John Ford

[movieman1957]

I apologize for writing too much and putting everyone to sleep---you know you are asking for
incessant, incomprehensible babbling when you get me started on this topic. [/color]

April:

This was hardly boring. I hope this is the kind of thing we can explore as we go as I find it very interesting. You and the rest of the gang have helped me to watch films more closely and I appreciate that. Keep it coming.

[movieman1957]

Got to watch "Doctor Bull" from an old AMC showing that I had taped. Nice little film. Nothing earth shattering going on here but nice film about a small town doctor dealing with town busy bodies and, naturally, a host of illnesses. The man can't get any sleep because if he is not delivering babies he is trying to cure one man's paralysis and Andy Devine's hypochondria.

Will Rogers gives a nice performance with plenty of subtle one liners and sage advice for the younger folks in town. He may be tired of being a doctor but he will always be what he is - a man who cares about the people he treats.

My favorite line is on a Sunday morning after church a group is gathered around the cemetery and he comes up to them and asks - "What's the matter? Somebody trying to get out?"

[moira finnie]

Got to watch "Doctor Bull" from an old AMC showing that I had taped. Nice little film. Nothing earth shattering going on here but nice film about a small town doctor dealing with town busy bodies and, naturally, a host of illnesses. The man can't get any sleep because if he is not delivering babies he is trying to cure one man's paralysis and Andy Devine's hypochondria.

Will Rogers gives a nice performance with plenty of subtle one liners and sage advice for the younger folks in town. He may be tired of being a doctor but he will always be what he is - a man who cares about the people he treats.

My favorite line is on a Sunday morning after church a group is gathered around the cemetery and he comes up to them and asks - "What's the matter? Somebody trying to get out?"

The tussle Doctor Bull goes through trying to get the backward elements of his small town to vaccinate their kids really makes this one all too relevant. I thought that this movie and a non-John Ford flick (sorry), called Doubting Thomas (1935-David Butler) are two of Rogers' most endearing, nearly forgotten performances. In the latter, based on a George Kelly play, The Torch Bearers, satirized the sometimes unfortunate productions of plays by untalented pretentious small town folk at the height of The Little Theater movement in America in the 1920s.

Will watches Billie honing her craft.

Rogers plays Billie Burke's husband. Burke and Rogers are a dynamite comic duo and a believable married pair. The entire film is slight, but fun, especially when the camera just focuses on Will's mug as he tries to "appreciate" the drama that is being performed which is the best, nearly priceless sequence in the sometimes slow moving film. He also has a few choice comments to make about this catastrophe in the making. Both films are on DVD.

[MissGoddess]

Hi Chris! I'm so glad you got to see my favorite of the three Rogers/Ford movies. As you know, I absolutely adore Willie Boy, and he's one of a handful of early 20th century figures I really wish I could have known.

I know Doctor Bull is not considered the BEST of the three collaborations (it was the first), but for some reason I really love Willie's slightly curmudgeonly performance, and the fact that for once he gets to have a girlfriend.

It's hilarious (and kind of sad) that Doc Bull's old aunt doesn't remember his name and never answers his phone.

Andy Devine is very funny, too, in an early role as a very whiney hypochondriac (who for some reason seems to hold an attraction for the town girls...I guess there aren't too many single young men!) who keeps bothering Doc.

It's a nice little movie that does show the narrow and mean side to small town life and how small town doctors like Doc Bull get taken for granted.

It's also nice to see Rochelle Hudson in any movie, I like her and she did several movies with Will.

Here are some stills taken on the set, I hope they aren't too large and too many, sorry
if I got carried away.

Ford with actress Marian Nixon, who plays the wife of the paralyzed young man Doc tries to cure.


Ford shooting a scene in Doctor Bull


Pipe brigade on set of Doctor Bull. Not sure who the two men in the middle are, flanked by Jack and brother Francis (R).


Doc Bull tries to study up on how to cure a patient.




The Doctor takes some for medicinal purposes...








Will in a customary shot...when not actually filming, he could be found reading the papers to find out all he knew.


Will with frequent co-star Rochelle Hudon...what a fortunate girl.


Will and Andy Devine




Director (far L, seated) and star on set...


Will would become as important a figure/mentor to the younger director as Harry Carey was before him. They planned more movies together and Will's tragic death in 1935 left Ford devastated.


A relaxed moment on the set.




A VERY rare smile from the director, showing just how at ease Rogers made people feel.


My favorite:


Will cuts up...




Will was always reading newspapers, and seldom if ever held a script because he liked to improvise his scenes.
"You don't direct Will Rogers, you just put a camera on him and shoot," the director said.



I believe it was during shooting of this scene at the start of filming that Ford walked off the set after Willie made a "suggestion" about the scene. Directional advice was the one thing Ford never tolerated, and I can only imagine Will's bemused reaction to the tantrum. They apparently never had any other bumps after that.






