John Ford (February 1, 1894 - August 31, 1973) is an American film director. He is well known to Westerners such as Stagecoach (1939), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), as well as the adaptation of American classic novels of the 20th century like The Grapes of Wrath (1940). The four Academy Awards for Best Director (in 1935, 1940, 1941, and 1952) remained a record. One of the films that he won the award, How Green Was My Valley , also won Best Picture.
In a career spanning more than 50 years, Ford steered more than 140 films (though most of his silent films are now gone) and he is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. Ford's work is greatly appreciated by his colleagues, with Orson Welles and Ingmar Bergman among those who have named him one of the greatest directors of all time.
Ford often uses shooting locations and long shots, where its character is framed against a vast, rugged, and rough natural terrain.
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Ford was born John Martin "Jack" Feeney (though he later often gave the names given as Sean Aloysius, sometimes with the O'Feeny or O'Fearna family name, the Irish equivalent of Feeney) in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, to John Augustine Feeney and Barbara "Abbey" Curran, on February 1, 1894 (though he sometimes said 1895 and the date was erroneously inscribed on his tombstone). His father, John Augustine, was born in Spiddal, County Galway, Ireland, in 1854. Barbara Curran was born in the Aran Islands, in the town of Kilronan on the island of Inishmore (Inis MÃÆ'³r). The grandmother of John A. Feeney, Barbara Morris, is said to be a member of the local (poor) noble family, Morrises of Spiddal (led today by Lord Killanin).
John Augustine and Barbara Curran arrived in Boston and Portland respectively in May and June 1872. They married in 1875 and became American citizens five years later on September 11, 1880. They had eleven children: Mamie (Mary Agnes) born 1876; Delia (Edith), 1878-1881; Patrick; Francis Ford, 1881-1953; Bridget, 1883-1884; Barbara, born and died 1888; Edward, born in 1889; Josephine, born in 1891; Hannah (Joanna), born and died 1892; John Martin, 1894-1973; and Daniel, born and died 1896 (or 1898). John Augustine lives in the Munjoy Hill neighborhood of Portland, Maine, with his family, and will try farming, fishing, working for a gas company, running a sedan, and being a member of the city council.
Feeney attended Portland High School, Portland, Maine, where he was a successful and defensive defender. He earned the nickname "Bull" because of the way he dropped his helmet and billed it. A Portland pub was named Bull Feeney in his honor. He then moved to California and in 1914 began work on film production as well as acting for his sister Francis, adopting "Jack Ford" as a professional name. In addition to the credible roles, he appears unpaid as a Klansman in D. W. Griffith's 1915 Birth of the Nation as a man who raises one side of his hood so that he can see clearly.
He married Mary McBride Smith on July 3, 1920, and they had two children. Her daughter Barbara married singer and actor Ken Curtis from 1952 to 1964. The marriage between Ford and Smith lasted a lifetime despite various problems, one of which may prove problematic from the beginning, it is that John Ford was a Catholic when she was a non-divorce -Catolics e. The difficulty caused by both marriages is unclear because John Ford's commitment to Catholic faith is disputed. Tension will be a lot of Ford's extra-marital relationship.
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Direct career
John Ford began his career in film after moving to California in July 1914. He followed in the footsteps of his multi-talented brother Francis Ford, twelve years older than him, who had left home many years earlier and had worked in vaudeville before becoming a film actor. Francis played in hundreds of still images for filmmakers like Thomas Edison, Georges MÃÆ'Ã… © liÃÆ'¨s and Thomas Ince, eventually evolving into a prominent Hollywood actor-director-writer with his own production company (101 Bison) at Universal.
John Ford started in his brother's films as an assistant, artist, stuntman, and actor who sometimes, often doubled for his brother, who was very similar to him. Francis gave his younger brother his first acting role in The Mysterious Rose (November 1914). Despite frequent contradictions, within three years Jack had grown to be Francis's assistant and often worked as a cameraman. By the time Jack Ford was given his first break as director, Francis's profile declined and he quit working as a director soon after.
One important feature of John Ford's films is that he uses the actor's 'stock company', much more than many directors. Many famous stars appear in at least two or more Ford movies, including Harry Carey Sr., (star of 25 silent films Ford), Will Rogers, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Maureen O'Hara, James Stewart, Woody Strode, Richard Widmark, Victor McLaglen, Vera Miles, and Jeffrey Hunter. Many of his supporting actors appear in several Ford films, often for decades, including Ben Johnson, Wills Chill, Andy Devine, Ward Bonds, Grant Aid, Mae Marsh, Anna Lee, Harry Carey Jr., Ken Curtis, Frank Baker, Dolores del RÃÆ'o, Pedro ArmendÃÆ'¡riz, Hank Worden, John Qualen, Barry Fitzgerald, Arthur Shields, John Carradine, OZ Whitehead, and Carleton Young. The core members of this 'group', including Ward Bond, John Carradine, Harry Carey Jr., Mae Marsh, Frank Baker and Ben Johnson, are informally known as John Ford Stock Company.
Likewise, Ford enjoyed an extended working relationship with his production team, and many of his crew worked with him for decades. He made many films with the same major collaborators, including producer and business partner Merian C. Cooper, screenwriter Nunnally Johnson, Dudley Nichols and Frank S. Nugent, and cinematographers Ben F. Reynolds, John W. Brown and George Schneiderman ), Joseph H. August, Gregg Toland, Winton Hoch, Charles Lawton Jr., Bert Glennon, Archie Stout, and William H. Clothier.
Silent era
During his first decade as director Ford worked on dozens of features (including many westerns) but only ten of the more than sixty silent films he made between 1917 and 1928 survived in their entirety. However, the prints of some of the previously lost 'silent' Ford have been rediscovered in foreign film archives over the past few years - in 2009, a story of 75 Hollywood silent films rediscovered in the New Zealand Film Archive, among them the only the surviving print of the silent Comedy 1927 Ford Hulu . Prints restored in New Zealand by Academy of Motion Picture Arts & amp; Science before being returned to America, where he was given a "repremiere" at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills on August 31, 2010, featuring a newly commissioned score by Michael Mortilla.
