The 1946 ultimatum John Wayne gave to save a movie masterpiece: “By god, he learned fast”
If a filmmaker needed some pointers on how to make the best possible western, then they could have done a lot worse than talking to John Wayne, who defined the genre for a generation and more.
‘The Duke’ has become more synonymous with the medium than any actor not named Clint Eastwood, and as a result, he was entitled to think he knew as much about how to make them as anyone. When a director unfamiliar with the western wanted to cast him as the lead in one, he had some ground rules.
It didn’t matter that the filmmaker had already proven themselves as one of the most talented auteurs in the business; when you step into John Wayne’s chosen arena with John Wayne as your leading man, it’s either his way or the highway, and taking his way led to one of the greatest westerns of all time.
He might have already helmed Scarface, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, The Big Sleep, and other ‘Golden Age’ favourites, but Howard Hawks had never tackled a western before Red River. Wayne, meanwhile, had dozens of them under his belt, and he was more than happy to impose his will on the production.
Long before a single frame had been shot, with the picture going into production in 1946, ‘The Duke’ had a meeting with Hawks and Charles K Feldman, his agent and a producer on several of his pictures, and he wasn’t impressed with the location. “You don’t make westerns by sitting around a swimming pool,” he remarked. “I could see Howard Hawks and Feldman, well, what they knew about making westerns amounted to a pitcher of warm spit.”
That didn’t instil him with much confidence, and when they told him about the financial side of Red River, he knew then and there that he wouldn’t stand for it. “They had a budget of just under a million and a half,” Wayne explained. “My own salary was $150,000, and a percentage. I told them if they can’t get United Artists to spend two million five, they would never make this picture.”
By the end of the meeting, the film’s budget had been doubled, and ‘The Duke’ couldn’t have made himself any clearer as to why it needed to cost so much. “The next thing I said after I straightened them out on the budget was about these Arizona cowboys,” he reflected. “No dice. Absolutely no amateurs. I told them flat out, ‘I don’t go in on this deal unless you get some professional western actors and a dozen trained western stuntmen.'”
By the time they went their separate ways after the meeting, Wayne had gotten everything he wanted. He didn’t ask for more money, but when he made it clear that if Red River wasn’t given a budget substantial enough to give it a proper cast, crew, and scope for its action sequences, he’d walk away. “Hawks followed my lead,” he smirked. “And by god, he learned fast and found out how to make westerns.”
In the end, Red River wasn’t just a good western: it was one of the best westerns ever made. Would it have turned out anywhere near as great had ‘The Duke’ not given Hawks and Feldman his ultimatum? Probably not, since it would have cost a lot less, been made by a less experienced crew, and featured another actor as Thomas Dunson. Had it failed, though, it would have been Wayne’s neck on the line.
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