by C McGivern
Clothier, known as “Wayne’s cameraman,” worked long and hard on the film but said no one worked harder than Duke, “He knew the script backwards. He knew every line better than the actors did. In the morning we would have breakfast together and go out onto location and discuss every shot for that day, and which we were going to start with. He knew the script so well and what he wanted so precisely that he was never seen to refer to the pages of his script and more than once he ruined Davy Crockett scenes because he was mouthing the other guy’s lines to himself. I’d motion to him and he’d go, “awww”, we’d cut and have to start again. Duke knew himself that he had severe limitations as a director but his crew and actors seemed to accept that he knew what he was doing, and responded with style.”
The word on the set was, “Duke can run all over you and knock you down, but he will always come back, pick you up, dust you off and say, “Sorry,” in that sheepish way he has.” Most recognized his generosity and he seemed able to command the deepest loyalty from his employees, “He was just as likely to make a joke when something went wrong as he was to chew someone out over it.”
He had a good eye for composition, knew which shots would work and how to create mood, but he had little talent and no patience for explaining to other actors how he wanted them to move. He tried to demonstrate what he wanted, but Duke worked fast and was prepared to carry on till he dropped in his effort to get something just right. He demanded the same of others. Most didn’t match his requirements and the combined demands of producing, directing and acting all but overwhelmed him, and them. Mounting production costs put him under constant strain and caused him to try to work even faster than normal.
He could always be heard shouting at someone. He simply didn’t have the time to quietly explain what he wanted. He barked out his orders and expected everyone to understand and follow them to the letter. Ken Curtis who starred in films with Duke over many years said, “He was great at action. But directing actors, I was not all that pleased with him. All he told you to do was his mannerisms, but his mannerisms were unique, and others could not easily copy them. When anyone tried to emulate his body movements they appeared contrived.” A smile was even seen on the face of Richard Widmark when Duke called out, “Goddammit, be graceful, like me,” he couldn’t think of another actor with the grace of John Wayne.
Initially Duke had planned to film in Cinerama which he knew would have been magnificent for the action sequences. But he had learned his lesson from the experiments on The Big Trail and Hondo. Cinerama required specially constructed theatre screens which would have made it far too expensive and would also affect distribution. He opted instead for the new 70mm Todd-AO process, which had been so successful for South Pacific, and which didn’t require expensive adaptions, “We found an exciting manner for opening the picture to take advantage of the wide-screen process.”
Clothier had five Todd-AO cameras set up every day, and before each scene was filmed he and Duke visited the cameramen to review their assignments and block every shot. The final scenes involved thousands of actors, extras and horses, all moving in furious battle sequences. All five cameras had to be perfectly synchronized. Duke wanted shooting complete by December 20th because that was when the rains were due; he and Clothier were so successful that he was able to send everyone home on the fifteenth.
The original budget of $7.5 million proved inadequate in the extreme. Just as he was about to shoot the final scenes UA contacted him to advise him he was running $400,000 short, and that they had no more money to give him. He had already pledged his own salary from the film to cover any shortfall. Even that would not be enough and he was forced to dip into his own pocket again just to finish those last impressive shots. He took out a second mortgage on the family home, sold property in Mexico, and borrowed the rest against his personal possessions. His debt was such that until the film grossed $17 million he wouldn’t see a penny profit, but he believed he had made an epic story and said, “It was never about money for me. It was about a group of men who believed in liberty enough to die for it. It was about them and it was about my soul too. It was right that I gambled everything on it. My whole well-being was at stake.”
Aissa later said, “I think The Alamo became my father’s own form of combat. More than an obsession, it was the most intensely personal project of his career.” It was where he explained himself, his passions, lifestyle, patriotism and even his failed marriages, it was his “Open Letter” to America, and it told more about him than it did about Texas in 1836, “It was the first time in my life I’d been able to express what I felt about people.”
He later discovered that UA had lied to him. They’d had the extra money all along, but had decided not to use it, knowing he would come up with it even if he killed himself getting it, knowing he couldn’t leave his dream unfinished. Though the risks he took scared him, he always felt the money he had plowed into those last scenes was money well spent, and twenty years after its completion most directors agreed that John Wayne’s battle scenes from The Alamo, were some of the finest ever shot.
When filming was over Duke had lost thirty pounds in weight as well as a personal fortune, he was exhausted, left shattered by the whole experience. When he got back to Hollywood it was to find 560,000 feet of film waiting to be edited. He looked at the monumental task still ahead of him with some trepidation but had enough confidence in the first footage he saw to realize that he had fulfilled his ambitions. He decided against resting and rushed straight into the editing suite with a specially gathered team. It took a further month to get the exact image he wanted then he flew straight on to film North to Alaska with Henry Hathaway, a film he had long been contracted to do. Whilst he was away he allowed John Ford to see the director’s cut. He contacted Duke to congratulate him on the huge hit he was going to have on his hands.