Throughout his career, Ford was one of Hollywood's busiest directors, but he was extraordinarily productive in his first few years as a director - he made ten films in 1917, eight in 1918 and fifteen in 1919 - and he directed a total of 62 shorts and features between 1917 and 1928, although he was not given screen credits in most of his earliest films.
There is some uncertainty about the identity of Ford's first film as director - film writer Ephraim Katz notes that Ford may have directed the four-part film Lucille the Waitress as early as 1914 - but most sources quote its director but as silent tuners twice The Tornado, was released in March 1917. According to Ford's own story, he was given a job by Universal boss Carl Laemmle who supposedly said, "Give Jack Ford a job - he shouts good". The Tornado was quickly followed by a series of two reels and three reels "quickies" - Hate Traps , The Scrapper , The Soul Herder and Cheyenne's Pal ; this is made for several months and each is usually shot in just two or three days; all are now considered missing. The Soul Herder is also famous as the beginning of four years, Ford's 25 film association with veteran actor Harry Carey, who (with his brother Ford Francis) was a strong early influence on the young director, and became one of the influences major on the screen persona of Ford's John Wayne protégé. Carey's son Harry "Dobe" Carey Jr., who is also an actor, is one of Ford's closest friends in recent years and featured in many of the most famous Westerners.
Ford's first long feature production was Straight Shooting (August 1917), which is also the earliest surviving film as a director, and one of two survivors of twenty-five collaborative films with Harry Carey. In making the film Ford and Carey ignored the studio orders and changed five rolls instead of two, and it was only through Carl Laemmle's intervention that the film escaped being cut for the first release, although later edited onto two reels for a re-release in the late 1920s. The last Ford film of 1917, Bucking Broadway, has long been deemed to have been lost, but in 2002 the only known surviving print was found in the archives of the French National Center for Cinematography and has since been restored and digitized.
Ford directed about 36 films for three years to Universal before moving to studio William Fox in 1920; His first film for them was Justin Pals (1920). The feature in 1923, Cameo Kirby, starring the idol screen of John Gilbert - another of Ford's few surviving genealogies - marked his first directing credits under the name "John Ford" instead of "Jack Ford", as he has previously been credited.
Ford's first major success as a director was the historical drama of The Iron Horse (1924), an epic tale of the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad. It was a large, long and difficult production, filmed in a location in the Sierra Nevada. The logistics are enormous - two cities built entirely, there are 5,000 additions, 100 cooks, 2000 layers of rail, cavalry regiment, 800 Indians, 1300 buffalo, 2000 horses, 10,000 cattle and 50,000 properties, including the original stagecoach used by Horace Greeley, Wild Bill Hickok and replica locomotives "Jupiter" and "119" who met at Promontory Point when the two ends of the line merged on May 10, 1869.
Ford's brother, Eddie, was a member of the crew and they kept fighting; on one occasion Eddie reportedly "left after the parents with the handle". There was only a brief synopsis written when filming began and Ford wrote and recorded the movie day after day. Production falls behind schedules, delayed by severe continuous and cold weather, and Fox executives repeatedly demand results, but Ford will tear its telegram or hold them and have a hitman Edward "Pardner" Jones firing a hole through the sender's name. Despite pressure to halt production, studio boss William Fox eventually supported Ford and allowed him to complete his drawing and his gamble paid off - Iron Horse became one of the best-selling films of the decade, taking over US $ 2 million in worldwide, with a budget of $ 280,000.
Ford made numerous films in this period, and he became famous for his Western and 'border' photographs, but the genre quickly lost their appeal to the great studios of the late 1920s. The last quiet western state of Ford was the <3> Bad Men (1926), which was arranged during the Dakota land rush and was filmed in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and in the Mojave Desert. It will be thirteen years before he made the next West, Stagecoach , in 1939.
During the 1920s, Ford also served as president of the Movie Movie Director Association, a pioneer for the current Guild of America.
Talkies: 1928-1939
Ford is one of the pioneers of sound film directors; he shot Fox's first song sung on the screen, for his movie Mother Machree (1928) which only three of the original surviving seven scrolls; the film is also famous as the first Ford movie featuring the young John Wayne (in addition to the addition) and he appeared in the next two Ford movies. Ford also directed the first dramatic, much-talked-in feature of Fox Napoleon's Barber (1928), a 3-reeler that is now also missing.
Just before the studio was converted into a talkie, Fox gave the contract to German director F. W. Murnau, and his film Sunrise (1927), still highly prized by critics, having a strong influence on Ford. Murnau's influence can be seen in many of Ford's movies in the late 1920s and early 1930s - the silent feature that had existed before Four Sons (1928), was filmed on several luxurious sets left over from Murnau's production. Ford's last silent feature Hangman's House (1928) is known as one of the first screen appearances to be credited by John Wayne.
Barber Napoleon followed by Riley the Cop (1928) and Strong Boy (1929), starring Victor McLaglen; the latter is now gone (although Tag Tags Gallagher notes that the only surviving copies of Strong Boy, 35mm nitrate prints, are rumored to be stored in a private collection in Australia). The Black Watch (1929), the adventure of the Khyber Pass colonial army starring Victor McLaglen and Myrna Loy is Ford's first complete image still intact; it was remade in 1954 by Henry King as the King of the Khyber Rifles .
Ford's output was fairly constant from 1928 to early World War II; he made five features in 1928 and then made two or three films each year from 1929 to 1942, inclusive. Three movies were released in 1929 - Strong Boy , The Black Watch and Salute . His three 1930 films are Men Without Women , Born Reckless and Up the River , which is famous as debut film for Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart, who both signed with Fox on Ford's recommendation (but later canceled). Ford's 1931 films were Seas Beneath , The Brat and Arrowsmith ; Last name, adapted from Sinclair Lewis novel and starring Ronald Colman and Helen Hayes, marked the first recognition of the Ford Academy Awards, with five nominations including Best Picture.
