil B. deMille and other conservatives had attempted a purge of the leadership of the Directors Guild, Ford had shocked those in attendance by rising to oppose deMille. DeMille had convened a last-minute meeting just before Christmas by pre-arrangement with his allies, knowing that several liberal directors were away and wouldn't be able to attend (talk about using a Communist tactic!), and had read aloud a list of "foreign-sounding" members of the Guild, many of whom held leadership positions in the group. DeMille read them out using a "foreign" accent: "Mister Vee-ler (Wyler), Mister Vil-der (Wilder), Mister Mank-ay-vich (Mankiewicz)", and so on, and demanded the election of an "American" board. But just when the liberals thought all was lost, Ford arose and said simply, "My name is Ford and I make westerns. Cecil, you are the greatest director in Hollywood. You founded this town. Nobody knows the public's tastes like you do. Without you this industry wouldn't exist." Then he glowered at him, "But...I have never liked you, Cecil. I don't like you. And I never will like you," and then sat down. With that, the tide shifted, the timid among them found their courage, and the deMille slate was unanimously defeated in favor of the slate led by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
That incident caused Ford a lot of trouble from Wayne and Bond, but he didn't give a damn. Add to this Ford's very left-wing sympathies in films like The Grapes of Wrath and others, and you have a very confusing political portrait of the man. He never supported the blacklist, but usually voted Republican. I guess he called 'em as he saw 'em, out of whatever sense of fairness he saw fit for each situation.
When he made the Grapes of Wrath, Ford was in no position to argue politics, as liberals and leftists dominated Hollywood then. That changed after WWII. Besides, he was probably more of a Goldwater Republican like myself who went by "what's right is right." He hated DeMille because he recognized his purge as based on anti-Semitism, not anti-Communism. His anti-British and anti-Italian attitudes could be attributed to his own ethnic working class roots. British-Irish antagonism is legendary and back when Ford was young, many Irish and Italian Americans hated each other. Thankfully, that all changed a long time ago. As you say, Ford was a complicated man.
shareI don't agree that leftists dominated Hollywood in the 30s and 40s. There certainly was a vociferous left wing element in Hollywood but if you look at who really ran the town they were anything but liberals. For one thing, the studio chiefs were mostly very conservative -- Irving Thalberg was an extreme politcal reationary, even more so than Louis B. Mayer. So were Sam Goldwyn, the various managements at RKO, Adolph Zukor at Paramount, Harry Cohn at Columbia, most of them. Darryl Zanuck and Jack Warner were sort of middle-of-the road but scarcely liberals.
The same is true of many of the directors -- Sam Wood was very far to the right, and not much less so were people like Victor Fleming, Howard Hawks, Leo McCarey, and many others, all very prominent and powerful, not to (re-)mention deMille. Frank Capra championed "the common man" but was a Republican. Plus many conservative actors such as Gary Cooper, Irene Dunne, Joel McCrea, Frank Morgan, Ginger Rogers, Walter Brennan, Lionel Barrymore, Robert Taylor, Randolph Scott, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dick Powell, Raymond Massey, James Stewart, George Murphy, Adolphe Menjou, many, many others -- none of whom suffered for their politics, ever. (James Cagney moved from very left to very right after WWII.) Menjou was such an extremist that he was later one of the original members of the John Birch Society in 1958. Only Eugene Pallette (the frog-throated, fat character actor) suffered any adverse career effects due to his right-wing politics, and then it was because he was not only openly lamenting that chances for a German victory were fading by 1944-45 -- which in wartime actually is treason, or sedition -- but had become physically violent against minorites on his film sets, once attacking a black actor and calling him a "n----r" as he struck him for no reason. So many people, including conservatives, refused to work with him as he got so violent and erratic that the studios simply stopped hiring him as a production risk -- but even this was not quite a "blacklist" as it's usually understood.
Despite some conservatives whining/lying about being "victims" of political prejudice in that era, no conservative was ever blacklisted, lost his livelihood, or faced Congressional investigation due to his political beliefs. And John Ford wasn't "forced" to make The Grapes of Wrath or any other film against his inclinations, any more than Sam Wood was compelled to direct, or Gary Cooper to star in, For Whom the Bell Tolls, despite its anti-Francoist message...a message Wood, for one, strongly disagreed with. It was a prestigeous job, and they took advantage of the opportunity.
Unfortunately there were many actors, writers and others who were at some point members of the Communist Party, and some of these -- mostly the writers -- had some influence on output during the war, but this has always been vastly exaggerated by the right. However, one of the problems my fellow liberals have is in their naive view that anyone accused of being a Communist during the HUAC witch hunts of 1947 and 1951 was an innocent person. Technically, of course, they were "innocent" -- in that being a Communist was and is not a crime. But in fact most of them were or had been at some point CPUSA members. This doesn't justify or condone these hearings, which were mostly exercises in partisan headline-hunting by a bunch of idiots and accomplished nothing for the security of this country in the real fight against Communism. But it was the really hard-core Communists (the so-called "Hollywood Ten") who were among those brought before the committee in its farcical 1947 hearings, when any conservative like Taylor and Menjou could name names and accuse anyone they didn't like of being a "Red".
But the hard-liners among the actual present or former Communists, mainly John Howard Lawson and Ring Lardner, Jr., made things worse not only by their dishonesty but by commanding their fellow "Ten" to obfuscate in answering the committee's questions. Director Edward Dmytryk, who had quit the party in 1945 but was still subpoened in '47, recanted in 1952 and got his career back; years later he said they'd made a major mistake in following orders to refuse to cooperate (which is what landed them all in jail -- contempt of Congress, not anything to do with treason or their Communst sympathies). Dmytryk said they should just have admitted their past or present membership and then asked, "So what?" It would have left the committee nowhere to go. Undoubtedly they'd have been blacklisted anyway but there would have been no jail time and thuggish imbeciles such as the Chairman, J. Parnell Thomas, would have been unable to capitalize on the issue. (Ironically, Thomas, a reactionary Republican from New Jersey, went to prison shortly thereafter for demanding kickbacks from his staff, and served in Danbury with a couple of the Hollywood Ten, like Dalton Trumbo. After his release he ran for his old House seat in 1954 on a pro-McCarthy platform and was buried in the GOP primary by a moderate.) But many of the Ten remained hard core Communists all their lives -- Lawson, Lardner, Abraham Polonsky, etc. They had slavishly followed the Stalinist line and could never get past it, and reveled in their supposed victimhood in later years.
