The John Wayne movie that John Ford tried to ruin: “He’s gonna take over the goddamn picture”
In September 1959, John Wayne was finally able to start production on a passion project he’d been trying to bring to life for 14 long, back-breaking years.
As far back as 1945, The Duke wanted to take the legendary Battle of the Alamo to the big screen, and a script was developed in 1948. However, Republic Pictures baulked at the purported $3million budget and refused to make the film. Wayne was so furious that he left his contract with Republic, but the legalities didn’t allow him to take the script to another studio. So, in 1955, it was rewritten and turned into The Last Command, which starred Sterling Hayden, much to Wayne’s dismay.
In the end, though, Wayne got what he wanted – he just had to form his own production company, Batjac, and come up with $1.5m in funding to do it. In 1956, he signed a deal with United Artists, which would provide $2.5m to make the film, with Wayne sourcing the rest of the now-$4m budget by taking out second mortgages on his homes. Interestingly, he initially intended to make his directorial debut with the movie, but not star in it. However, the $2.5m from UA was contingent on him lending the project his star power, so he reluctantly put on his cowboy boots yet again.
All this is to say, the Duke walked an awfully long road to get The Alamo made, and he had more of his own skin in the game than ever before as well. It’s easy to imagine his grim expression, then, when his old frenemy John Ford turned up a couple of weeks into the shoot. He wasn’t invited, and he didn’t have any particular role to play. Still, he arrived, plonked his director’s chair right next to cinematographer William H Clothier, and began telling Wayne everything he was doing wrong.
Now, it must be said that Wayne loved Ford most of the time. The notoriously cranky director had previously helmed Duke in 11 movies, several of which were among his most beloved (Stagecoach, The Quiet Man, The Searchers), and the two had a father-son bond that could never be broken. In fact, Ford was the man who first gave Wayne his chance in Hollywood by hiring him as a prop boy, before noticing he had on-screen potential.
However, they also fought like cats and dogs at times, even getting into screaming matches on many of their sets. In addition, Ford had an uncanny knack of making people feel small and insignificant, and he aimed it at Wayne, supposedly his friend, almost as much as his enemies. So, when he poked his nose into The Alamo and began micromanaging everything Wayne was trying to accomplish, the iconic star couldn’t help feeling undermined.
“He’d sit there watching Duke direct, and this intimidated Duke, which didn’t help his concentration,” Clothier claimed in John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth. “Ford would loudly say, ‘Jesus Christ, Duke, that’s not the way to do it.’”
This time, though, Wayne was determined not to lose his cool with Ford. He wanted the cast and crew to respect him as a director, so he knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to get into a fight with one of the industry’s greatest directors right in front of everyone. Clothier claimed Wayne was “very patient” with Ford’s backseat directing, but also alleged that, in a quiet moment, he complained, “He’s gonna take over the whole goddamn picture. What the hell am I gonna do?”
Ultimately, Wayne came up with a novel solution that suited everybody. He gave Ford a substantial part of the crew and a decent chunk of the budget to oversee second-unit footage of wagon trails executing river crossings. Barely any of this footage made it into the final cut, but then again, it was never meant to; it was simply a way to keep Ford busy so Wayne didn’t have to tell him to get lost.
“I don’t care what it costs,” Wayne admitted in John Wayne, Shooting Star. “But I am not going to let him feel rejected. I’d rather spend a million dollars than hurt his feelings.”
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