Ford's legendary efficiency and its ability to create films that combine art with a strong commercial appeal make it even more popular. In 1940 he was recognized as one of the leading film directors in the world. His increasing accomplishments were reflected in his remuneration - in 1920, when he moved to Fox, he was paid $ 300-600 per week. When his career began in the mid-twenties, his annual income increased significantly. He earned nearly $ 134,000 in 1929, and earned more than $ 100,000 per year annually from 1934 to 1941, earning a staggering $ 220,068 in 1938 - more than twice the US President's salary at the time (though this was still less than half income Carole Lombard, Hollywood's most expensive star in the 1930s, which earned about $ 500,000 per year at the time).
With film production influenced by the Depression, Ford made two films each in 1932 and 1933 - Air Mail (made for Universal) with young Ralph Bellamy and Meat (for MGM ) with Wallace Beery. In 1933, he returned to Fox for Pilgrimage and Doctor Bull , the first of his three films with Will Rogers.
World War I left drama The Lost Patrol (1934), based on Philip MacDonald's Patrol book, is the superior remake of the 1929 silent film Lost Patrol It stars Victor McLaglen as Sergeant - the role played by his brother Cyril McLaglen in earlier versions - with Boris Karloff, Wallace Ford, Alan Hale and Reginald Denny (who later found a company that made radio-controlled targeted planes during World War II). This is one of Ford's first big hits of the era of sound - it was rated by the National Review Board and The New York Times as one of the top 10 films of the year and won an Oscar nomination for Max Steiner's stirring score. Followed later that year by The World Moves On with Madeleine Carroll and Franchot Tone, and the highly successful Judge Priest, her second film with Will Rogers, who became one of the films selling this year.
Ford's first film of 1935 (made for Columbia) was a misidentified identity comedy The Whole Town's Talking with Edward G. Robinson and Jean Arthur, released in the UK as Passport to Fame, and it attracts critical acclaim. Steamboat Round The Bend is his third and final film with Will Rogers; perhaps they will continue to work together, but their collaboration was cut short by Rogers' sudden death in a plane crash in May 1935, which destroyed Ford.
Ford confirmed his position at the top of American directors with the Irish Republican Army drama influenced by Murnau The Informer (1935), starring Victor McLaglen. The film has been critically acclaimed, nominated for Best Picture, winning his first Ford Academy Award for Best Director, and was praised at that time as one of the best films ever made, although his reputation has waned considerably compared to other competitors such as Citizen Kane , or Ford's own The Searchers (1956).
The politically charged The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936) - which marks the debut with Ford of the long-time John Carradine "Stock Company" - explores a little-known story about Samuel Mudd, a caught doctor in the assassination conspiracy of Abraham Lincoln and handed over to an offshore prison to care for injured John Wilkes Booth. Other films from this period include the South Sea melodrama The Hurricane (1937) and lightweight Shirley Temple Wee Willie Winkie (1937), each of which had its first year Gross US more than $ 1 million. During the filming of Wee Willie Winkie, Ford has an elaborate collection built at Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif., A breeding location very often associated with serials and B-Westerns, which will become, along with the Monument Valley, one of the preferred filming locations of the director, and a site where Ford will return in the next few years to Stagecoach and The Grapes of Wrath .
The older version was revised from Directed by John Ford featured in Turner Classic Movies in November, 2006 featuring directors Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, and Martin Scorsese, who suggested that the classic Ford movie strings directed during 1936 to 1941 is due in part to an intense six-month marriage with Katharine Hepburn, star Mary of Scotland (1936), an Elizabethan costume drama.
1939-1941
Stagecoach (1939) was the first Western Ford since 3 Bad Men in 1926, and it was the first by voice. It is said that Orson Welles watched Stagecoach forty times in preparation for making Citizen Kane . It remains one of the most admired and imitated films of all Hollywood movies, at least for its climactic pursuits and horseback riding scenes, performed by Yakima Canutt stuntman.
The Dudley Nichols-Ben Hecht scenario is based on the Ernest Haycox story Ford had seen in Collier's magazine and he bought screen rights for only $ 2500. Walter Wanger's production chief urged Ford to hire Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich for the lead role , but eventually accepted Ford's decision to cast Claire Trevor as Dallas and virtually unknown, his friend John Wayne, as Ringo; Wanger is reported to have less influence on production.
In creating Stagecoach, Ford faces deep-rooted industrial prejudices about the now-bankrupt genre that it has helped to become extremely popular. Despite the low-budget features of the western series and still much favored by the "Poverty Row" studio, this genre was not favored by major studios during the 1930s and they were considered to be the best-of-class B "pulp" films. As a result, Ford shopped projects around Hollywood for almost a year, offering it unsuccessful to Joseph Kennedy and David O. Selznick before finally connecting with Walter Wanger, an independent producer working through United Artists.
Stagecoach is significant for several reasons - it explodes industry prejudice by being a critical and commercial hit, selling more than US $ 1 million in the first year (with a budget just under $ 400,000), and Success (along with 1939 Westerns Destry Rides Again with Michael Curtiz's Dietrich and Dodge City with Erroll Flynn) revitalizes the near-death genre, showing that Westerns can be "smart, artful, great entertainment - and profitable". It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won two Oscars, for Best Supporting Actor (Thomas Mitchell) and Best Score. Stagecoach became the first in a series of seven classic Ford Westerns filmed on location at Monument Valley, with additional footage at another favorite Ford shooting location, Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif., where she has filming a lot of Wee Willie Winkie two years earlier. Ford skillfully combines Iverson and Monument Valley to create images of West American film icons.
John Wayne had good reasons to thank Ford for his support; Stagecoach provides actors with breakthrough careers that lift them into international stars. Over 35 years Wayne appeared in 24 Ford movies and three television episodes. Ford is credited with playing a leading role in shaping Wayne's screen shots. Cast Louise Platt, in a letter recounting film production experiences, quotes Ford's words about Wayne's future in the film: "He will be the greatest star ever because he is the perfect person."