Few people, left or right, really understand that time or the true nature of what went on, and make false heroes out of people who don't deserve the moniker. Anyway, it was HUAC's sweeping 1951-52 hearings, to get back some of the limelight and headlines swiped by McCarthy in the Senate, which really devastated Hollywood, which lost hundreds of actors and others to the resultant blacklist. The pity there is that most of those individuals, while they had joined the party many years earlier, had long since left it and renounced any sympathy for Communism; they had joined in the late 30s or early 40s when they were young and dumb and struggling and looking for a cause, and usually left pretty soon after they realized the true nature of Communism. The blacklist is still a blot on the film industry. But I don't care for the uninformed dopes today who think it was all a game of name-calling, that none of the "accused" had been Communists, and who piously denounce people (like Elia Kazan ten years ago) for his actions in a period when they weren't around and are in no position to judge because they never faced such difficult circumstances. (I'm also fed up with people who conflate McCarthy with HUAC and the Hollywood blacklist. McCarthy was a drunk and a liar who never uncovered a single Communist and manufactured evidence. But he never had any involvement with investigating Hollywood. HUAC was a dumping ground for the House's most egregious bigots and ignoramuses -- Nixon was a rare exception, which is why his unmasking of Alger Hiss stands as just about HUAC's only substantive achievement -- and they're the ones who went after Hollywood, not so much from an excess of patriotism as to garner headlines for themselves.)
Interestingly, it was John Wayne who came to the defense of Larry Parks when he was blacklisted in 1951 (he was yet another long-ago party member), although it didn't do any good. Gary Cooper, a conservative but as a westerner someone who valued individual liberty, had refused to name "Reds" as a friendly witness in 1947 (unlike Taylor and Menjou and others), and tried to defend screenwriter Carl Foreman (who'd written High Noon in 1952) until it was no longer tenable for him to do so. Foreman was forced to move to Britain, where he became a leading writer-producer and major figure in the British film industry in the late 50s and 60s, before finally returning to America in 1975. Before he was forced to leave the country, Wayne had visited him and asked him to remove his credit on High Noon so as not to hurt Cooper's chances at an Oscar. Foreman refused and kept his credit, but he had a cordial conversation with Wayne, who well understood the reality of the situation but was just trying to make the best of it. Foreman disagreed with Wayne but understood his point of view and respected him. In the UK Foreman went on to write and/or produce The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Guns of Navarone, The Mouse that Roared, Born Free, Young Winston and many other films. His first wife divorced him early on because she couldn't stand postwar, rationed Britain, but he remarried and had a new family. Years later the Foremans were all in Hollywood when he'd had to come over on business, and were in a restaurant when Wayne walked in. Foreman went over to him, shook hands, then introduced him to his new, "English" family, and they got along very well. By contrast, Stanley Kramer, the great fighting liberal who produced High Noon, had dropped all contact with Foreman as soon as he was called before HUAC, refused to help him or speak out for him, and when many years later they found themselves in the same elevator at Columbia studios (I think it was the same trip in which the Wayne encounter occurred), was so embarrassed he couldn't even look Foreman in the eye, let alone speak to him. An interesting commentary all around. Point being, cartoonish left-right views on this subject (as on many others) are usally mistaken, by "both" sides.
Sorry to get so gabby! Please excuse.
Henry Fonda once bragged that in his youth he made "social activist" pictures much like his daughter did years later. I have seen many 1930s films I would classify as liberal, although not Communist.The Hollywood screenwriters of the era were not Communists, but they had decidedly left-wing sympathies. I don't agree that the producers of the era were rabidly right-wing, especially since many were Jewish and had no use for bigots, Fascists, or Nazis. I did not mean to imply that leftists are all Communists or Socialists, anymore than you meant to imply that all rightists are Klansmen, racists, Fascists, or Nazis. Both terms cover a wide spectrum.
The persecution of conservative writers and actors began in the late 60s and continues to this day. However, it was far more subtle than the shameless red-baiting of the 1950s. The opening of KGB files after the dissolution of the USSR proved that there were indeed Communist spies in the US in the 40s and 50s, although not nearly as many as were believed, and none in Hollywood. But more pictures portray CIA agents as villains than heroes, and military officers are more likely to be pilloried than honored. The Rambo and Chuck Norris films are a decided minority. Even Clint Eastwood, a political moderate, was castigated by liberals for the popular film "Firefox" because his character stole a Soviet fighter jet for the US. Ironically, it was actually adapted from a British novel in which the hero was an RAF pilot. Foreman was a great artist, but he was not without his own faults and sins. By the way, I think "The Mouse That Roared" sucks, although I admire his other British films.
I will admit however, that you are very historically accurate and I share your disgust for Senator McCarthy and most of the activities of the HUAC, which is now the House Internal Security Committee. I think we basically agree and where we disagree are matters of extent and degree. I also admit that I am easily as verbose than you if not more so.
No, one of the things you and I seem to agree on is that the broad-brush smear employed by the far left and far right -- painting anyone on the other side as a fascist or communist (or other extremist), respectively -- is silly and dishonorable, as well as inaccurate. That's why I try to give credit where credit is due and excoriate where I think it's necessary -- left or right. If I may oversimplify, among liberals I'm considered conservative and among conservatives I'm considered liberal; so I figure I may be onto something!