Even as he worked in Alaska he was still involved on a daily basis with Batjac and The Alamo, polishing it, making sure everything was perfect for a launch date in August 1960. And although he was tired he knew it was already time to start making personal appearances on behalf of his film. He had been involved in everything to do with it and he couldn’t hand it over now just because shooting and editing was finished. He personally controlled publicity, he set up the photographic shots of the paintings he had selected for the opening credits, and he worked closely with Tiomkin on the soundtrack, explaining in detail exactly how he wanted key scenes underlined.
All day, every day, over the next months he was up to his neck in some chore relating to The Alamo. He never took a second to recover from the effort he had put in on location in Texas. Finally, on June 8th, he ordered a negative to be cut in its final form which ran 192 minutes together with the prints to be processed from that negative. He felt drained and ill, but devoted a further ninety days to a gruelling schedule of publicity tours. He badly needed to rest, not just his body, which could take more than most, but his brain too. He could hardy think anymore and just wanted to put his head down on a pillow somewhere. But there was to be no rest; he organized the premiere of the long awaited dream himself, planning the most spectacular night in motion picture history, a night fitting his film. In mid-September he was due to start another thirty day personal appearance tour and he prepared the schedule like a front-line general.
He took no risks as he prepared a massive, patriotic and politically conscious advertising campaign. He hired Russell Birdwell, publicist for Gone With the Wind, to help design a program to suit his needs. Birdwell linked the film to the Cold War and asked Richard Nixon to help promote it. Nixon, anticipating Wayne’s support in the forthcoming Presidential election, was eager to assist. Hollywood had seen a recent shift in political mood, the anti-communist crusade had lost steam after the failure of McCarthyism in 1954, and whilst fear of the Soviet Union had increased as the Cold War reached its height, paranoia over domestic subversion had all but disappeared. The Hollywood liberals of the forties were re-emerging unopposed, and Commu
nism remained a real threat in Duke’s mind.
In May 1960 he let everyone know his feelings, publicly criticizing Frank Sinatra for using a screenplay by a blacklisted writer about Eddie Slovak, the only American executed for desertion during World War Two. Sinatra, infuriated by the interference and the resulting bad press, was forced to sack the writer. Later in the month when the two met at a benefit for children they almost came to blows, and friends only just managed to separate them before punches were traded in front of the surprised children. The ensuing publicity didn’t worry Duke, he used it to full advantage to advertise his views on the dangers of Communism and his film at the same time.
When he was finally satisfied he had done his very best he turned his future over to the American public, scheduling the premiere for San Antonio at the end of October 1960. In July, whilst he was filming North to Alaska, he and several crew members sat down to a poker game which lasted long into the early hours. By 8 am the next morning the fifty three year old who had not had a day off in months was on set, in make-up ready for the day’s action. Filming, however, was delayed until the rest of the card players straggled in, red-eyed and exhausted. Duke shouted loudly across the set, “Well, here come the kids. I had to tuck them in last night.” He added under his breath, “The country’s going soft.” And America, it seemed, agreed with him. Toughness and heroism in the face of an external enemy became a central issue in the presidential election campaign, issues exactly reflected in The Alamo.
Duke naturally supported Nixon’s tough anti-communist stand against Kennedy’s more liberal approach. He disliked all the Kennedys, believing they were soft and unimpressive because they had never had to work. He saw them as self-serving people who lusted after power, and had no moral vision. He referred to John Kennedy as a, “Snot nosed kid who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants,” - his own agent found girls for the Kennedys whenever they were in Hollywood! He also believed much of Kennedy’s prize winning Profiles in Courage had been ghost written by Theodore Sorenson. One week before the Democratic and Republican conventions, Duke spent $152,000 on a three page advert in the Fourth of July edition of Life magazine. It was the first time such an ad had ever been placed. It was written by Duke and Birdwell, “Very soon the two great political parties will nominate their candidates for President. One of these men will be assigned the awesome duties of the White House… In this moment when eternity could be closer than ever before, is there a statesman… who knows that the American softness must be hardened? … There were no ghost-writers at the Alamo. Only Men.”
The advert was an unprecedented and quite phenomenal success. It also whipped up a political storm. Several times reporters asked Kennedy if he thought Duke had aimed it at him. He avoided answering. As the opening date for the launch of the film approached Duke stepped up the hype, announcing, “Nobody should come to see this movie unless he believes in heroes.”
He arranged some secret previews of the film throughout the country to test audience reaction whilst there was still time to make adjustments if necessary. In Denver a 900 seat theatre sold out days before it was shown even though the title of the film had never been mentioned in any advertising! He couldn’t have wished for a better response. The film received a standing ovation from fans who cheered all the way through the special screening. After the film finished the audience was asked to complete a questionnaire and to return the cards to Batjac offices. The replies, which indicated a huge hit, were even better than Duke had hoped for. He decided on the back of them that no fine tuning was necessary.
The strain of the year’s work had begun to take its inevitable toll, “I’ve got a helluva cold. I’m starting to fold and I need to sleep for about thirty hours.” In the months since filming finished he had filled every day with promotional activity, he’d attended meetings, appeared on TV and radio, talked at press conferences and gone to every award ceremony, lunch and dinner, he had constantly been on the move until, by September, he hardly knew where he was or what the time was. His cough and throat deteriorated and when he finally saw his doctor he was ordered to cancel all the remaining dates of the promotional tour so he could go home to recover in time for the October premiere. He was told he was suffering from acute bronchitis.
