by C McGivern
He was still $1.5 million short of construction costs and needed another $5.5 million to shoot the film. All of it had to be raised from private sources but, with every other element in place, Duke guessed it wouldn’t be too difficult to raise the rest of the money from wealthy Texan businessmen. For some time he had been tapping their patriotism, eagerly explaining that a story of such universal appeal couldn’t fail, especially now he had a big backer and had already signed several big stars to the project. He personally appealed to Texan Governor, Price Daniel, asking him if he could put him in touch with “some wealthy men who would be willing to risk their money in a good cause.” The seeds, planted when the Texans attacked him for wanting to film in Mexico, were about to burst into fruition. Governor Daniel was eager to help and provided a list of prospective investors.
Duke insisted on doing all the leg work himself and, armed with his personal introductions, he became a dedicated salesman, working night and day, selling a dream. And he was amply rewarded when money started pouring in from local oil and cattle barons. Many of them sent notes with their cheques saying they didn’t care whether they got their money back or not, so long as he made the film he promised. He quickly hit his $5.5 million target and in 1960 revealed the final breakdown of his backers in Variety Magazine; UA invested $2.5 million for ten percent of profit, the McCullough brothers; $3 million, Clint Murchison; $2.5 million, the Yale Foundation; $1.5 million, he and Batjac made up the balance. The final cost of the movie was reported to be $12 million and Duke’s personal investment in it was huge.
He hired Walter Ybarra, an art director he had worked with many times before and who was renowned in the business for saving production costs, to help him design and build the set. Over a six year period they had made several trips to San Antonio to take precise measurements of the buildings that would be represented in the film and together planned the most authentically detailed film set ever created. Consideration of camera angles meant some accuracy had to be forsaken but on one point neither Duke nor Ybarra would shift; the whole set was to be built from authentic adobe bricks. Laborers were brought from Mexico to make the twelve million bricks needed to construct the two hundred thousand square feet of permanent buildings to effectively recreate San Antonio as it looked in 1836.
Immediately building got under way six wells were drilled to ensure a good water supply ran through the twelve miles of underground water and sewage lines that were laid. Five hundred acres of corrals were erected. Fourteen miles of heavy duty roads were built to cater for the increased traffic to the area and a large air strip was put down so film could be flown out daily to be developed back in Hollywood. Even an indoor set was created. Duke’s insistence on accuracy held up shooting for a year in a delay that gave him time to make three more films, the proceeds of which were all ploughed straight into The Alamo.
For ten years he had been talking to the stars he wanted to sign for his picture. He was only interested in the biggest names such as Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster, but when neither was free he made the unusual choices of British star, Laurence Harvey to play William Travis and Richard Widmark for Jim Bowie. Duke wanted to create a family feel to the production and he signed old friends and his son Patrick for the other parts, he even persuaded Pilar to allow Aissa to be in it, and Michael served as assistant producer. He and his eldest son had many heated arguments over casting, and great tension built up between them, “The arguments were on an hourly basis. We were always at it. It’s just a natural thing, nothing to do with being father and son; it had to do with being a star and a producer. It was always combat over whether we could spend money or not. My father would ask me what I was doing, and I would answer “I’m producing this film.”
Duke was drained and physically exhausted before he even started pre-production in Bracketville. He had set himself a punishing schedule; when he wasn’t involved in the shooting of The Barbarian and The Geisha, Rio Bravo or The Horse Soldiers he was on the phone doing deals, badgering, wheedling, organizing, or flying down to his set to oversee the work going on there. Apart from all his other concerns he also had to give some thought to how he was going to play Crockett. He had no director to offer advice so he spent time studying original letters and talking to local historians about the character. He found a warm, witty man, full of fun and devilment, a man with a vision who had left his wife and children to search for land and prosperity. He was a man Duke readily understood, “Crockett never ate on an empty stomach nor drank on a full one. That gave me an idea how to make a human being out of a legend. Actually I suppose Travis would have been a better part for me but I didn’t want to go hogging the picture.”
Shooting began on 9th September 1959. He had gathered three hundred longhorn cattle, leased sixteen hundred horses, housed a permanent crew of 342 people, had costumes prepared for six thousand extras, the catering company kept 41 full-time workers on the set, and during filming some 190,000 meals were served. Duke ensured everyone was well fed according to his own standard. He ordered 120,000 pounds of steak, roast beef, veal, hamburger and sausage, 500,000 eggs, 400,000 bottles of milk and 1.5 million rolls.
Patrick said, “Watching my father at work was revealing. He ate, slept and dreamed The Alamo.”
Everyone involved was left shattered by the monumental effort, but for many it remained the most exciting four months of their lives. Mary St John commented, “I had to leave my husband behind for those four months, but everything was Duke’s total responsibility and that meant he had to have me with him. Everything about it took on epic proportions and we did so much night work we often had dinner at midnight. All the others would be out fighting the war, and I don’t think anyone but me and Duke knew what had to be done so they could all eat. He was so considerate of the crew.” Pilar added, “He wasn’t making a movie, he was on a crusade. And I fell in love with him all over again. He invested all his heart and soul in it but the toll on him was tremendous. He was everywhere at once, arranging props, correcting the extras, praising people. I felt frightened for him. He went through such anguish.” In fact he found the organization relatively easy and he felt enormously rewarded as he saw things coming together. He enjoyed walking around his set at dawn watching the dream come alive in front of his eyes. His voice could be heard everywhere, barking out orders as he passed. He continued his daily consultations with Ybarra who said, “Duke had a great eye for detail and for film composition, though he was never given the credit he deserved.”