I never understood the blind spots so many liberals had toward the USSR and its espionage network. Not all by any means, but many of them. Some on the far left simply refused to accept such things, others downplayed it as if the Soviets couldn't do anything right so their threat was ridiculous rightist propaganda. On the other side of the spectrum, so many conservatives made the Soviets out to be ten feet tall, part of a monolithic colossus with spies everywhere, equally wrongly.
And each defended its own baliwick without much thought or objectivity. Liberals excoriated Nixon over Hiss without regard to the evidence that Nixon was right, and also for decades rejected much of the evidence of Soviet espionage past and present, until the Soviet archives settled the matter once and for all. Conservatives unstintingly praised HUAC as an heroic group of beleaguered men, and it was a favorite conservative tactic in the 50s to make the criticism of Communism some sort of daring, even suicidal politcal act, when in fact nothing was easier to do than give a Commie-bashing speech. All of it was maddening.
(Oh, by the way, the House Internal Security Committee, formerly HUAC, doesn't exist any longer; it was voted out of existence in the 70s and never brought back. Intriguing that this committee, so famous for its forays into anti-Communist assaults, had its origins in an act pushed by a liberal Democratic Congressman from New York who, as a Jew concerned with rising anti-Semitism, in 1938 wanted to set up a House committee to investigate pro-Nazi groups in America. But as soon as HUAC was formed it was taken over by Martin Dies, a disreputable Texas Democrat who set the tone for much of HUAC's history by using the chairmanship to promote his own politics and career.)
As to the movie industry, I do have to take exception to your use of the term "persecution". There was and is no persecution of conservatives in the industry. That is not to say that some aren't treated unfairly in their careers (so much for liberal tolerance -- nothing is less tolerant, I've found, than a self-righteous liberal, and when you add in a dash of typical Hollywood ignorance, so much the worse). But "persecution" is a loaded and inaccurate word. Victims in Darfur are persecuted. The political opposition in Venezuela or Zimbabwe is persecuted. We should all be as "persecuted" as Hollywood conservatives. Anyway, it seems that every so often one side or the other gains the upper hand and misuses its influence. The liberals who lost their livelihoods in the 50s were much closer to being persecuted than any conservative is today. At worst, they're beleaguered. They're not jumping out windows or on welfare or living in exile abroad or having FBI files opened on them. But I never justify anyone discriminating against anyone else over politics.
I chiefly remember Firefox being denounced because it was a lousy film, one of Clint's worst. (I love it because it's so stupid!) There was some liberal criticism of its anti-Soviet background but that was the typical lazy-leftist, head-in-the-sand attitude towards Communism. I wasn't mentioning Foreman as an artist (he was a good, not great, writer), and certainly didn't imply he had no flaws -- find me someone who doesn't -- just that he had an interesting experience in the direction his career took. (And I think The Mouse That Roared -- which Foreman only produced, not wrote -- was okay, though it hasn't aged well in the past 50 -- 50! --years. My favorite film of all is The Guns of Navarone.)
But basically we do agree on most things, and what's most refreshing is to find someone who can speak knowledgeably and fluently on so many topics. It is a pleasure making your acquaintance...though I still think I'm the bigger blabbermouth! (For which I again commend your indulgence, sir.)
I do disagree that there is no persecution of conservatives in Hollywood, especially since I've read some of the ideologically-based denunciations of films and actors with conservative viewpoints. However, you are right that it does not match the fury and ferocity of the so-called "McCarthy Era". Perhaps persecution is too strong a word and bias is the better term. Our disagreement is perhaps a matter of degree. I also think I'm the bigger gasbag.
Regarding "Firefox," most of Eastwood's earlier films were called lousy by critics. Pauline Kael, a cop-hater (I read a vicious anti-police column she wrote) denounced the Dirty Harry films as the next thing to Fascist. "Firefox" was strictly an adventure film and I enjoyed it as such. It was a box office hit, which is all I think Eastwood cared about. I liked it because for once the Soviet leaders were not portrayed as lovable grandfathers and chess-playing pseudo-intellectuals. There were more than a few ideological criticisms thrown into the reviews. Here's an example of one interview I remember:
Beautiful TV reporter: How do you think we would feel if the Soviets stole one of our fighters?
Eastwood: I suppose we'd get as mad as they do in this picture.
Frankly, I think he handled it well. By the way, have you ever seen pre-1990 Soviet propaganda pictures? I have and they're even worse, ideologically and artistically, than ours. They had no doubt they were the good guys, unlike most of our later films. I suppose that's the difference between a dictatorship and a democratic republic.
Ugh! Pauline Kael. Don't even go there. An obnoxious, overrated, pretentious b----. Yeah, I know she called the Dirty Harry films fascist. I don't know that this made her a "cop hater", which is pretty strong, but she definitely was an arrogant snob. A lot of filmmakers, left and right, couldn't stand her. Of course, you know of her hatchet job around 1970 "proving" that Orson Welles didn't write Citizen Kane, which has long since been discredited both factually and as a matter of research.
Yes, I love seeing Soviet (and, God help me, Nazi) propaganda films. Fascinating, horrible, you name it. I also own many films from Germany and the USSR, not necessarily propaganda (little of it is, in fact), but just examples of their popular movies for the "masses". All interesting stuff. But as to agitprop, it's instructive to see how others saw us (as well as how they saw themselves).
One last thing about Firefox. I thought Eastwood (whom I like a lot, though I'm about 50-50 on his films: some appeal to me, some don't) did a clunky kind of job directing it, and that the acting was pretty awful (two words: Freddy Jones). Among other things, the way people kept switching between Russian and English was a bit silly. But my favorite part was when he arrives in Moscow and they have that shot of him crossing Red Square to his hotel (of course, it's Clint in front of a rear projection). Check this out next time: as he enters the hotel, on the wall on either side of the entrance are signs with the name of the establishment, written thus: MOCKBA HOTEL. The first word, in Russian, in Cyrillic (MOCKBA = Moskva = Moscow), the second word in English, using Latin script. (Luckily we can transcribe the Russian word for Moscow using a Latin-alphabet keyboard!) Now that's just plain hilarious. (And did you notice John Ratzenberger, the year he started as Cliff the mailman on Cheers, as one of the sub crew that refuels Clint?)