Stagecoach marked the start of the most successful phase of Ford's career - in just two years between 1939 and 1941 he created a series of classics that won many Academy Awards. The next Ford movie, Young Mr Lincoln's biography (1939), starring Henry Fonda, was less successful than Stagecoach , attracted little critical attention and did not win an award. It was not a big box-office hit even though it had a gross domestic first year worth $ 750,000, but the Ford Tag Gallagher bachelor described it as "a deeper, more multi-leveled job than Stagecoach it seems to be retrospect one of the best scout photos ".
Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) is a fancy drama frontier starring Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert; it was also Ford's first film in color and included script-less contributions by William Faulkner. This was a huge box-office success, $ 1.25 million in first year in the US and produced Edna May Oliver as Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance.
Regardless of his uncompromising humanist and political stance, Ford's John Steinbeck's screen adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath (written by Nunnally Johnson and photographed by Gregg Toland) was a major box office hit and a huge critical success, still regarded as one of the best Hollywood movies of our day. Famous critic Andrew Sarris describes it as a film that transforms Ford from "screen teller to American cinematic poet". The third film of Ford in a year and his third film in a row with Fonda, it earned $ 1.1 million in the US in the first year and won two Academy Awards - Ford's second 'Best Oscar Director', and 'Best Supporting Actress' for Jane Darwell's portrayal of the de-force tour of Ma Joad. During production, Ford returned to Iverson Film Farm in Chatsworth, California, to film a number of key shots, including an important picture depicting the first full-sighted migrants' families from the fertile farmland of California, represented by the San Fernando Valley as seen from Iverson Ranch.
The Grapes of Wrath followed by two less successful and lesser known films. The Long Voyage Home (1940) is, like Stagecoach , created with Walter Wanger through United Artists. Adapted from four plays by Eugene O'Neill, it was written by Dudley Nichols and Ford, in consultation with O'Neill. Although not a significant box-office success (it earned just $ 600,000 in the first year), it's highly praised and nominated for seven Academy Awards - Best Picture, Best Screenplay, (Nichols), Best Music (Best Photography (Gregg Toland) Best Editing (Sherman Todd), Best Effects (Ray Binger & RT Layton), and Best Sound (Robert Parrish). This is one of Ford's personal favorites; stills from it decorate his house and O'Neill is also rumored to love filming and filtering it periodically.
The Tobacco Road (1941) is a rural comedy written by Nunnally Johnson, adapted from the long-running version of Jack Kirkland's novel by Erskine Caldwell. It stars veteran actor Charley Grapewin and supporting players including the regular Ford Ward Bond and Mae Marsh, with Francis Ford in the bit of an unaccredited bit; it is also important for an early screen display by future stars Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews. Though not highly respected by some critics - Gallagher's tag only devotes a short paragraph to it in his book about Ford - it was quite successful at the box office, the best-selling $ 900,000 in the first year. According to IMDb, the film was banned in Australia for unspecified reasons.
Ford's last feature before America entered World War II was the screen adaptation of How Green Was My Valley (1941), starring Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara and Roddy McDowell in his role as Huw. The manuscript was written by Philip Dunne of Richard Llewellyn's best-selling novel. Originally planned as a four-hour epic to rival Gone with the Wind - the screen rights alone cost Fox $ 300,000 - and have been filmed at locations in Wales, but this was abandoned due to heavy British bombing in the UK. Search locations in Southern California produce locations for villages built on the Crags Country Club land (later Fox farms, now the core of Malibu Creek State Park). Another factor reported was the Fox executives' anxiety about the pro-union tone of the story. William Wyler was initially involved, but he left the project when Fox decided to film it in California; Ford was employed in its place and production was delayed for several months until it became available. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck has a strong influence on the film and made some important decisions, including the idea of ​​having Huw's character that tells the movie in voice (then a new concept), and the decision that Huw's character should not age (Tyrone Power was originally scheduled to play Huw adult).
How Green Was My Valley became one of the greatest films of 1941. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards including Best Supporting Actress (Sara Allgood), Best Editing, Best Script, Best Music and Best Sound and it won five Oscar - Best Director, Best Movie, Best Supporting Actor (Donald Crisp), Best Cinematography B & W (Arthur C. Miller) and Art Direction/Interior Decoration Best. This was a huge success with the audience, coming behind Sergeant York as the second best-selling film of the year in the United States and taking nearly $ 3 million on a substantial budget of $ 1,250,000. Ford was also crowned Best Director by New York Film Critics, and this is one of the few awards in his career he personally collects (he generally avoids the Oscars).
Year of war
During World War II, Commander John Ford, USNR, served in the United States Navy and as head of the photography unit for the Office of Strategic Services, filed a documentary for the Department of the Navy. He won two Academy Awards during this time, one for the semi-documentary The Battle of Midway (1942), and the second for the propaganda film December 7: The Movie (1943). Commander Ford was a veteran of the Battle of Midway, where he was injured in the arm by shrapnel while filming a Japanese attack from the Pasir Island power station on Midway.
Ford is also present at Omaha Beach on Day-H. He crossed the English Channel at USSÃ, Plunkett (DD-431), anchored at Omaha Beach in 0600 where he observed the first wave plane on the shore from the ship, landing on his own shore then with a team of cameramen US The Coast Guard filmed the battle from behind the coastal obstacle, with Ford directing operations. The film was edited in London, but very few were released to the public. Ford explained in a 1964 interview that the US Government was "afraid to show so many American casualties on screen", adding that all the D-Day movies "still have colors in storage at Anacostia near Washington, D.C." Thirty years later, the historian Stephen E. Ambrose reported that the Eisenhower Center could not find the film. Ford eventually rose to become a key adviser to OSS chief William Joseph Donovan. According to records released in 2008, Ford was cited by his superiors for his courage, taking a position to film a "clear and clear target" mission. He survived "continuous and wounded attacks" as he continued filming, one compliment in his file status.
His last wartime film was They Were Expendable (MGM, 1945), a report on the defeat of the American disaster in the Philippines, told from the standpoint of the boat squadron of PT and his commander. Ford created a part to restore Ward Bond, which needed money. Though he was seen throughout the film, he never walked until they entered the part where he was shot in the leg. For the rest of the picture, he can use crutches on the last parade. Ford repeatedly stated that he did not like the movie and never watched it, complaining that he had been forced to make it, even though it was fought by filmmaker Lindsay Anderson. Released several months after the end of the war, it was one of the top 20 box-office results of the year, though Tag Gallagher noted that many of the wrong critics claimed that they were losing money.