On Monday, October 24th 1960 crowds lined the streets of San Antonio, despite a heavy and unusual rainfall, to catch a glimpse of John Wayne as he travelled from his hotel to the theatre. When he arrived it was to a huge cheer and he told his fans, “It’s mighty wonderful of you to turn out in rain like this. We’ve done the very best we could with the picture. I hope you all get to see it.”
The audience in San Antonio had paid $50 a ticket to see the film but the reaction to it was exactly the same as when it had been screened at the sneak previews, with the crowd of dignitaries shouting all the way through it. They reserved the loudest and longest cheer for the first appearance of Davy Crockett, and when it was all over Duke received another standing ovation.
He had done everything he could, and now he waited; he was quietly hopeful, but hardly dared expect any praise from the critics. The reviews in the Texas papers were generally good although some mentioned historical inaccuracies and commented that perhaps the film was over long. Duke was already in London for the English premiere by the time the first East Coast reviews came out. Again and again they criticized the length of the film. After London he flew directly to Rome for the Italian premiere, and from there he went on to Africa to start work on Hatari, another Hathaway film. He had no time to attend the biggest show of them all, when The Alamo finally hit Hollywood, his home town.
More and more reviews came out as the film hit each big American city. Some were good, none were great. They generally praised the message of the film and the battle scenes. Some said it would sweep the Academy Awards, but as usual his own performance hardly rated a mention. He was disappointed by the early reaction, even though he had expected nothing better, but he was worried by the luke warm comments in the trade papers. They were only average at best, with Variety saying his portrayal of Crockett was stiff and tense, that he acted like a man with $12 million on his conscience. Deep down he recognized the truth of the criticism but the words stung nevertheless. Even his leading lady now took a shot, complaining that he had seemed preoccupied throughout filming, “During the love scenes his eyes were open, but the shutters were down.”
One critic, repeating that it was too long, went on to say it was also boring. Duke could accept all the political hits, all the personal criticism, but couldn’t bear to think of his work of art as boring or embarrassing. He took the reviews personally and was devastated. He had been counting on good reviews to help him recoup some of his financial investment. He had to save the film quickly before it got lost and he raced back to the editing suite where he spent four days re-splicing, cutting almost 30 minutes from the film before releasing it to any more theaters.
In fact, as was normally the case with his films, what the reviewers said made little difference, and in the first few weeks business was brisk. Within two months it had earned two million dollars. Not bad, but nowhere near the $17 million he needed to break even. The 1961 Oscars became critical, and from his base in Africa he launched his first attack, stepping up Birdwell’s original campaign. The Alamo received six Academy Award nominations; Best Sound, Best Song, Best Cinematography, Best Score, Best Supporting Actor (Chill Wills), and Best Movie; success in any category would help receipts.
Duke hated the “garbage” that Hollywood was producing, saying the industry was now, “polluted with perversion.” He frequently lashed out at the filth he saw on screen, “My picture is all about men and women who were prepared to stand up and fight for the right to live decently. The other nominated films are about corruption, greed, and perversion.” Elmer Gantry, The Apartment, Sons and Lovers, Butterfield 8 and Never on a Sunday, contained everything he hated most and he became increasingly outspoken against them. Spartacus, starring Kirk Douglas, called for a di
fferent line of attack, its story about a slave uprising against Roman masters, was untouchable. It was however based on a book written by Communist, Howard East, and the screenplay was ghost written by Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood Ten, who was still blacklisted.
Although Duke’s ad, “There were no ghost-writers at the Alamo,” had been a sideswipe at Kennedy, it was a more direct attack on Trumbo and Douglas. The Alamo carried an obvious political message, but so too did Spartacus and Duke used the Oscar campaign to let people to know how he felt about Douglas using a Communist to write a film about revolution to be screened across America.
As the campaign gathered momentum the Left stepped up their attack and Duke shot back from the hip; it was standard, routine and acceptable fare. But Birdwell’s own battle of words was less responsible. By March he was out of control, leading to much embarrassment in the Wayne camp and Duke himself sensed that Birdwell’s responses to the Press appeared desperate and petty, “I felt sickened by the whole thing.” He wanted to back away and allow the hype surrounding his film to die down in the run up to Oscar night but Chill Wills, nominated as Best Supporting Actor, escalated things further as he almost single-handedly, managed to make Duke’s work of art the laughing stock of the industry. The actor had spent a lifetime in B-movies, he was well aware he would never get another chance to win an Oscar, and he took out his own two-page ad in the trade papers, listing hundreds of members of the Academy and saying “Win, lose or draw, You’re Still My Cousins, and I Love You All.” Groucho Marx issued a sharp reply, “Dear Mr Chill Wills; I Am Delighted to be Your Cousin, but I Voted for Sal Mineo.” Wills, who didn’t get the point, bought more space and against a backdrop of the film’s cast printed the message, “We of the Alamo cast are praying-harder than the real Texans prayed for their lives in the Alamo-for Chill Wills to win the Oscar.” It was signed, “Your Alamo cousins.”