The 1963 movie John Wayne wanted to delete from history: “Just plain bad judgment”
If an actor thinks a movie sounds like a bad idea, then it goes without saying they shouldn’t make it. John Wayne was established, powerful, and rich enough to turn his nose up at anything that didn’t tickle his fancy, but when his backbone failed him, all he was left with were regrets.
Once he’d settled into his groove as one of Hollywood’s most famous, highest-paid, and bankable stars, ‘The Duke’ developed a way of working. He’d only be directed by people he trusted, and if they let him down on the first occasion, he’d never work with them again, which happened more than a few times.
If he wasn’t sold on a script but still liked the story, he’d more often than not call up his close friend, long-time collaborator, and regular screenwriter James Edward Grant to do a pass and polish. As for the cast, most of Wayne’s star vehicles tended to feature at least one member of his inner circle, if not more.
Since he spent decades as one of the most reliable box office draws in the business, it was clear that what was a generally narrow-minded approach to his career worked wonders. However, there was one man who could torpedo the ‘Golden Age’ icon heavyweight’s methods in an instant and drive him to madness just as quickly, and that was, of course, John Ford.
‘The Duke’ could never bring himself to say no to the man he called ‘Pappy’, not to mention the tyrannical and often short-tempered filmmaker who’d given him his breakthrough role and become a friend, mentor, and father figure, all rolled into one. By many accounts, Ford was an arsehole, and he was often an arsehole to Wayne, but he didn’t have it in him to stand his ground.
As a result, when Ford informed his protégé that he was directing a light-hearted adventure comedy about a trio of Navy veterans getting caught up in saloon brawls, deception, double-crossing, romance, and a family fortune, he agreed to play the leading role in 1963’s Donovan’s Reef, even though he really didn’t want to.
In the aftermath, Wayne admitted that Ford “never should have used me in that picture,” and that he “should have picked some young guy instead.” He thought the tone of the film would have been much better served by somebody who wasn’t pushing 60 when it was made, and with his love interest being played by a 34-year-old Elizabeth Allen, you’d have to say he was right.
Regardless, whenever ‘Pappy’ asked ‘The Duke’ to jump, he’d always ask how high. Cinematographer William Clothier, another confidant who lensed over a dozen of Wayne’s pictures, felt exactly the same way. Ironically, the aforementioned Grant had written a draft of Donovan’s Reef, but it was rejected by Ford, who got Frank Nugent to pen another one.
“You’ve got to blame the old man for things like that,” Clothier maintained. “Just plain bad judgment.” It was far from the worst entry in Wayne’s filmography, but since he was never invested in the movie from the second he became involved, it wound up as one of his biggest and most embarrassing regrets.
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