Postwar career
After the war, Ford remained an officer in the United States Navy Reserve. He returned to active service during the Korean War, and was promoted to Admiral on the day he left office.
Ford directed sixteen features and several documentaries in the decade between 1946 and 1956. Like his pre-war career, his films alternated between (relatively) box office flop and great success, but most of his films then produced solid profits, and Fort Apache , The Quiet Man , Mogambo and The Searchers are all in the top 20 hit box-office list they. each year.
Ford's first postwar film My Darling Clementine (Fox, 1946) is a romantic storytelling about the primal legends of Wyatt Earp and Gunfight in England. Corral, with exterior sequences filmed on site in the spectacular Monument Valley (but geographically inappropriate). It reunited Ford with Henry Fonda (as Earp) and co-star Victor Mature in one of his best roles as a consumptive, Shakespeare-loving Doc Holliday, with Bangsal Bond and Tim Holt as the Earp brothers, Linda Darnell as Chihuahua salty saloon girl, a performance which was strong by Walter Brennan (in a rare rare role) as a venomous Old Man Clanton, with Jane Darwell and an early screen appearance by John Ireland as Billy Clanton. In contrast to the series of successes in 1939-1941, he did not win many American awards, despite being awarded the silver tape for Best Foreign Film in 1948 by the National Syndicate of Film Journalists, and it was a solid, finest financial success. $ 2.75 million in the United States and $ 1.75 million internationally in its first year of release.
The Argosy years
Rejecting the lucrative contract offered by Zanuck at 20th Century Fox that will give him a $ 600,000 warranty per year, Ford launched himself as an independent director producer and made many of his films in this period with Argosy Pictures Corporation, a partnership between Ford and his old friends and colleagues , Merian C. Cooper. Ford and Cooper had previously been involved with different Argosy Companies, established after the success of Stagecoach (1939); Argosy Corporation produced one film, The Long Voyage Home (1940), before World War II intervened. The Fugitive (1947), which again starred Fonda, was the first project of Argosy Pictures. It was a loose adaptation of Graham Greene The Power and the Glory , which Ford originally intended to make at Fox before the war, with Thomas Mitchell as a priest. Filmed in a location in Mexico, it was photographed by the famous Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa (who later worked with Luis BuÃÆ'  ± uel). The supporting players include Dolores del RÃÆ'o, J. Carrol Naish, Bond Ward, Leo Carrillo and Mel Ferrer (making the screen dà © à © but) and the casts are especially extra Mexican. Ford reportedly considered this his best movie but fared relatively poorly compared to its predecessor, the best-selling only $ 750,000 in the first year. It also caused a rift between Ford and scriptwriter Dudley Nichols who ended their highly successful collaboration. Greene himself has a certain dislike of this adaptation of his work.
Fort Apache (Argosy/RKO, 1948) is the first part of what is called â € Å"Trilogi Cavalryâ € Ford, which is all based on a story by James Warner Bellah. It featured many of the actors 'Stock Companies', including John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Bond Ward, Victor McLaglen, Mae Marsh, Francis Ford (as bartender), Frank Baker, Ben Johnson and also featuring Shirley Temple, at the end of his life. appearance for Ford and one of his last movie appearances. It also marked the start of a long association between Ford and screenwriter Frank S. Nugent, a former film critic of the New York Times who (like Dudley Nichols) did not write the script until he was employed by Ford. It was a huge commercial success, grossing nearly $ 5 million worldwide in the first year and ranked in the top 20 hit box office of 1948.
During that year Ford also helped his friends and colleagues Howard Hawks, who had problems with his current movie Red River (starring John Wayne) and Ford reportedly made numerous editing suggestions, including the use of narrators. Fort Apache was followed by the Western Godfathers, 3 Godfather, a remake of the 1916 mute film starring Harry Carey (dedicated to the Ford version), which Ford himself re-created in 1919 as Marked Men , also with Carey and his mind is gone. It stars John Wayne, Pedro ArmendÃÆ'¡riz and Harry "Dobe" Carey Jr. (in one of his first major roles) as three criminals who rescue the baby after his mother (Mildred Natwick) dies in childbirth, with the Royal Bond as sheriff chasing after them.
In 1949, Ford briefly returned to Fox to direct Pinky. He prepares the project but works only one day before being taken ill, supposedly with shingles, and Elia Kazan replaces it (though Tag Gallagher points out that Ford's illness is a pretext for leaving films, which Ford does not like).
The only complete film of the year was the second installment of the Cavalry Trilogy, He Weared the Yellow Ribbon (Argosy/RKO, 1949), starring John Wayne and Joanne Dru, with Victor McLaglen, John Agar, Ben Johnson, Mildred Natwick and Harry Carey Jr. Once again filmed at a location in Monument Valley, it's widely recognized for its stunning Technicolor cinematography (including a famous cavalry scene filmed in front of a coming storm); it won the 1950 Winton Hoch Academy Award for Best Color Cinematography and did big business on its first release, selling more than $ 5 million worldwide. John Wayne, then 41 years old, also received wide acclaim for his role as 60-year-old Captain Nathan Brittles.
1950s
The first Ford film of the 1950s was an offbeat military comedy When Willie Comes Marching Home, starring Dan Dailey and Corinne Calvet, with William Demarest, from the stock company Preston Sturges, and an early screen appearance (uncredited) by Alan Hale Jr. and Vera Miles. Followed by Wagon Master, starring Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr., which is particularly noteworthy as the only Ford movie since 1930 that he wrote himself. It was later adapted into the old TV series Wagon Train (with Ward Bond repeating the title role until his sudden death in 1960). Although his business was much smaller than most of his other films in this period, Ford called the Wagon Master his personal favorite of all his films, telling Peter Bogdanovich that it was "closest to what I expected." to achieve".