See you around, pmiano.
If you'd read the article I read, you'd know calling Kael a "cop-hater" was an understatement.
I know the acting in "Firefox" was awful but at least Eastwood's directorial talents markedly improved with the years. As an actor, he still beats Steven Seagall. Action films rarely have Oscar-level acting. As for the language switching, I put up with it in the WWII TV show "Combat" for seven years. As you say, suspension of disbelief. Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Yes, I noticed Ratzenberger.
Be seeing you too, hobnob53.
Ford habitually picked out someone in almost every film he made whom he would use as a whipping boy and butt of his crude "jokes", insults and screaming. Sometimes other cast members came to the person's defense, sometimes not. He could be a drunk and a bully on the set, even against women.
But his targets weren't always some small part actor who couldn't fight back: he went after John Wayne on the set of They Were Expendable because he thought Wayne a coward for refusing to enlist in the war, while older men with families were going in and serving (such as Henry Fonda). In Expendable, co-star Robert Montgomery had served in the Navy, though he was almost 40 and in fact three years older than Wayne. Ford enjoyed having "Navy" talks with Montgomery, and other cast and crew members who had been in the service, around Wayne and would usually make belittling cracks over Wayne's absence from real combat. He also made sure that the credits carried the ranks held by those associated with the film who had served, another means of pointing out to audiences Wayne's conspicuous lack of military service. Ford liked Wayne but never quite forgave him this lapse, especially since Wayne was always so vociferous -- and utterly hypocritical -- in urging American participation in other wars (Korea, Vietnam) and that young men enlist to fight for their country.
By the way, for the record, Ford was 60 when he filmed Mister Roberts -- born Feb. 1, 1895. I share his birthday (but not the year!).
It agrees with much of what I've heard of Ford, and you'd think that he and Fonda, also a former Navy officer, would have gotten along. Of course, a lot changes in 10 years and their differences over "Mr. Roberts" were artistic and creative, not political.
I've heard that John Wayne wanted to serve, but insisted on being made an officer. He had two years of college (I think), and probably would have qualified. According to some accounts, he was told by the government that they preferred he stay hime and make his movies, as they were considered excellent propaganda. He went to entertain the troops on several occasions during WWII, but they booed him and threw things at him.
I never heard that Wayne had demanded he be commissioned as an officer, but if so that's even more disgraceful. Other actors, older and with families, joined without pre-conditions of their own. Wayne legitimately didn't have to serve -- he wasn't a draft dodger -- but since he was unwilling to do so he had a hell of a lot of gall over the years to question others' patriotism, or urge others to go fight wars he supported but wouldn't fight in.
By the way, I happen to be a fan of the Duke -- more so as the years go by. And I think he mellowed later on, and wasn't quite the black/white reactionary he's often portrayed as -- an image he often contributed to. But I don't applaud his hypocrisy re military service. (Did you ever hear that at the Republican convention in Chicago in 1952, Wayne, a Taft supporter, was getting out of a car in front of the Blackstone Hotel as a parade of WWII vets holding Ike signs and waving American flags was going by. "Hey!" he shouted at the veterans, "Where's your hammer and sickle?" From any angle, that was a disgusting, not to mention brain-dead, statement.)
I recall that Lew Ayres, a deeply moral and spiritual man, declined to fight after registering as a conscientious objector in WWII -- an extremely unpopular stance then, as you might assume. He was fired by MGM, blacklisted by the industry, divorced by Ginger Rogers (okay, every cloud has its silver lining), all for standing up for his beliefs. Only years later was he able to slowly rebuild his career. But was Ayres a coward shirking his duty? No: instead of fighting, he volunteered to serve as an ambulance driver in combat, and was twice decorated for bravery for courage under fire. For following his inclinations and staying safely at home, Wayne became a star. For following his but serving under extremely hazardous combat conditions and being cited for valor, Lew Ayres's career almost ended permanently. Between them, who was the "better" citizen?
By the way, I doubt Wayne didn't enlist because he was told his continuing to make movies was more important. In the first place, other stars were told that and enlisted anyway. In the second, Wayne was not that big a star in the early 40s. He was gradually becoming one, but there were many bigger, more box-office stars around than Wayne, who also had not made any war films at that point and was not known as a miltary-role actor. He was more of a second lead in 1940-43 or so.
You may be correct about Wayne, but I only stated what has been alleged and I did not say I believed or disbelieved it. I agree he was hypocritical and politically naive, but I don't agree he was a second lead in 1940-1943. By 1943 he was established as a leading man, helped by his pre-war role in "Stagecoach."
Also, I didn't say he was justified in not enlisting so he could make propaganda films, just that it has been alleged he was asked. I am a fan of his films, but I never took his politics seriously.
To be fair, many stars who served did not join until late in the war, when most of the heavy fighting was over. Of course Stewart, Powers, Mature, Fairbanks, Niven, Fonda, Gable, Ford, Huston, and many others joined early. Errol Flynn did not serve either, but at least he tried to enlist five times. He was rejected for medical reasons, probably due to the ravages of years of boozing.
I am well-acquainted with Lew Ayres' story and I have exchanged e-mails with his son expressing my admiration for his father's service. I agree he was treated disgracefully. Actually, he started out as an ambulance driver, but later served as a medical corpsman and was decorated for valor during the invasions of Japanese-held islands. My father was a combat veteran of WWII, decorated for valor. I was a combat medical corpsman in Vietnam. My son has served as an Air Force pilot four times over Iraq and Afghanistan. You'll get no disagreement from me that Ayres' was the true patriot.
I gathered from reading an earlier post of yours that you come from a long line of people who have fought or served valiantly in defense of their country, and for this you have my sincere gratitude -- you yourself, and also your father and now your son. I hope he is well and safe and if he has not already will return home soon.
