The Ass Crack of Dawn

Volume #30

7/3/22

Newsletter30

The Ass Crack of Dawn

Yesterday I wrote about the bungalow where I lived on McCadden St. in Hollywood, across from A&M Records, which used to be the Charlie Chaplin Studios.  Quentin Tarantino used to hang out there.  A few minutes after writing that I turned on my phone and the first thing that appeared was a news story saying, “Quentin Tarantino Hates John Ford.”  Quentin added, “but I love Mario Bava and Sergio Leone,” which I guess somehow balances out hating Ford.  He then went on at length describing just how much he hates John Ford.  Well, that’s Quentin, and that’s why within five minutes of meeting him in 1987, I completely loathed him – he’s a lover of shit movies, while disdaining the good ones.  I thought, “What an utterly tasteless asshole.”  But Quentin is so ignorant regarding movie history, particularly John Ford, that if I duct-taped him to a chair, put on “Stuck in the Middle With You,” then began slicing off his ears with a razor, he still could not reveal the actual importance of John Ford to movie history.  So I’ll inform you and him: in 1935 John Ford made a low-budget, independent, film called, “The Informer,” which was the first serious, intelligent, adult film made with absolutely no interest in selling tickets.  It was truly art for art’s sake.  “The Informer” was so powerfully new that going head-to-head with MGM’s most expensive movie, “Mutiny on the Bounty, Ford won the Oscar for Best Director (his first of four), and the film also won: Best Actor, Best Editing, and Best Music.  Ever since “The Informer” in 1935, if you have the guts and ability, you too can make a serious, intelligent film, which of course Quentin never has.  And the reason that Quentin doesn’t know anything about the importance of “The Informer” is because he is a cinematic idiot who never did his homework.  If I still had him taped to that chair, I would happily carve a swastika into his forehead as a daily reminder to him of his intellectual laziness.

Speaking of the utter ineptitude of John Ford (who could only dream of making a film as intelligent as “Django Unchained”), and just how untalented he really was, between 1939 and 1941, he directed: “Stagecoach,” “Young Mr. Lincoln,” “Drums Along the Mohawk,” “The Grapes of Wrath” and “How Green Was My Valley” (Best Picture, 1941).  If only John Ford’s films could have had witty, scintillating dialogue like, “Did you see a sign that says ‘Dead Nigger Storage’?  I said, did you see a sign that says, ‘Dead Nigger Storage’?” then he might have had a chance at making a good film.

And finally, 40 years into his career, John Ford was hired to direct the film of the hit Broadway play, “Mr. Roberts,” that starred Henry Fonda.  Warner Bros. asked Ford who he wanted to play the lead part in the film?  Ford said, “Henry Fonda.”  Warners said, “No, Fonda is box-office poison, that’s why he went to Broadway and did the play; no one in Hollywood will hire him.”  Ford replied, “If Fonda doesn’t star, I don’t direct.”  They hesitantly agreed because they wanted John Ford.  He said, “Please don’t tell Hank I did this.”  Well, Henry Fonda had played the part so many times on stage that every time Ford gave him direction, Fonda would say, “That’s not how we did it in the play.”  Halfway through production Fonda made that comment one time too often, so John Ford punched him in the mouth and quit.  Mervyn Leroy completed the film, and both directors got credit.

There is a statue of John Ford in his hometown of Augusta, Maine.  He sits in a director’s chair, smoking a pipe, surrounded by seven stones representing his seven Oscars.

The blue gels have arrived. Another day awaits.