The Republic of 1950, the third part of the 'Cavalry Trilogy', fellow stars John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, with Wayne Patrick Wayne's son made his screen debut (he appeared in the next few Ford images including The Searchers ). It was made at the insistence of Republic Pictures, which demanded a profitable Western as a condition of supporting Ford's next project, The Quiet Man . A proof of the legendary efficiency of Ford, Rio Grande was shot in just 32 days, with only 352 of 335 camera settings, and it was a solid success, earning $ 2.25 million in its first year.
Republican fears were erased by the triumphant success of The Quiet Man (Republic, 1952), a pet project Ford wanted to do since the 1930s (and almost did it in 1937 with an independent co-operative called Famous Artist Company). It became its biggest grossing image to date, taking nearly $ 4 million in the US alone in the first year and ranked in the top 10 box office movies of the year. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won his fourth Ford Oscar for Best Director, as well as the second Best Oscar Cinematography for Winton Hoch. This is followed by What Price Glory? (1952), a World War I drama, the first of two films made by Ford with James Cagney ( Mister Roberts is another) who also did good business at the box office ($ 2 million).
The Sun Shines Bright (1953), Ford's first entry at the Cannes Film Festival, is a western comedy drama with Charles Winninger reviving the role of Judge Priest made famous by Will Rogers in the 1930s. Ford later referred to it as one of his favorites, but it was not well received, and drastically cut (from 90 minutes to 65 minutes) by Republicans soon after its release, with some cut scenes now considered missing. It was bad luck at the box office and his failure contributed to the subsequent collapse of Argosy Pictures.
The next Ford movie is the romantic adventure of Mogambo (MGM, 1953), a remake of the famous 1932 film Red Dust. Filmed in locations in Africa, photographed by British cinematographer Freddie Young and starring Ford's old friend Clark Gable, with Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly (who replaced the sick Gene Tierney) and Donald Sinden. Despite the difficult production (compounded by Gardner's irritating presence at the time, her husband, Frank Sinatra), Mogambo became one of the biggest commercial hits in Ford's career, with the highest first-year domestic gross of all of hers. film ($ 5.2 million); it also revitalized Gable's diminishing career and earned Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominees for Gardner and Kelly (who are rumored to have had a brief affair with Gable during filming).
In 1955, Ford made the lesser-known West Point drama The Long Gray Line for Columbia Pictures, the first of two Ford movies featuring Tyrone Power, originally scheduled to star as an adult Huw in How Green Was My Valley came back in 1941. Then in 1955 Ford was hired by Warner Bros. to direct the Naval comedy Mister Roberts, starring Henry Fonda, Jack Lemmon, William Powell, and James Cagney, but there is a conflict between Ford and Fonda, who has played a major role on Broadway for the past seven years and is wary of Ford's direction. During a three-way meeting with producer Leland Hayward to try to solve his problem, Ford became angry and pressed Fonda in the jaw, dropping him across the room, an act that created a long-lasting gap between them. After the incident, Ford became more moody, drank a lot and eventually retreated to his yacht, Araner, and refused to eat or see anyone. Production was closed for five days and Ford was conscious, but as soon as he had a ruptured gallbladder, it needed emergency surgery, and he was replaced by Mervyn LeRoy.
Ford also made his first visit to television in 1955, directing two half-hour dramas for network TV. In the summer of 1955 he made Rookie of the Year (Hal Roach Studios) for the Playhouse Studio Director ; written by Frank S. Nugent, it featured Ford remains John and Pat Wayne, Vera Miles and Bond Ward, with Ford himself performing in the introduction. In November he made The Bamboo Cross (Lewman Ltd-Revue, 1955) for the series Fireside Theater ; it starred Jane Wyman with Asian-American players and Stock Company veterans Frank Baker and Pat O'Malley in a minor role.
Ford returned to the big screen with The Searchers (Warner Bros, 1956), the only Western that he made between 1950 and 1959, which is now widely regarded not only as one of his best films but also by much as one of the greatest westerns, and one of the best performances in John Wayne's career. Shot at a location in the Monument Valley, it tells of the heartless Ethan Edwards Civil War veteran who spent years tracing his niece, kidnapped by Comanches as a young girl. Supporters include Jeffrey Hunter, Ward Bond, Vera Miles and new star Natalie Wood. It was Hunter's first film for Ford. It was very successful at the first release and became one of the top 20 films of the year, grossing $ 4.45 million, despite not receiving an Academy Award nomination. However, his reputation has grown tremendously over the following years - it was crowned as the Greatest Western of all time by the American Film Institute in 2008 and also ranked 12th on the list of Top 100 best films at the Institute of 2007 of all time. The Seekers have had a huge impact on movies and popular culture - it has inspired (and has been cited by) many filmmakers including David Lean and George Lucas, Wayne's tagline "It will be the day" inspires Buddy Holly to write her famous hit song of the same name, and the British pop group The Searchers also took their name from the movie.
The Searchers were accompanied by one of the first "creation" documentaries, a four-part promotion program created for the "Behind Camera" segment of the Warner Bros. weekly. Presents TV shows, (studio's first foray into TV) were broadcast on the ABC network in 1955-56. Presented by Gig Young, four segments included interviews with Jeffrey Hunter and Natalie Wood and behind-the-scenes footage during filming.
The Wings of Eagles (MGM, 1957) is a fictional biography of an old friend of Ford, the pilot who became the scriptwriter Frank "Spig" Wead, who has written several early sound films of Ford. It stars John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, with Ward Bond as John Dodge (a character based on Ford himself). This was followed by one of Ford's most unknown movies, The Growler Story , a 29-minute documentary documentary on the USS Growler . Made for the US Navy and filmed by the Cameras Command Unit of the Pacific Force Command, it features Ward Bond and Ken Curtis with real Navy personnel and their families.
The next two Ford movies stand somewhat apart from his other films in production, and he mainly does not receive a salary for any job. The Rising of the Moon (Warner Bros, 1957) is a three-part omnibus film shot at a location in Ireland and based on Irish short stories. It was created by the Four Provinces of Productions, a company founded by Irish tycoon Lord Killanin, who recently became Chairman of the International Olympic Committee, and to whom Ford is linked remotely. Killanin is also the real producer of The Quiet Man . The film failed to recoup its costs, generating less than half ($ 100,000) in negative costs over $ 256,000 and causing controversy in Ireland.