I feel a bit foolish recounting the Lew Ayres story in view of your more-or-less firsthand knowledge and exchanges with his son. One of the things I admire most about, not just Ayres, but anyone in a similar position is their willingness to take an unpopular stand and ability to cope with the consequences. Unfortunately vindication, or at least understanding and acceptance, often do not come until many years later.
Remember the allegations 35 years ago that Errol Flynn was a Nazi agent? I think this was published in a discredited biography by Bob Thomas. But I remember a very funny article in The National Lampoon, of all places, entitled "If World War Two Had Been Fought Like the War in Vietnam". Taking a page from our friend Ms. Fonda, this article, which was a series of vignettes, had one sequence in which Errol Flynn, Charles Lindbergh and Ezra Pound toured bombed-out Berlin and denounced American and British bloodlust for causing so much destruction to helpless civilians!
As to the Duke, I do think it's fair to say he wasn't yet a top leading man in the '40-'43 period, but getting there. Stagecoach was of course his breakthrough in '39 and he certainly had some leads in the years immediately following. But in most of the bigger films he was in in this time frame, he really was only the co-star and often second- or even third-billed: Dark Command, Seven Sinners, Reap the Wild Wind, The Spoilers and some others. He really rose to the top after many of the major stars went off to war, but even as late as 1945 he was second-billed behind Robert Montgomery in They Were Expendable (and for that matter behind Fonda in Fort Apache in '48).
pmiano, I said in another reply posted a few minutes ago that I've enjoyed making your acquaintance, and I want to reiterate that here. You seem to be the kind of person who brings honor to our country in many ways, besides as well as including military service, and I appreciate and applaud your honesty and thoughtfulness.
I see your point about Wayne, but don't forget that there were "A" and "B" pictures. The pictures where he was second male lead were "A" list, but he was the king of the more popular "B" war and Western films at the time.
Thank you for your compliments. I respect your viewpoints and enjoy "conversing" with you too. It's great to have someone you can respectfully disagree with. Too many times, disagreements in this forum turn into personal insults. I'll be out of town and unable to respond for a week, but I hope we run into each other regarding other film. You'll also find Altho73 an interesting and informed person to share views with.
Have a good trip. By comparison to most, our disagreements seem like agreements! Look forward to other conversations in the future. (And Altho73 is an interesting person, I agree.)
shareThank you. Altho73 and I have been comparing ridiculous situations and cliches in TV shows and movies for over a year now. Check "watered-down penecillin" under "The Third Man".
shareHello pmiano100,
Thank you for your kind remarks. A couple of things if I may....
I agree that Fonda was too old for the part, but that's why I said some suspension of disbelief was called for. They tried their best to make him look younger than 50 and succeeded perhaps in being able to pass him off as about 40 (a combination of make-up, hairpiece and Fonda's performance), but that's still too old. I guess we're just supposed to accept it and not worry about it, which most people probably do.
(For an interesting age issue, look at The Graduate. Dustin Hoffman's supposed to be a college grad, which would make him about 22, and Anne Bancroft is supposed to be someone in her early 40s. They were both utterly convincing -- even though in reality he was 30 and she 35 -- husband-and-wife territory!)
I think you're right that audiences 54 years ago liked the slapstick humor and didn't think it detracted from the movie. But that aspect hasn't aged well, and it was a disservice to the play. But you're quite correct also that vets went to see movies about the war, which by the 50s had become very popular (and would remain so for decades), after a few years' respite from the subject. However accurate or not they thought such films were, they were entertaining, and that was the main point. (Vets also finally took a shine to Frank Sinatra in the 50s, though ten years earlier they had hated him because he was 4F and causing their girlfriends to swoon in the States; they also finally got over John Wayne's refusal to fight in the war despite his lifelong belligerent talk urging others to fight, and making movies about it. Ford, as you know, always held that against Wayne.)
As far as James Stewart goes, I didn't mean to imply that he was in any way pro-Nazi, and as you say his wartime service is well-documented. (He was also the only Hollywood star I know of offhand who joined the service before the attack on Pearl Harbor.) I just think he didn't at all care about Lindbergh's political views and since Spirit was strictly about Lindbergh's flight and early life he (Stewart) was able to look at his hero myopically and shut out all the inconvenient later history.
But I strongly disagree that Lindbergh's views "were not as widely known then." Lindbergh had been the leading voice for isolationism and defeatism in 1940 and 1941, the primary spokesman for America First, and had routinely peppered his speeches not only with anti-British (and anti-Soviet after June 22, 1941) rhetoric, but had made explicitly anti-Semitic statements -- some would say threats -- notably in his nationally broadcast Des Moines speech in June, 1941, in which he said that if the Jews dragged America into the war they would be blamed. (Thomas E. Dewey, at that time still an isolationist but planning to make a second try for Governor of NY in '42, and a man who vociferously denounced racism in any form, immediately resigned from America First, calling Lindbergh's speech "inexcusable".) Lindbergh's discredited views, plus his earlier flirtation with the Nazis and acceptance of a medal from Hitler's government, were well known and well-remembered in the 1950s, though the publication of the book The Spirit of St. Louis had helped remind people of the flyer's earlier heroism. Still, it was recalled that he had almost moved to Berlin from Britain in the Fall of 1938 but decided not to do so because the Nazis had made it "difficult" for him after Kristallnacht, which itself he had little problem with, and his other extremist viewpoints hadn't been forgotten. In fact, more people probably knew of these than knew the details of Stewart's wartime record. It's just that by the 50s Lindbergh had learned to keep his mouth shut and remained mostly secluded from the public, with only his 1927 flight being emphasized. The Eisenhower administration also helped rehabilitate his image somewhat by awarding him a DSM (I believe: I may have the wrong decoration in mind) in 1954 for his participation in shooting down two Japanese planes in the Pacific when he was out there as an aviation advisor in 1942. But while many were willing to put Lindbergh's bigotry and defeatism in the past, or in persepctive, many could not, and in any case his attitudes were still remembered only 15-20 years after his pre-war behavior.
