Silver Screen (Nov 1938-Apr 1939)

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Here the entire cast first worked together, Claire Trevor, being escorted out of town by a committee of reformers; Thomas Mitchell, as a drunken doctor, being forced to get aboard the coach because his landlady booted him out and the saloonkeeper wouldn't give him any more credit. Here, too, Berton Churchill, as the pompous banker, halted the stage on the outskirts of town and got in carrying a bag containing $50,000. Although scenes here were made later, in the film they precede those made in Arizona. As we reached location at noon one day the coach was about ready to start. Claire Trevor, John Carradine, as a gentlemanly gambler; Louise Piatt, as an expectant mother crossing the country to have her baby at an Arizona army post which her husband commanded; Mitchell and Donald Meek, a ministerial looking whiskey drummer, were in the coach when the trip started. Andy Devine was the reinsman and George Bancroft, well on the way to a screen comeback, was riding up top with Devine, playing the United States marshal. It was indeed a colorful picture, the rough, frame buildings in the background and the six-horse coach driving down the street, making these opening scenes for the fUmplay. One thing I learned here was that you must never judge a man by his size. Donald Meek stands five feet six. He has played more neurotic, timid souls than any other actor on the screen but Donald was once an acrobat. To demonstrate his strength Meek gave Andy Devine such an iron grip that Andy's face turned red as a beet and he went to his knees. So convinced of Donald's strength was 270 pound Andy that he "ganged up" on Bancroft. Meek brought this giant of a man to his knees; also Carradine. After that the cast called him "The Killer" and it was painful to shake hands with this amazing little fellow. Chatsworth, Calif.— 35 miles Northwest of Hollywood; past the horse ranch Barbara Stanwyck operates, turn to the left, go five miles further, turn right, pass Tim Holt's ranch and continue on into the rocky hills beyond the Chatsworth tunnel and you find the Ivorson ranch. One hundred and fifty acres and perhaps the richest "ranch" in America. The Ivorsons do not grow a thing on their ranch but they service backgrounds and natural rock formations for the movies and make a fortune doing it. The location here featured a burning relay station. The stagecoach reaches this station, the third on the trip, to get fresh horses, a new cavalry escort and food before fording the river and beginning the last lap of the treacherous journey to Lordsburg. However, upon arrival the passengers find the relay station a smouldering ruins, horses driven away, the agent scalped and his wife dead. This location is in the carefully guarded U. S. forest reserve area. A forester with his mobile fire engine (with 5.000 gallons of water) stood-by while the property men set fire to a frame building built only to be destroyed. While the company had luncheon, using huge boulders for tables, the building was burned. When the fire had burned down quite a bit Ford hurried the cast into the coach. The stage drove into the scene, John Wayne, Devine and Bancroft hopped off the top and hurried toward the ruins while John Carradine went around behind (he house to find the body of a girl prostrate on charred ground. This was a sad scene but a most interesting one. A wind machine was turned on the burning structure to keep small flames crackling on upright planks and the smoke rising from what was once the floor of the house. This was one of the hottest days I have ever known. It was mid-December and yet it was 94 degrees on this location. "This is a topsy turvy world," Director Ford told Miss Trevor, "We go to the desert for sunshine and hot weather and find wind storms and snow. We come home expecting rain and fog and find the thermometer higher than in the summer." Dry Lake, Calif. — Twenty-seven miles east of Victorville and 139 miles East of Hollywood was this location. Here Ford worked for five days filming Indian fight scenes, chases, "run-throughs" by the stagecoach and cavalrymen and Indians and doing more stunts with the horses. The first day the wind blew so hard that it was difficult to make long shots. Light, alkaline sand blew up a gale. Not only did it blow so hard that it slowed down the action of horses and coach running against it but it endangered the movie negative. The fine sand got inside of every light-proofed, sealed camera and each camera had to be taken apart and thoroughly cleaned every night lest dust scratch the film running through them, after being exposed. After fighting the wind all day everyone in the company worried about sand scratches on the negative most of the evening. The film turned out unharmed, however. Here there were several stunts with horses; one stunt in which the six horses and stagecoach run over Yakima Canutt, apparently shot off a horse in the path of the galloping stage. Running with the wind in one scene the coach attained' a speed estimated (by experts) as about 23 miles per hour. The velocity of the wind however makes it look much faster on the screen. Ford chose this location because the hard dry lake bed permitted the camera-car to ride alongside the coach, Indians and cavalrymen as they sped along, without bumping. I rode on the camera car on one trip and it crossed the lake bed as if on roller skates on a hard wood floor. "Stagecoach," as I have seen it in production, bids fair to become an exceptional acting picture but my vote for some sort of award goes to Director John Ford. Not only does Ford know how to get actors to give him their best but he memorizes his script and he seems _ to know every foot of available location space in California and Arizona and just about everything connected with horses, Indians and actors. With such equipment I can easily understand why he is one of the foremost directors in the business. He says little; smokes his short pipe constantly and always wears dark glasses.