The two Ford movies of 1958 were made for Columbia Pictures and both are significant deviations from the Ford norm. Gideon's Day (titled Gideon of Scotland Yard in the US) was adapted from a novel by British author John Creasey. This is Ford's only police film, and one of the few Ford movies made today in the 1950s. It was shot in England with an English player led by Jack Hawkins, whose Ford (superbly) was hailed as "the best dramatic actor with whom I have worked". It's badly promoted by Columbia, which only distributes it in B & W, despite being shot in color, and it also failed to make a profit in the first year, earning only $ 400,000 against his $ 453,000 budget.
The Last Hurray , (Columbia, 1958), once again set in the present in the 1950s, starring Spencer Tracy, who has made his first film appearance at Ford Up The River in 1930. Tracy portrays an elderly politician who fought her last campaign, with Jeffrey Hunter as her nephew. Katharine Hepburn reportedly facilitated the match between the two men, ending the old feud, and she convinced Tracy to take the lead role, which was originally offered to Orson Welles (but was rejected by Welles agents without her knowledge, to his dismay). It was much better than two of Ford's previous two films, grossing $ 950,000 in the first year even though cast member Anna Lee stated that Ford was "disappointed with the picture" and that Columbia would not allow her to keep an eye on editing.
Korea: Battleground for Liberty (1959), Ford's second documentary film about the Korean War, was created for the US Department of Defense as an orientation film for US troops stationed there. This was followed by the next feature, The Horse Soldiers (Mirisch Company-United Artists, 1959), a Civil War story starring John Wayne and William Holden. Though Ford claimed to be unhappy with the project, it was a commercial success, ranking in the Top 20 box-office hit this year, grossed $ 3.6 million in its first year, and earned Ford the highest cost ever - $ 375,000, plus 10% from the dirty.
last year, 1960-1973
Last year,In his final years Ford was plagued by declining health, largely the result of decades of heavy drunkenness and smoking, and exacerbated by the injuries he suffered during the Battle of the Middle. His vision in particular began to deteriorate rapidly and at one point he lost his full view; His remarkable memory also began to falter, making it necessary to rely more on assistants. His work was also limited by the new regime in Hollywood, and he found it difficult to make many projects. In the 1960s, he had been dismissed as a Western director and complained that he now found it almost impossible to get support for projects in other genres.
Rutledge sergeant (Ford Productions-Warner Bros, 1960) is Ford's last cavalry film. Set in the 1880s, he tells the story of an African-American cavalry (played by Woody Strode) who was wrongfully accused of raping and killing a white girl. It was mistakenly marketed as a tension film by Warners and not a commercial success. During the 1960s, Ford made its third TV production, The Colter Craven Story , an hour-long episode of the Wagon Train network TV show, which included footage from Ford
Two Rode Together (Ford Productions-Columbia, 1961) with stars James Stewart and Richard Widmark, with Shirley Jones and Stock Company keeping Andy Devine, Henry Brandon, Harry Carey Jr., Anna Lee, Woody Strode, Mae Marsh and Frank Baker, with an early screen display by Linda Cristal, who later starred in the Western High Chaparral TV series. It was a fair commercial success, grossing $ 1.6 million in the first year.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford Productions-Paramount, 1962) is often cited as the last great film of Ford's career. It starred in John Wayne and James Stewart, with Vera Miles, Edmond O'Brien, Andy Devine as an incompetent Apparsard marshal, Denver Pyle, John Carradine, and Lee Marvin in one of his first major roles as a brutal Valance, with Lee Van Cleef and Strother Martin as his accomplices. It is also famous as the movie where Wayne first used his distinctive phrase "Pilgrim" (his nickname for James Stewart's character). It was very successful, selling more than $ 3 million in the first year, although casting the lead stretched credibility - the character played by Stewart (53 later) and Wayne (54) intended to be in his early 20s, and Ford reportedly considered acting the younger in the role of Stewart but fear it will highlight the age of Wayne. Although it is often claimed that budget constraints require taking most films on soundstage at Paramount lot, studio accounting records show that this is part of the original artistic concept of the film, according to Ford's biography Joseph McBride. According to Lee Marvin in a film interview, Ford has fought hard to record a black-and-white film to accentuate the use of its shadow. However, it is one of Ford's most expensive films for US $ 3.2 million.
After completing the Liberty Valance, Ford was hired to direct the Civil War section of the MGM epic How The West Was Won, the first non-documentary film to use the Cinerama screen. process. The Ford segment features George Peppard, with Andy Devine, Russ Tamblyn, Harry Morgan as Ulysses S. Grant, and John Wayne as William Tecumseh Sherman. Also in 1962, Ford directed its fourth and final TV production, Flashing Spikes , a baseball story made for the Alcoa Premiere series and starring James Stewart, Jack Warden, Patrick Wayne and Tige Andrews, with Harry Carey Jr. and a long-term surprise appearance by John Wayne, billed in credit as "Michael Morris".
Donovan's Reef (Paramount, 1963) is Ford's last film with John Wayne. Filmed at a location on the Hawaiian Island of Hawaii (twice the fictitious island of French Polynesia), it is a disguised moral game as a comedy-action that is subtly but sharply involved with issues of racial hatred, corporate co-operation, greed, and American beliefs. social excellence. Supporters include Lee Marvin, Elizabeth Allen, Jack Warden, Dorothy Lamour, and Cesar Romero. It was also Ford's latest commercial success, losing $ 3.3 million to a budget of $ 2.6 million.