At Batjac he had gathered together the finest talent in Hollywood, and he was as confident about his employees as he was of his own ability, he didn’t mind who got the credit so long as every detail was just right. He leaned heavily on his son, Michael, and although they might have argued hourly, Duke trusted him to get his orders carried out. Still, he wasn’t left entirely without headaches, and Linda Cristal, his co-star, said, “He was working for results and he didn’t go in for diplomacy. When he exploded his fury scorched many. He and Richard Widmark had some thunderous confrontations.”
Widmark was notoriously difficult to work with and Duke soon found the rumors he’d heard were understatements. When he hired him, he placed an advert in The Hollywood Reporter, “Welcome aboard, Dick. Duke.” When the two first met Widmark told him moodily, “Tell your press agent that the name is Richard.” Duke stared down at him, lit a cigarette with the greatest deliberation and waited for his temper to subside before murmuring softly, “If I ever take another ad, I‘ll remember that, Richard.”
Two days into shooting, as Wayne sat down to dinner with his family, Widmark burst into the room shouting he was quitting because he felt miscast. Duke, at his most dangerous, said quietly, “Richard, I want to have dinner with my family. We can discuss this later.” Widmark continued to insist they talk then. Duke finally slammed his two paws on the table and stood up to order him out. Whatever the difficulties, he couldn’t afford to lose Widmark. If he walked out, production would be delayed whilst a replacemen
t was found and with costs running at $90,000 a day, he couldn’t risk losing even an hour.
After finishing his dinner he strolled across to Widmark’s cabin. Raised voices could be heard for some time before Duke finally threatened legal action. Widmark, forced to back down, became extremely difficult on set, and constantly criticized Duke’s efforts in front of the rest of the cast. After three weeks of such treatment Duke, who had been trying his best to stay calm, blew his top, chased Widmark across the set, threw him up against a wall, and promised physical violence to go with the lawsuit. His outburst had the effect of calming them both for a while, though no one could have ever have described them as friends.
Tension ran high throughout filming, but the murder of actress LaJean Ethridge in Bracketville was only the worst of the many disasters that beset production. She and her boyfriend, Charles Smith, had signed on as extras, but Ethridge was given a better part and Smith, jealous of her success, plunged a twelve inch knife into her chest. The under-pressure Duke reacted like the egocentric director that he wasn’t, bellowing as his frustration boiled over, “Jeeeesus Keee-rist. This is all I needed!” In his defense he was struggling through a tidal wave of problems, smoking up to six packs of cigarettes a day and hardly eating. He was pushing all the crew hard but was toughest on himself. Later he felt regret, remorse and of course, guilt, at his reaction to the death of one of his team.
The location and the work proved stressful for them all. Most of the cast and crew had never seen an area like it, with its scorpions, rattlesnakes and cockroaches. The heat and humidity were unbearable, with temperatures soaring to 84 before ten in the morning, but it wasn’t the dry desert heat Duke was used to, and in his buckskin costume and coonskin hat, sweat poured off him. He frequently had to change his clothes twice before even getting in front of the cameras himself. He lost eight to ten pounds every day and suffered from a burning, dry sore throat. He drank water constantly, but it made no difference and he was often dizzy and weak, suffering the effects of dehydration. Finally he got rid of the hat which rubbed his forehead raw as his skin peeled away under it. Like everyone else, he was extremely uncomfortable, unlike everyone else, he had constant worries and production problems to cope with. Fortunately he also had his extraordinary energy and whilst he worried about everything somehow, down in Bracketville, Duke was a happy man. He was where he had wanted to be for so long.
One of his main worries centered on his daughter, Aissa, not then four. She was untrained and was sometimes frightened by the noisy action going on around her. Throughout filming he gently encouraged her and she eventually completed her scenes to his satisfaction and pride. He ranted and raved in his loudest voice at everyone else, but never lost patience with his girl and his tenderness toward her surprised outsiders who didn’t know him well. Whenever she finished a scene she looked at him and asked, “You’re proud of me aren’t you Daddy?” After her constant question Duke found himself faced with all his main actors asking him the same thing as each scene was wrapped. He appreciated the joke and it never failed to bring a smile to his face.
He smiled a lot on location and particularly enjoyed bi-sexual Englishman Harvey’s sharp sense of humor. The tough guy fell about laughing when effete Harvey minced through the cream of Hollywood’s stuntmen to tweak his cheek and call him, “Dukey.” Happy Shahan said, “Duke was having fun. There was a big heart beating in that frame and all kinds of people responded to his warmth.”