But I enjoyed reading your posts here, and thank you again for such a civil and informative exchange!
My reply to your comments _
1. Regarding Henry Fonda and Mr. Roberts - Your statement makes perfect sense and I agree.
2. Dustin Hoffman and Ann Bancroft - Hoffman was a small, boyish-faced man who could pass for his early 20s. With her Mediterranean looks and makeup to make her appear older, Bancroft was able to pass for her early 40s. As has been pointed out, it is always easier to make a person appear older than younger.
3. No arguments there. The concept hasn't aged well.
4. Regarding James Stewart, if you put it that way, you're probably right. Communism had replaced Nazism as the big enemy by then.
5. The average person in the 1930s and 1940s wasn't all that interested in politics, being too busy with survival. Before Pearl Harbor most Americans were pro-neutrality and ignored the implications of Lindbergh's German sympathies. It's common enough in peace movements. During Vietnam, anti-war sentiment was so strong, many decent, patriotic Americans such as WWII veteran Johnny Carson defended Jane Fonda, ignoring the fact that in those days she was not just anti-war, but pro-Communist. Today, she enjoys the good life and advocates responsible liberal causes, not extreme Marxist ones. Americans have a short attention span. They're beginning to consider the events of September 11, 2001 "a long time ago," whereas other societies think in terms of decades and even centuries.
However, your point is a good one. Perhaps it would be closer to the truth to say Lindbergh's views were not as widely publicized then. It's part of the American culture, for better or worse.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the way, for the record, Ford was 60 when he filmed Mister Roberts -- born Feb. 1, 1895. I share his birthday (but not the year!).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of my movie books gives his date of birth as Feb 1 1892, another says it was Feb 1 1894.
Anyhow, I was aware that he was in his early sixties at the time. I was quoting Jack Lemmon who said that 'Ford was around a hundred at the time and an alcoholic at the time' who probably meant that Ford looked around a hundred due to the effects of alcohol having ravaged his features and made him look thirty years older than he was, not an uncommon scenario amongst Hollywood people I add!!!!!
Another person who ended up disliking John Ford was Clark Gable who was disgusted with his obnoxious attitude towards Ava Gardner and Donald Sinden on the set of 'Mogambo'. Gable ended up hating him and vowed never to appear in another film directed by him.
Donald Sinden who was a relative newcomer to movies at that time and was particularly uneasy about appearing with some 'Hollywood greats' was very appreciative of the assistance and kindness he received from superstar Gable. When Sinden first met Gable he addressed him as Mr Gable and got the reply, 'Please call me Clark, you're appearing in the film with me so you're my friend'.
The IMDb profile for Ford also says he was born February 1, 1894.
I know he didn't like Sinden because he was British, but what did he have against Ava Gardner?
IMDb is not infrequently wrong on its dates. I hope someone can confirm whichever date it correct.
Ava could be notoriously difficult on a set, though this became much worse by the early 1960s. She was a heavy drinker, often nasty to others including the crews (the antithesis of Gable), argumentative, full of herself. In short, she may have been a budding John Ford, and who could stand looking at himself day after day?! But I've read that he also took off on her because of her being wed to Sinatra, who had accompanied her to Africa becasue he had nothing else to do, until he got word he'd been selected to play in From Here to Eternity. Ford didn't like Sinatra, thought his wife was supporting him and got him the Eternity job, and -- who knows? -- maybe as a repressed homosexual couldn't stand having someone as gorgeous (and unattainable) as Ava around. Anyway, he directed Ava to her only Academy Award nomination, so something must have worked.
If Gardner was supporting Sinatra at that time, she wasn't the only female movie star supporting her husband. Besides, "From Here to Eternity" reestablished Sinatra as a star, which no doubt angered Ford even more. It's also been alleged a certain Italian-American "benevolence society" (which shall remain nameless) got him that job, not his wife. Who knows and who cares? In addition, I once read that she didn't like Hispanics, especially Mexicans. Ford allegedly did like them, so that might have added fuel to the fire.
shareMaybe he just didn't like her. As has been said, he always wanted someone to pick on, and I guess she and Donald Sinden were the lucky ones on Mogambo. But since Sinatra's rise back to fame came after filming on Mogambo had been completed, that couldn't have been a factor in Ford's dislike of Ava, although the fact that Sinatra got the job in itself might have ticked Ford off. Anyway, Ford's bullying was another example of his childish (and vicious) behavior, whatever its reasons.
shareIt was pretty well-accepted that getting the role itself would restore Sinatra's career. But as you say, he always wanted someone to bully.
shareHi Altho73 -- No, of course I knew you were joking with your "100" remark, which I actually found pretty funny -- and apt. I was just being pedantic, besides which it allowed me to get in the fact that Ford and I shared the same birthday....
As did -- Clark Gable! Feb. 1, 1901. (I've read 1894 as Ford's birth year, though not 1892; 1895 is the year usually given, but Ford probably lied about that too. For me, Feb. 1 is the important part!)
I've heard most of the stories you relate, and Gable's reactions were typical of him. He was a very down-to-Earth guy who always ate with the crews and small-part players, not the other stars, and was very helpful, friendly and forthcoming, no airs at all. He kept an object -- I forget exactly what, but some tool from one of his early careers as a lumberjack or something -- above his mantlepiece, with a sign underneath reading, "Just to remind you, Gable." He knew he'd been lucky and never forgot where he came from, and wanted to help others to succeed as he had. And he hated anyone (like Ford) who bullied people who couldn't fight back.
Thanks for your response hobnob53.
The '100' remark is pretty funny but credit should go to Jack Lemmon and not to me, I am merely repeating what Mr Lemmon said in a TV interview about the incident.
For Feb 1 you can also add to your list - Lisa Marie Presley, Sherilyn Fenn, Princess Stephanie of Monaco and the greatest Russian of all time - Boris Yeltsin.
Mine is Feb 6 - a day I share with Ronald Reagan, Zsa Zsa Gabor, 'Babe' Ruth, Axl Rose, Mamie Van Doren and Fred Trueman.
