Yes, I did read it and passed it on to another Peckinpah fan. I thought it was excellent, all the stuff about how they pulled it together and got it to happen. Lee Marvin's involvement (which ended when he got hired for The Professionals) was very interesting.
Yes, I did read it and passed it on to another Peckinpah fan. I thought it was excellent, all the stuff about how they pulled it together and got it to happen. Lee Marvin's involvement (which ended when he got hired for The Professionals) was very interesting.
I just (like, twenty minutes ago) read a paragraph about Lee Marvin in Eyman's biography of John Ford. Marvin is quoted as saying that the guys in Ford's "stock company" were inclined to say bad things about Black and Jewish people, but that Ford himself was probably the most liberal guy Marvin had ever met. I hadn't realized Marvin was a Liberal Democrat. the specific anecdote mentioned is that when Ford heard the actors calling FDR a fellow traveler, he snapped at them that "you all became millionaires under Roosevelt."
the stories about Ford's treatment of everybody who worked for him are also pretty horrifying. it took David Thomson five editions of his "Biographical Dictionary" to actually say anything nice about Ford. but that new restoration of "The Informer" is gorgeous. and Thomson (I think) really does underestimate how good "The Grapes of Wrath" is.
the above was an example of that "fractal" conversational style people like to yell at me about...
Ford's famous line to DeMille was "I'm John Ford. I make good movies. Unlike you." His buddy Ward Bond was so far right it's amazing he could make a left turn in his car.
Bond was disgusting...for some reason, he ended up as one of the two guys finally responsible for who got on the blacklist. in every book about Ford I've ever seen, Bond is described as being so stupid, Ford kept him around to dump on. thing is, he has his own moments of occasional grace in some of Ford's movies, much as I hate to say anything good about him except that he's dead.
Yes, I did read it and passed it on to another Peckinpah fan. I thought it was excellent, all the stuff about how they pulled it together and got it to happen. Lee Marvin's involvement (which ended when he got hired for The Professionals) was very interesting.
I just (like, twenty minutes ago) read a paragraph about Lee Marvin in Eyman's biography of John Ford. Marvin is quoted as saying that the guys in Ford's "stock company" were inclined to say bad things about Black and Jewish people, but that Ford himself was probably the most liberal guy Marvin had ever met. I hadn't realized Marvin was a Liberal Democrat. the specific anecdote mentioned is that when Ford heard the actors calling FDR a fellow traveler, he snapped at them that "you all became millionaires under Roosevelt."
the stories about Ford's treatment of everybody who worked for him are also pretty horrifying. it took David Thomson five editions of his "Biographical Dictionary" to actually say anything nice about Ford. but that new restoration of "The Informer" is gorgeous. and Thomson (I think) really does underestimate how good "The Grapes of Wrath" is.
the above was an example of that "fractal" conversational style people like to yell at me about...
Ford's famous line to DeMille was "I'm John Ford. I make good movies. Unlike you." His buddy Ward Bond was so far right it's amazing he could make a left turn in his car.
Bond was disgusting...for some reason, he ended up as one of the two guys finally responsible for who got on the blacklist. in every book about Ford I've ever seen, Bond is described as being so stupid, Ford kept him around to dump on. thing is, he has his own moments of occasional grace in some of Ford's movies, much as I hate to say anything good about him except that he's dead.