Cheyenne Autumn (Warner Bros, 1964) is Ford's epic journey to the West, which he publicly declares as the Original American elegy. It was his last movie, the longest movie and the most expensive movie of his career ($ 4.2 million), but failed to recoup at the box office and lost about $ 1 million in his first release. The all-star cast is led by Richard Widmark, with Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, Dolores del RÃÆ'o, Ricardo MontalbÃÆ'¡n, Gilbert Roland, Sal Mineo, James Stewart as Wyatt Earp, Arthur Kennedy as Doc Holliday, Edward G. Robinson, Patrick Wayne , Elizabeth Allen, Mike Mazurki, and many of Ford's loyal stock companies, including John Carradine, Ken Curtis, Willis Bouchey, James Flavin, Danny Borzage, Harry Carey Jr., Chuck Hayward, Ben Johnson, Mae Marsh and Denver Pyle. William Clothier was nominated for Best Cinematography Oscar and Gilbert Roland was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Cheyenne Elder Dull Knife.
In 1965 Ford began working on Young Cassidy (MGM), a biopic drama based on the life of Irish playwright SeÃÆ'¡n O'Casey, but he fell ill early in production and was replaced by Jack Cardiff.
Ford's latest feature film is 7 Women (MGM, 1966), a drama made around 1935, about missionary women in China trying to protect themselves from the progress of a savage Mongol warlord. Anne Bancroft took over the lead role of Patricia Neal, who suffered a near-fatal two-day stroke in the shootings. The supporting players include Margaret Leighton, Flora Robson, Sue Lyon, Mildred Dunnock, Anna Lee, Eddie Albert, Mike Mazurki and Woody Strode, with music by Elmer Bernstein. Unfortunately it was a commercial failure, grossing only about half of its $ 2.3 million budget. Unusual for Ford, it was shot in continuity after show and therefore he was exposed to about four times as many movies as he usually shot. Anna Lee recalled that Ford was "really interesting" to everyone and the only big blow came when Flora Robson complained that the sign on the door of the locker room did not include her title ("Dame") and as a result Robson was "really shredded" by Ford in front of the cast and crew.
The next Ford project, The Miracle of Merriford , was canceled by MGM less than a week before the shooting began. His last job was Chesty: A Tribute to a Legend, a documentary about the US Marines, General Lewis B. Puller, with a narration by John Wayne, made in 1970 but not released until 1976, three years after Ford's death.
Ford's health deteriorated rapidly in the early 1970s; he suffered a broken hip in 1970 that put him in a wheelchair. She had to move from Bel Air's house to a single-level home in Palm Desert, California, near the Eisenhower Medical Center, where she was treated for cancer. The Screen Directors Guild held an award to Ford in October 1972, and in March 1973, the American Film Institute honored it with its first Lifetime Achievement Award at a nationally aired ceremony, with President Richard Nixon promoting Ford to the Admiral and presenting it the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Ford died on August 31, 1973 in Palm Desert and his funeral was held on September 5 at the Church of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hollywood. He was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Personality and briefing style
Personality
Ford is renowned for his strong personality and his many peculiarities and eccentricities. From the early 1930s, he always wore sunglasses and his left eye patch, which was only partly to protect his poor eyesight. He was a fabulous pipe smoker and when he was shooting he would chew a linen handkerchief - every morning his wife would give him a dozen fresh handkerchiefs, but at the end of the day filming the corners of it all would be chewed. shreds. He always plays music on set and regular tea (Earl Gray) in the afternoon every day during filming. He played down the chat and did not like the bad language on set; its use, especially in front of a woman, will usually result in offenders being excluded from production. He rarely drinks during filming, but when a production is wrapped he often locks himself in his studies, wrapped in just a piece, and goes out drinking alone for a few days, followed by regular regret and no longer drinking. He is very sensitive to criticism and is always very angry with the comparison between his job and his older brother, Francis. She rarely attends opening ceremonies or awards, though Oscars and other awards are proudly displayed on shelves at her home.
Sometimes there were rumors about his sexual preferences, and in his 2004 'Tis Herself' autobiography, Maureen O'Hara remembers seeing Ford kissing a famous male actor (whom he did not name) in his office in Columbia Studios.
He is notoriously unkempt, and his studies are always filled with books, papers and clothing. He bought a new Rolls-Royce in the 1930s, but never drove it because his wife, Mary, did not let her smoke in it. His own car, an outdated Ford roadster, was so messy and messy that he was late for studio meetings because the guard at the studio gates did not believe that the real John Ford would drive like that, and refused to let him in. He is also famous for his antipathy towards studio executives: in an early film for Fox he is said to have ordered a guard to keep studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck from the set, and on another occasion he brought an executive in front of the crew, standing him in profile and announces, "This is a partner manufacturer - pay close attention because you will not see him in this picture again".
His pride and joy were his cruise ship, the Araner, which he bought in 1934 and where he devoted hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs and improvements over the years; it became his main retreat between the film and meeting place for his close friends circle, including John Wayne and Ward Bond.
Ford was very intelligent, educated, sensitive, and sentimental, but to protect himself in the cruel atmosphere of Hollywood, he developed the image of a "hard Irish boy, two hands, hard-drinking." One notable event, witnessed by Ford's actor friend Frank Baker, strikingly illustrates the tension between a public person and an individual. During the Depression, Ford - then a very wealthy man - was approached outside his office by a poor former Universal actor who needed $ 200 for an operation for his wife. When the man told of his misfortune, Ford seemed to be angry and then, to the horror of the audience, he launched himself toward the man, dropping him to the floor and shouting, "How dare you come here like this? Who would have thought you would Talk to me with this way? "before leaving the room. But as the shaken old man left the building, Frank Baker saw Ford's business manager, Fred Totman, meet him at the door, where he handed over a check for $ 1,000 to people and instructed the Ford driver to drive him home. There, the ambulance was waiting to take the man's wife to the hospital where a specialist, flown in from San Francisco at Ford's expense, performed the operation. Some time later, Ford bought a house for the couple and redeemed it for life. When Baker told the story to Francis Ford, he declared it as the key to his brother's personality:
Every time, if the old actor keeps talking, people will realize how soft Jack is. He can not stand through the sad story without despair. He built all the legend of toughness around him to protect his softness.
In the book Wayne and Ford, The Films, Friendship and Attachment of America's Heroes by Nancy Schoenberger, the author discusses the cultural impact of masculine
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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