P.S I find it annoying that various movie reference books give different years of birth for various actors and actresses.
James Cagney is given as 1899 and 1904
Joan Crawford as 1904, 1906 and 1908
Bing Crosby as 1901, 1903 and 1904
Larry Hagman as 1930, 1932 and 1939
George Raft as 1895 and 1903
Trevor Howard as 1913 and 1916
to name but a few. Which year is the correct one??????
Hi, Altho.
You had very graciously credited Mr. Lemmon with the "100" remark in your post, but you deserve thanks for passing it on to the rest of us!
Belated Happy Birthday!
I agree, I can't understand why it's been so hard to pin down the birth years of so many actors, especially as they keep changing as new information comes up -- usually, of course, making them older (though not quite always).
On your list, the best information I've seen is thus:
Cagney 1899 (I never heard 1904 or any other date for him); Crawford 1904; Crosby 1903; Raft 1895 (definitely not 1903); Howard 1916, though personally that always sounded too young for me: I'd say 1913 is more likely correct. I've heard 1931 for Larry Hagman, which seems about right ('39 is definitely too young).
For my part, as one example, I can't definitively discover whether Tyrone Power was born in 1913 or 1914. Karl Malden, however, who has been listed as born in both those years, several years ago owned up to 1912 on the very first page of his autobiography, where he mentioned the other two years and said both were wrong.
Clifton Webb is another person whose YOB is all over the place: it's been variously given as 1896, 1893, 1891 and 1889. IMDb lists 1889 but I'm pretty sure that's wrong. 1896 was clearly studio malarkey to prolong his career. I think it's 1891 based on something a drunken and weeping Webb once blubbered to his pal Noel Coward while visiting Coward at his home in Jamaica over Christmas 1961. One evening Webb broke down sobbing and confided to Coward that he had turned 70 the month before, and begged Coward to tell him whether he (Webb) looked it. As Coward wrote in his diary later that eveing, "Of course, the poor dear looks 90, but of course one had to say one was shocked!" Clifton was also upset at the recent death of his mother, which led Coward to rather cattily add that "It must be a terrible thing to be orphaned at the age of 70!" Anyway, if Clifton himself owned up to 70 in 1961, while drunk and hence more truthful, then I'm prepared to accept 1891 as the year. But I'd assume there'd be a birth certificate in Indianapolis to settle the matter.
One more age issue: remember On the Beach from 1959? The girl who played Anthony Perkins's wife is Donna Anderson, a former dancer found by Stanley Kramer. She's quite pretty and sexy (only a so-so actress), and according to every reference work was born in 1938. But her IMDb page insists she was born in 1925 -- a 13-year age difference. I'm prepared to believe '38 may be slightly off, but thirteen years? No way she was 34 in that film, plus I saw her interviewed in 2000 or so and she looked fantastic, much younger than the 62 or so she likely was. If she was 75 then she should be in Guinness. There's a whole board on this subject over on the OTB site.
On the other hand, Fox took two years off Linda Darnell's age, since she was only 16 when they signed her in 1939 and they didn't want to be seen pairing a teenager with older leading men. That's why for decades references gave her birth year as 1921, when in reality it was 1923. There are similar examples.
Thanks for your reply. pmiano said you were an interesting poster, and from what I've seen I said I agreed with him. Hope I haven't "talked" you ear off here.
Thanks for your reply hobnob. Some very interesting points there.
As regards Cagney two of my movie books give his date of birth as July 17 1904 and a third gives it as July 17 1899. There are two points that I'd like to raise about this -
I'v always taken 1904 as Cagney's date of birth for the simple reason that by applying it to his movies it looked right all thru his career -
Cagney looked 27 in 'The Public Enemy' 1931, he looked 35 in 'The Roaring Twenties' 1939 (I'd never have said that he was forty!!!!). In 1945 he looked 41, and in his last movie in 1961 he looked around 57 (once again I'd never have said that he was 62!!!!).
The second is that if Cagney had been born in 1899 he would certainly have been drafted into the army in late summer/autumn 1917 and would have been in combat in France in summer 1918. Yet I have never heard or read that he was ever in the army!!!!
However, if you know for certain that he was born in 1899, then I'll concede.
Also take the case of Betty Grable - date of birth given as December 18th 1916 yet she appeared in movies in 1929 and 1930 when she was twelve and thirteen years old!!!!!!!
Also I see that imdb gives Joan Crawford's year of birth as 1905 which means that she has four years of birth - 1904, 1905, 1906 and 1908 - it just gets more complicted!!!!
I looked at the IMDb info for James Cagney and it also says 1899. (No disputing the July 17 date.) Now, to me he always looked about the age he should have looked based on an 1899 birth year. As I said, I never heard the 1904 date, or any other year for that matter, and a couple of sources I've checked since our last exchange also say 1899...plus I don't think JC was the type of guy to falsify his birth date, especially by five years. And if so, why make himself older? Unfortunately I don't know any details about his military service (i.e., his lack thereof), but there could be many reasons he didn't serve. I'll see if I can find out anything.
I had mentioned Linda Darnell being "officially" made two years older because having a 16-year-old leading lady seemed pretty risque. Alice Faye was listed for decades as having been born in 1912, then in late life corrected it to 1915, saying she had been compelled to add years to her age to get work as a chorus girl at "16" (in reality 13). Apparently true. But few performers add years to their age unless, as in these two ladies' cases, there was a compelling reason to do so.
As for Betty Grable, I think she may indeed have acted that young. I never heard another birth year for her than 1916, but it wouldn't at all surprise me if she were four or five years older than that.
Remember the actor Francis Lederer? He was a Czech leading man in Europe before coming to America in the 30s. Never a top star, but around for a long time. He was always listed in the US as having been born in 1906, but that certainly didn't square with the fact that he served in the Austrian Imperial Army in WWI. Only many years later did he acknowledge his actual birth year as 1899 -- an amazing 7 years earlier than previously recorded. The 1906 date was an attempt by his American agent to prolong his status as a leading man, and he had the advantage of looking years younger than his age. Ultimately his true birth year became even more impressive when he passed away in 2000 at age 100.