Though he smiled a lot and was clearly enjoying himself there was always something going wrong in spite of his careful planning. There was always someone demanding his attention, always something requiring his decision. Eventually, inevitably, he tired and became irritable and difficult. The hundred and twenty cigarettes a day he was smoking probably didn’t help, and they certainly contributed to his painful throat and persistent cough. He collapsed each night into a restless sleep around midnight and then got up at four to start drinking coffee, light his first cigarette and get ready to face the problems of another day.
Pilar said, “For the next two hours, before he went off to start shooting, I listened to his barking cough. I was worried for him. He sounded like he was tearing himself up. I pleaded with him to see a doctor.” He asked how she thought he could afford to break the schedule, and he even angrily refused the cough mixture she offered, saying it made him tired. He was chain smoking, lighting each cigarette from the last. He was well aware of the damage he was doing to himself but needed the comfort as he suddenly began to fear he might have taken on too much.
Duke demanded perfection of himself in front of the camera, but now, as director, he was looking for effort to equal his own from the rest of the cast. He led by example but the demands he made on the others were all but impossible to meet. Because he was so tired he became intolerant of mistakes and shortfalls, and was quickly fired up. One afternoon, as he tried to direct a complicated scene, he was distracted by voices behind him, he tried to ignore it but eventually flared, “Jesusfucking Christ! Shut up back there!” He spun round to continue the blast only to find the culprits were a party of nuns on an excursion to Happy Shahan‘s ranch! He turned red, felt dreadful, apologized profusely and went back sheepishly to continue the scene.
Everybody was concerned about the strain he put himself under, but Pilar discovered they worried needlessly, “He had memorized not only the whole script, but the page references as well, knew by heart where every word appeared, and he had no need to even refer to the script through the whole filming process. Each day he carried in his head a detailed vision of every shot he wanted. Each night he figured out every camera angle for the next day. He went to set prepared for every eventuality-barring murder, and all the other unforeseen misfortune that happened.” The cast and crew respected what he was trying to do, they understood the difficulties he faced and responded by giving that little bit more too.
Of all the problems he faced, the worst arrived late in the day in the person of John Ford. The director had been sitting around at home, bored and depressed, when he decided to visit Duke’s location. He wrote to his friend Michael Killanin, “I hope to go to Texas and cast a paternal eye on Duke Wayne. This young and ambitious lad of fifty six years is writing, producing, acting and directing The Alamo with the excessive budget of five million bucks.” He turned up three weeks into shooting announcing he was taking a little vacation with them all.
Back in 1950 when Duke first mentioned his plans to the press it had been assumed that Ford would direct the film, and the rumors had never died. But The Alamo was his film, and Duke believed his whole future rode on its success. Having Ford drop by unannounced threw him into a no-win situation. If the film was unsuccessful the critics would blame him, if it was good the same critics would attribute it to Ford, so the last person he wanted to see in Bracketville was Coach, “I’m directing this picture; it’s my picture, good, bad or indifferent-I’m gonna rise and fall with it; it’s costing a lot of money and I’ve got the money and I don’t want anybody else to run me. If I’d wanted Jack to direct it Batjac could have signed him and it would have been made ten years earlier with any of the studios who rejected my idea out of hand.”
Ford was full of advice for the novice and naturally tried to take things over. On the day he arrived he followed Duke around, peered over his shoulder, pulled up a chair next to the camera and began telling everyone what to do. At night he wanted to play cards and drink like they had always done before. Although Duke could just about manage a shower, a massage, and dinner with his family before falling into bed, he was deeply concerned about the old man. He understood how much Coach needed to feel wanted on his massive project and there was no way he could bring himself to ask him to leave. His soft heart wouldn’t allow him to reject the man who had given him everything; he simply could not be disloyal, under any circumstances. He kept remembering how bad Ford had looked when they finished work on The Horse Soldiers, and now, though it shattered him, and annoyed Pilar, he sat
up playing cards and talking into the early hours. Duke had watched John Ford fall apart, now on the set of The Alamo, he began putting him back together, bringing him back to life, making him feel wanted and valued.
It wasn’t easy and Ford nearly drove Duke mad in Bracketville. He heard constant criticism of his efforts over his shoulder as he tried to concentrate, “You didn’t do that right Duke. You can do better than that… And your walk there…” He confessed to cinematographer, William Clothier, “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.” The cameraman suggested letting Ford loose with a second unit. Duke smiled his relief, asked Jimmy Grant to write some extra scenes, and sent Coach off happy with a cameraman and Michael as his assistant. Michael was ordered to keep Ford away when work was being done on any of the main scenes and not to let him talk to any of the stars. Between them they kept Ford occupied for weeks looking after the Mexican extras.
When he eventually went home Duke wrote thanking him for his help. Very little that he’d worked on ended up in the film and Clothier maintained that Duke had never intended that it would, although it cost him an extra $250,000. He spent a quarter of a million dollars of the money he had struggled so hard to raise to keep John Ford happy, telling his son, “Look, let him do anything he wants, I’ll pay. I don’t care what it costs, I am not going to let him feel rejected. I’d rather spend another million dollars than hurt his feelings.”