Those are Ford's Oxford pups there in the foreground...this was one relaxed set.


Will and Vera Allen, who plays his lady friend, the Widow Cardmaker. Janet Cardmaker, like Will, is
somewhat of out of the groove of the town life, more a subject of gossip than sharer of it.

[movieman1957]

I am surprised how natural Rogers is here. I have not seen any of his other films and never really thought of him as an actor though I knew he did films. He seems completely at ease. I quite enjoyed it. I know one or two of his others are on Netflix so they'll be seen soon. It's just crazy I had it this long and had forgotten about it.

[MissGoddess]

Besides Doubting Thomas which Moira mentioned, I recommend They Had to See Paris, David Harum and Too Busy to Work. The latter is a remake of his earlier silent, Jubilo, and a very moving story.

[JackFavell]

That's so funny, MissG! I was going to mention the oxfords in the previous picture.... and who is Duke R. L.? written on the director's chair?

Those photos are priceless. I can't imagine where you came up with them! Incredible.

That first photo, in which Ford is gazing intently at the camera, looks innocent enough at first glance, and in fact, I just love it, because he seems so relaxed. But then I think maybe there is something different going on there. I don't know that I would want Ford gazing at me with such applied attention......it makes me worry for the person behind the camera.

[movieman1957]

Anyone have any thoughts on "Tobacco Road"?

[JackFavell]

I have not seen Tobacco Road for years, and so cannot make any decent comments on it.

I hated it when I saw it the first time, but knowing Ford's movies the way I do now, it is obviously time for me to go back and watch it over again... This one might be a little tough for me, because I also could not stand the play that it is taken from. But there are always redeeming things about Pappy's films, so I need to stop being prejudiced against it, and try it again.

Really the only thing I can remember from it is someone saying, "Jeeeeeter, you stop bowncin' that there baaaaall offen the baaaarn!".

[movieman1957]

I saw it years ago and didn't remember much about it but I watched about half of it before I had to go out and frankly I am not far from you. It is loud (especially the boy,) not very funny and quite uncomfortable in the way it depicts poor Southern folks. Maybe I let my bad mood carry over but so far there seems to be little to like in any of the characters. I find it hard to believe this ran on Broadway for 7 years. I'll finish it because there is little I hate worse than not finishing something especially since it is not very long but what a rough start.

[MissGoddess]

Anyone have any thoughts on "Tobacco Road"?

It's one of my least favorites, though I liked it a little better the last time I watched it as opposed to the first time.

For me, it's redeeming qualities are the cinematography and the loving way Jeeter (Charley Grapewin is terrific, he's a character actor I'm liking more and more) and his wife (and their homeless plight) is depicted. Everything else is rather grating on the nerves. I'm not fond of God's Little Acre, either, which was another Erskine Caldwell property.

I've read Ford himself wasn't too happy with TR. Can't win 'em all.

[JackFavell]

I used to belong to a small theatre, and one of the women who was on the board wanted badly to direct Tobacco Road. She would nominate the play EVERY year, and every year, we would shrink away from producing it. Luckily, we had a democratic system of voting for plays - and I am pretty darn sure that Tobacco Road only got one vote every time it was up for selection.....

[movieman1957]

Well, I can't say that I enjoyed the end anymore than the first half. Just when I thought everybody was going to get their act together they let me down. Big disappointment.

Gene Tierney had one line. Dana Andrews had two scenes and Slim Summerville spent his onscreen time running away from Sister Bessie.

Oh well, on to the next one.

[moira finnie]

I thought that I was one of those philistines who just didn't "get" Tobacco Road, so your comments make me feel that perhaps the Erskine Caldwell story is just too dated to appreciate now. I tried to watch it on three occasions and couldn't get past the first 15 minutes. I enjoy all the people involved in the film so much in other roles, I was disappointed in myself for my failure to think that the antics of these poor people were entertaining or engaging. Maybe if I hadn't seen so much real rural poverty as a kid, I could have seen the value of this movie. Not John Ford's finest hour, alas.

Has anyone seen The Sun Shines Bright (1953), the director's later exploration of the Judge Priest character first seen in the Will Rogers movie of the '30s? Is it worth tracking down? Thanks in advance for any opinions.

[movieman1957]

I am not quite sure the rural poverty had anything to do with your outlook. They are all, in that family, presented as stupid, lazy, sloppy, and in anyway imaginable, useless people. They hardly have anything to redeem themselves. They wonder why their children never come to visit. Lord knows when the last time they went to the creek to clean up. (Jeeter does throw some water and let it land on his head.)

Having just been through his opus with the Joad family and all the things they did to try and make a better life for the family it is odd that he would find one so resigned to their own poverty. Even when given a reprieve it is obvious at the last scene they will squander that as well.

Haven't seen "The Sun Shines Bright." Not that you asked but I saw "When Willie Comes Marching Home" and that is ok but nothing to write home about.