As for Joan Crawford...who knows? She could have been born in 1892 for all we know.
A 60-something year old Master Sergeant serving in the 1940s would not have been far fetched at all. There is a photo somewhere of a MSGT. taken in 1942 who has so many hashmarks and wound chevrons from WW1 that he can't even fit his division insignia on his upper arm.
If he was playing a 65 year old CORPORAL, that'd be weirder.
LEE MARVIN in The Big Red One was more of an odd setup, being a WW1 veteran who by WW2 advanced to the *whopping* rank of Buck Sergeant.
No one takes them seriously in adult roles because they are physically boyish. For some reason, Hollywood is not interested in developing virile actors these days. Can you guess why?
shareI think it's because they can get Australian, British, and Canadian actors on the cheap. American women are suckers for foreign men. During WWII it was the reverse. A can of Spam and a pair of nylons don't go very far these days.
The trouble with young American actors is that they use short guys to keep them in kid roles and they play high school and college kids for so long, no one can take them seriously as adults. Michael J. Fox and Mark Wahlberg are the exceptions. Look at the TV sitcoms over the last 20-30 years. Most young men and women in real life tend to be at least a little taller than their parents, but on television they're much shorter for the most part. Also, look at guys like Ashton Kutcher. He'll be 35 tomorrow and he still plays 20-something stoners and slackers. Even his character on "Two and a Half Men" is a case of arrested development.
Foreign actors his age usually portray men, not perpetual boys. That type lost popularity with people over 21 in the 90s. The economy sucks, a war is still on, and the dot.com bubble burst decades ago. Young men don't have so many years to make their marks anymore. Yet Hollywood still glorifies the slacker. This from a business where performers often work 18-20 hour days while filming. It doesn't seem to affect women as much. It's changing gradually as women over 35 get to continue in sexy roles, but I was pretty sick of 47 year-old leading men with 25 year-old female co-stars as their girlfriends.
I think you basically got it. The market they are looking for favors developing the career of the perpetual boy. The consistent complaint from Hollywood for nearly 20 years now has been that 90% of the movies are made for adolescents, so there is no need to cultivate adult actors for adult rolesin the manner that was once taken for granted by generations of movie-goers. As for your last point, I don't mind it as long as it works on the screen, and it is not something I ever really even noticed very much until after I hit 50 myself.
Look, I'd like to have hot affairs with young girls too, but my wife won't let me. I did notice and I thought it was unfair. Women could start collecting the big bucks 10-15 years before guys could get good roles. Of course, unlike the men, they were usually washed up by 40. I don't think it worked on the screen. People just got used to it. Old men held on too long, playing roles much too young for them with women lovers their characters, who were not rich and famous movie stars, could never get in reality. I'm 63 and I still feel the way I did at 23. It won't kill Bruce Willis, now almost 58, to have a 48-year-old love interest. I respect your view on the last point, but it was always a sore spot with me.
shareSeveral Points:
1) John Ford was a huge FDR New Deal and Democrat most of his life. He only turned conservative in the 1960s as he was disappointed by the Vietnam war and the younger generation. We think of him conservative because he was a very strong military supporter (enlisted early in WW2), was religous in nature and cast John Wayne in a lot in movies. (Remember most Catholics were heavy Democrats 50 - 100 years ago.)
2) As much I like Ford, it seemed the only good movies he made after 1950 had John Wayne in them. Why is this? Probably lots of reasons, but Ford really had a hard dealing with treating the cast like equals. After WW2, employees expected bosses to treat them with better respect and I am guessing that Ford had a problem with this. Here you have your lead actor (Fonda) questioning your direction and that hardly ever happened in Ford's career. Add to fact, most of the cast, especially Cagney who did not crap from anybody, did not like Ford's antics. (John Wayne knew how to deal with it.)
3) Ford liked nothing better than getting his film crew and actors out of Hollywood with location shoots and sort have a summer camp atmosphere with Ford being the head counsler. Here you did not have this summer camp atmosphere.
1) Not all Northern Democrats were liberal, contrary to popular belief, which holds that only the racist Dixiecrats of the South were conservative. The Democratic left wing became dominant during the Vietnam War, and drove the more moderate and conservative ones, especially the staunch anti-Communists, to the GOP. Most leftist Democrats were so afraid of nuclear war they would do anything to placate the God-accursed Russians, who were as afraid of nuclear war as they were. This offended Ford, who always tried to maintain a macho facade to hide his true self.
2) Ford's kind of movie lost popularity as the American public became more sophisticated and jaded. He hated Fonda for his liberalism. Fonda was another hypocrite too. He championed human rights, but treated his wife and kids like dirt and his own staff like serfs.
3)If by summer camp you mean a lot of boozing, I agree. Cagney drank, but he wasn't a drunk, and insisted on total professionalism. The increasing lack of professionalism in Hollywood in fact was a contributing factor to his early retirement from films.
Thanks for that informative reality check. By the way, Mervyn LeRoy was the guy that directed Fonda in the theatrical version, so he was the natural replacement for Ford on this project.
This doesn't seem real likely. Fonda was a very accomplished and famous movie actor already by this point.
shareThat is true, but he was much too old to play Doug Roberts, who would have been 30 years old at most. Theater is a much more forgiving and esoteric medium, which is why 40 year old men and 38 year old women play Romeo and Juliet on the stage to this day. In the movies, they are played by actors in their early 20s or even their teens, which is historically more accurate, and more realistic. I know this was done for the box office, but it didn't always work, and delayed or even prevented the stardom of younger actors. Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter are two excellent examples.
shareLet's correct an error posted earlier:
"Fonda never spoke to Ford again, yet another actor that Ford had got on the wrong side of."
Wrong. They made "How the West was Won" and there is a photo of Ford and Fonda taken in 1964.