El Dorado (Paramount Pictures) (1966)

Still #10423/10423/147 Mat 2C TOO LATE FOR THE ACTION, but in time to witness the carnage are Diane Strom, left; Charlene Holt, R. G. Armstrong, Anne Newman and Michele Carey just after the climactic gunfight in Howard Hawks’ “El Dorado,” starring John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. The Technicolor Western for Paramount Pic tures, opens at the Theatre. DIRECTOR HOWARD HAWKS DEMANDS: “WHERE ARE THE HE-MEN ACTORS?” “What happens when ‘Duke’ Wayne and Mitchum retire?” Howard Hawks, director-producer of Paramount’s two-fisted Technicolor Western adventure “El Dorado,” opening Eis at the .................0... Lheatre, was in a depressed frame of mind as he thought about the calibre of today’s leading men. “I’m having trouble already casting he-men for adventure films. “T must have seen dozens of actors before I finally signed James Caan to play Mississippi,’ Hawks continued. “And what makes me mad is that I wanted him from the beginning but I was afraid I might be overlooking someone else. So I played it safe and I saw other actors. What a waste of time! Caan is the exception to today’s rule. And you can’t realize how big an exception he is until you start to see what passes for masculinity these days. “Duke and Mitch are twice as old as most of the young he-men today, but they’re ten times the men the kids are. And it isn’t age that does it. Part of the reason is what’s inside a man. Part of it is the background and training. “Look at what’s happening today. Most of your actors are the polished products of drama schools and little theatres. They’re students. They’re neat and clean and specialized. “Then, the first thing most of them do when they get out of school is to go into television. And television should be a good training Mat 1C HER WORKING COSTUME... Charlene Holt plays Maudie, the dance-hall queen, in Howard Hawks’ “El Dorado,” starring John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. The Technicolor Western for Paramount Pictures, opens at the .. Theatre. Still #10423/66 ground, Only it isn’t. What television teaches actors, people like me have spent time unlearning them. “Duke and Mitch were alive when they got into acting. Duke was working as a prop man when John Ford grabbed him for a part. And he was a star tackle at USC. If he hadn’t gone into acting, he’d have probably ended up as a success in ranching or construction. If he were in college today, he’d be going into pro-football if he weren’t an actor. “Mitchum quit school to bum around the country. He had all kinds of jobs and some of them were pretty rugged. He got pushed into acting. “Too many of the young actors today look like they’re playing at being men. And too many of them are only playing at it. And that’s what’s wrong. “Give me the Waynes and the Mitchums every time. They’re almost the last of the tough guys!” “El Dorado,” which stars John Wayne and Robert Mitchum, also features a typical Hawks assemblage of veteran male actors and attractive young female newcomers. The Technicolor feature has a screenplay by Leigh Brackett, BRIEF ENCOUNTER LANDS MICHELE CAREY IN “EL DORADO” Howard Hawks has been so successful in discovering and then launching the careers of many fine actresses (samples include: Carole Lombard, Rita Hayworth, Lauren Bacall, and Joan Collins), that one has only to look at Michele Carey, featured in Paramount’s lusty Technicolor Western, “El Dorado,” GHENING 82..,ceees ses SG tne eens Theatre, and realize that the noted eee is firmly behind er. An agent submitted the brunette to Hawks for a role in ‘‘Red Line 7000.” a role she didn’t get. It took one brief encounter to convince Hawks that Miss Carey just wasn’t up to the part. But it took that same brief encounter to reveal to Hawks that she had an indefinable earthiness. Hawks decided that what she needed was some intensive grooming and for the next six months, she worked hard at such things as voice-development, makeup experiments, screen tests, horseback riding, dramatic coaching, and all the other elements needed by an actress. You'll be able to see the results in “El Dorado,” in which she plays one of the two feminine leads opposite John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. AFTER 37 YEARS, JOHN WAYNE IS STILL THE MASTER WITH “EL DORADO” John Wayne, who stars as gunfighter Cole Thornton in “E] Dorado,’’ Howard Hawks, bruising, brawling Technicolor Western adventure which Paramount Pictures is releasing, opening ....... ‘ saxon ees Co oNG 8 4) SoBe nee see ae aa To which, a gagster might add: “And he’ll keep doing them until he does them right!” The only problem is, where Wayne is concerned, the joke doesn’t apply. He, more than any one American actor, has established the tradition of the American Western. He is an authentic American Western hero. It all started in March of 1929 when Marion ‘“Duke” Morrison joined the film industry. Raoul Walsh signed him to star in “The Big Trail” and changed his name to John Wayne. In appreciation for this once-ina-lifetime stroke of good fortune, Wayne promptly became ill and held up the shooting schedule for weeks. It was only when Walsh told him he couldn’t wait for his new young star any longer that Wayne dragged himself out of bed and reported for work. His first scene ever in a Western was a literal eye-opener for the excollege football star who had made a fetish of always being in condition. He was supposed to be riding alongside a wagon train as Tully Marshall, a character actor, came up to him and offered him a drink. But, Marshall took his role seriously and as he approached, Wayne could see that he was drunk. Marshall, however, didn’t falter. He handed Wayne his jug, as he was supposed