Books on Duke- Past Discussion (Archive)

"CUT, PRINT - AND THAT'S A WRAP", by Paul Helmick.

Written in 2001, Howard Hawks' reliable assistant director and 2nd unit director Helmick tells the tales of his Hollywood years. He was around when they made some of the Hawks classics, as well as the films with Wayne: Rio Bravo (it was him who suggested to cast Dean Martin to Hawks), El Dorado, Rio Lobo. Of special interest I found his descriptions of working in Africa on Hatari. This must have been the techniqually most difficult film to make up to that point! Helmick would go out and shoot animal action (with, yes, the doubles) then call Hawks who would come in the next day and shoot scenes they just made up so they would fit to the things Helmick got in the cane. For the spectacular entrance scene with the Rhino, they just happend to find one that was mean enough to attack Bruce Cabot's double and they got it on film - the double acted as if being horned. So they wrote the whole entrance around it - writing Bruce Cabot out of the film for a large part of it (for all of us who forever wondered why his "Indian" character was in the film anyway). No wonder it took Hawks more than a year to assemble the cut (other Wayne releases before Hatari were actually shot AFTER it, he moved to Africa right after Alamo, and, according to Helmick, was glad to because he wanted to get away from it).

Helmick also says that him and Wayne never got really friendly, he thinks that Wayne held one incident against him, when Wayne and Hawks were discussing what Ricky Nelson should say when asked by Chance: Pretty young for riding guard, don't ya, and it was Helmick who just came up with the cool line: Just how old you gotta be? Obviously, Hawks didn't tell Wayne that Nelson's response would be just that (he often didn't tell his actors to get a natural response) and Wayne barked: "Since when does the 2nd assistant get to write the dialogue?!"

"Les 80 Grand Succès de...
Western
Films de Guerre
Film d'Aventures"

In his series about the different genres, French author Pierre Tchernia selects 80 films from each the Western/adventure film/war movie. Published by casterman. Very nicely illustrated. In "Adventure Films", Wayne is present with "Hatari", in "War Films" with "Green Berets", "Alamo", "Longest Day" (there is a special section for Le Jour Le Plus Long, with color pictures I haven't seen elsewhere).

BIOGRAPHIES OF OTHER STARS WHICH MAKE MENTION OF JW:

"The Ragman's Son":
In 1988 Kirk Douglas wrote his biography and wrote about his relationsship to his co-star of several films. It seems they never got very close but respected each other. They knew each other before those films. Douglas remembers the premiere of his "Lust for Life"; he played Van Gogh, and Wayne was riding him for playing such a troubled man, he felt that tough guys like Douglas shouldn't portray that for the American audience. Douglas responded that he was just an actor playing a part and "you aren't really John Wayne either, just playing him". He thinks he got Wayne there.

"Robert Mitchum", by Lee Server
all about the infamous incident of Mitchum getting fired from Blood Alley and Wayne having to take over. Pilar Wayne had reason to get mad at him years later because that incident spoiled her honeymoon and when Wayne invited Mitchum to a party at his house Mitchum told Pilar at his arrival "Boy, do YOU need a bra". The boy of bad behaviour live quite a life. Worth reading. Funny incidents on the El Dorado set, too. Mitchum always hat his beloved weed with him.

"Natasha - The biografie of Natalie Wood"
Interesting insights on the filming of The Searchers. It seems Patrick Wayne took quite a liking in this young girl. His father just advised him: "Look out what'ye doin". Note the bracelet Natalie wears around her wrist. There's one in every picture she appears. An accident on a filmset when she was a child left a scar, and she was frantic about it.
You probably knew that her own sister Lana played the part of little Debbie.

In his books "Szenen eines Clowns" and "Eine Farm in Afrika" (don't know if they're published in English) German actor Hardy Kruger tells his life. Hatari! was probably the most important film in terms of how it inflicted on his life. He bought Momella and stayed in Africa. The book Eine Farm in Afrika tells all about his love for Momella. The infamous drinking incident when him and Wayne drank themselves silly one night is in "Szenen eines Clowns". This man knows how to write!

"Me", by Katharine Hepburn
Katie had a soft spot for the Duke. In her biografie she writes about the making of Rooster Cogburn. A woman of many talents, she also could write wonderful books. One of the best books about the making of a film is her book about the African Queen: "How I went to Africa with Houston, Bogie & Bacall and..."

THE MEN WHO MADE THE MOVIES, by Richard Schickel

contains interviews with Hitchcock, Capra, Minnelli, Cukor, Vidor, and, of most interest to Wayne afficionados, Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh and William A. Wellman.
A great interview book. Finally, those giants got enough time to talk about what they liked best and did best: direct motion pictures. There are no questions printed, just answers, so those long interview really sound like those directors would write their biography. For instance, Hawks talks about how he would write dialogue to make a point without the audience realizing that; and how they invented that special camera to film the action in "Hatari". Wellman tells how he found the story to "The High and the Mighty" and how he got Wayne to buy it even before it was published (I like the way he tells the story of how he was talked into doing "The Story of G.I.Joe"; Ernie Pyle talked him into it). And finally, with Walsh we hear in his own words about that special day he stopped on the Fox lot when he saw that tall young man sweating it out as a prop boy, offering him an actin job on the spot, and how tough it got on location of "The Big Trail". All those greats have since then passed (the book was published in the mid seventies).

BOOKS RELATING TO THE WESTERN GENRE (so JW is referred to)

THE WESTERNS: A PICTURE QUIZ BOOK, by John Cocchi
Trivia-Book with 238 stills, in most questions you're asked to identify the players in the scene. The questions about JW aren't too difficult to answer but still, you should get some fun out of it.

BOOKS ABOUT WAR FILMS

From Italy: "FILM DI GUERRA", by Fratelli
Biiig sized book, with beautiful poster reproductions, fold outs and rarely seen stills. Wayne's Stryker strikes a pose on the cover.

BOOKS ABOUT OTHER ACTORS IN WHICH JW IS MENTIONED:

"Marlene Dietrich, by Her Daughter"
By Maria Riva

Many mysteries about the relationsship between La Dietrich and The Duke, mostly because Marlene was quite a liar. In her own stories she even had to teach Wayne to act; he didn't read books and according to legend she told her agent when she first laid eyes on him: "Daddy, buy me that" (giving the part in Seven Sinners to him). Now her daughter has the last word: She was there when it all happened, and this is really some biography. You could knock down a full grown man with it, but it's worth the read. I interviewed Maria Riva in 1992 when the German edition was published, and what she has to say about the life of her mother is something. About Wayne: she asked him years later (in London, so I guess it was during Brannigan) what made him leave the goddess, and he answered: "Never liked being a race-horse in a barn".

GOLDEN TURKEY AWARDS, by Harry and Michael Medved
This book is meant to be fun: it gives awards for the worst films, worst performances in the history of films. One chapter is dedicated to John Wayne's - you guessed it - Ghenghis Khan. But no worries: others have to stick out their necks as well. Cooper gets it for the worst romantic line in "Northwest Mounted Police".

For the German reader:
THE TRANSCRIPT OF SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON/DER TEUFELSHAUPTMANN
by Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen
If you want to analyze this film bit by bit, that book might help. It describes every single shot (551 single camera shots in this film, by the way) with Engl. dialogue and description of action and soundeffects - even gives the seconds per shot.