to, and Wayne took a deep swallow. “T can still taste it,” Wayne recalled recently. “Instead of water or tea, that jug was full of the worst rot-gut I’ve ever tasted in my life. And I had to swallow it all or ruin the whole scene. And after holding them up all that time, there was nothing I could do but swallow. What made it worse is that my throat was still raw from all those weeks I was sick.” Wayne lived through his ordeal, but almost as if in punishment, he spent the next several years doing almost nothing but quickie Westerns. The tide turned dramatically and permanently when the 1939 production of “Stage Coach” was filmed. The West has been almost all Wayne since. He proudly notes that all his Westerns have made money. Practically everything he’s ever done has made money. He’s been listed among Hollywood’s top ten moneymakers for 16 consecutive years. “El Dorado” also stars Robert Mitchum, another of Hollywood’s top moneymaking stars and a veteran of Westerns himself. Still #10423/8 Mat iB THE LAW... Robert Mitchum is the fast-drawing guardian of peace in Howard Hawks’ “EI Dorado,” which teams him for the first time with John Wayne. The Technicolor Western for Paramount Pictures, opens . at the ise. 9% Theatre. Theatre, has been doing film Westerns for 37 years. Still #10423/74 Mat 2B COUP DE GRACE is administered by John Wayne to Robert Mitchum as the two stars end toe-to-toe slugfest in this scene from Howard Hawks’ “El Dorado,” opening Theatre. The Technicolor Western for Paramount eoeeeee eee at the Pictures tells the story of a gunfighter and a sheriff in a range war, and co-stars James Caan, Charlene Holt, Michele Carey, and Arthur Hunnicutt. JAMES CAAN MOVES WITH “EL DORADO” It was James Caan’s performance in “Red Line 7000” for director-producer Howard Hawks which earned him a long-term contract with Paramount Pictures and the vital role of Mississippi in Hawks’ “El Dorado,” the big, lusty, brawling Technicolor Western adventure starring John Wayne and Robert Mitchum opening ................ at the seesensse eee Theatre. Caan (a Dutch name, pronounced Cahn) attracted favorable notice in his first picture, when he played a sadistic heavy in “Lady In A Cage.” He continued to look good, this time in a comedy role, in “The Glory Guys.” His performance as race driver Mike Marsh in “Red Line 7000” started the whispers that there might be that long sought for successor to the mantle of the late James Dean. “El Dorado” is only his fourth feature. His next, “Games,” will find him co-starring with Simone Signoret. The young man is moving fast. A New Yorker, he was born in The Bronx, the son of a meat dealer, and raised in Queens. After his graduation from Rhodes High School, he entered Michigan State University, switching to Hofstra College in his sophomore year. He kept changing majors but, finding none to hold his interest, became a college dropout and enrolled at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. He appeared in “La Ronde” off-Broadway and understudied five roles in “Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole” on Broadway. He also made a number of TV appearances on New York based shows. Nothing much happened until he went to Hollywood in 1962. Some good TV roles began to fall his way, then “‘Lady In A Cage” and then better TV roles. Now the movies are beginning to come faster and better. Caan is 6’ tall, weighs 165 lbs., has brown hair and blue-gray eyes. He married television dancer Dee Jay Mattis and on November 5, 1964 their daughter, Tara Alisa Caan, was born. He was an all-round athlete in school, with an emphasis on football and swimming, and his spare time interests still run to sports. | He hopes to own a ranch and breed quarter horses one day. TV PROVES LUCKY TO CHARLENE HOLT “T’m lucky Howard Hawks is a television fan,’’ Charlene Holt, costar of Paramount’s lusty Technicolor Western opening .........sccc0 at the Theatre, told an interviewer a while back. “He caught me doing a Revlon lipstick commercial, tracked me down, lured me to Hollywood with the promise of a screen test opposite Rock Hudson and before I knew what hit me, I was the ‘other woman’ in ‘Man’s Favorite Sport’ which starred Rock Hudson.” “El Dorado,” which finds her as the mutual love interest-conflict of John Wayne and Robert Mitchum, is her third feature and her third with Howard Hawks. The middle one was “Red Line 7000.” Charlene was born in Abilene, Texas on April 28, 1939. Her family moved around through Texas and New Mexico and she attended at least a half-dozen schools. As a child, she was a tomboy, good at sports. She studied dance and piano and even played the trombone for a while. This is a far cry from the way she stacks up today at 5’8” in height, weighing 126 lIbs., dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, with a figure that curves in at 36-25-3614. After early ambitions to be a nurse and then an airline stewardess, she settled on acting as her real interest. In order to pay for her dramatic training, she became a model and before long she was one of the most in-demand models in New York, earning about $50,000 a year. As soon as Hollywood called and showed that it meant business, Charlene dropped her modeling career. Ironically, she spent a lot of time and money, early in her dramatic training, to lose her pronounced Texas accent. The role she played in ‘“Man’s Favorite Sport” demanded one, so two Texas women were hired to help Charlene regain hers, She did a lot of filmed television roles in between pictures, with both parts and her recognition growing. Her role as Maudie, owner of the Broken Heart Saloon in “El Dorado” is her best opportunity to date. She is still trying to learn and to grow as an actress. eee eeeneeereses 3