Letter From America… February 8, 2007
Posted by John Hodson in : Film General, Westerns , trackback‘Swiss Toni’ might claim it is ‘…like making love to a beautiful woman…’ (’you get it all down, you think you’ve performed superbly…but there’s not much sign of any response…’), however, gentle reader, I have come to discover that blogging is much more like my golf game (with the added bonus that there is no need for fine wines or Belgian chocolates).
I play round after round, hacking away in the gorse, scaring the wildlife - myself and other golfers - scrabbling amongst more sand than Lawrence of Surburbia, trying desperately, but vainly, to stay on the mown bit and keep my score beneath three figures.
And then I hit one.
That’s all it takes. Just one shot, one perfect long iron that as you connect you know is, unlike the other 94 you hammered at that day, just the right side of perfection. The mating of club head and ball makes that sweet and unique pinging noise that you hear every single damned shot as you meekly follow the club professional around the course.
Time is slowed right down, and you are granted a zen-like out of body overview of your ‘moment’. You don’t even seem to feel the impact as the ball lifts off the fairway, taking a beautifully sliced divot. The club shaft makes a perfect arc through the air, you can see with almost superhuman crystal clarity - and with just a little fade to bring it round to the green - your ball zipping, ripping, through the crisp, evening air. You can picture yourself even as you do it; your is swing is a thing of beauty, the follow through textbook perfection. You are a golfing God!
It is 219 yards from where you stand to the green and your shot, your beautiful, gorgeous, sexy shot, pitches, bounces three times before nestling a trifling eight inches from the cup. There are a couple of guys walking down the opposite fairway who look on with envious eyes. You try to maintain just a hint of decorum, as if you played every shot in the same, casual insouciant manner, heft your bag and saunter away. Just the merest hint of a swagger.
That was a four iron I played to the 15th, oh, maybe eight years ago; I can recall each delicious millisecond. I had never played a finer shot before or since; I will never better it. Never. But it doesn’t matter because it happened. Once. Thank you God for a truly beautiful experience. I wish I could have had it stuffed and mounted.
Where was I? Ah, yes. Blogging. Well here we are; you post on this or that subject, put a little of yourself into it, a tiny bit of sweat, a modicum of effort. And then when it’s finished and you look it and think ‘well, that’s not half bad’, you hit the ‘publish’ button and…get absolutely zero response.
No-one comes along pats you on the head and proffers a sugar lump. No-one pops up and says ‘that wasn’t so bad, but…’ (which my delicate ego could just about put up with). But worst of all, you have no indication that anyone, someone who cares, has even seen it. It might as well not exist.
The posts, one after the other, become sad-eyed orphans of the internet; unloved, unwanted and unread. It is, sometimes, terribly dispiriting, but I’m a big boy and quite aware that it comes with the territory. However, it doesn’t stop me whimpering at my computer screen, begging someone to pretty please (with sugar on) reassure me that this isn’t completely worthless? For most bloggers, I do suspect, post after post, the silence in their email inbox is deafening.
And then you hit one.
I was so pleased when John Mulholland replied to my piece on Vera Cruz; and very kind comments they were too. The utterly delightful thing is, that John is one of the leading lights at MODA Entertainment. As a writer and director of some rather spiffy documentaries, he possesses far, far more knowledge than I on Vera Cruz and High Noon, and imagine my delight when he was generously willing to share what he knows with me - and ultmately you, gentle reader - thus fleshing out both those blogs in a way I couldn’t have imagined whilst writing either.
John has kindly granted permission to share the emails he sent to me with you, and that is exactly what I intend doing here.
First off MODA Entertainment - it is, as you’ll see if you click on that link above, based on Madison Avenue, New York. By way of explanation: ‘…Its Board of Producers, uniquely consisting of estate holders of celebrated classic Hollywood actors, directors, and writers. MODA Entertainment spearheads many projects that introduce the history of Classic Hollywood films and actors to new generations. The Board of Producers are the decision makers, consultants, and active producers on all of MODA’s projects.
‘The Board of Producers consist of Writer and Director John Mulholland, Stephen Bogart (son of actor Humphrey Bogart and actress Lauren Bacall), Maria Cooper (actor Gary Cooper’s daughter), Pia Lindstrom (actress Ingrid Bergman’s daughter), Jack Hathaway (director Henry Hathaway’s son), and Peter McCrea (actors Joel McCrea and Frances Dee’s son) among others. The Producers provide a unique link and history to classic Hollywood and the entertainment industry. They have been instrumental in ensuring that MODA Entertainment continues preserving the integrity of Hollywood’s Golden Age.’
Amongst the documentaries MODA has produced is Sergeant York: For God & Country on Warners recent SE disc of Hawks film, and The Children Remember, on Warners sublime Casablanca.
In his reply to my Vera Cruz blog, John said he had ‘just finished a documentary’ on Cooper and Hemingway and it was this that really set my juices flowing. Because my wheels turn exceedingly slow at times, I thought at first that John was just another enthusiastic fan, until - his name ringing loud bells in my head - I checked out IMDB.
It was then, bursting with curiosity, that I decided to email the documentary maker, and happily, as it turns out, he was just about to email me…:
“…the doc is called Cooper And Hemingway: The True Gen. It hasn’t been released yet. Just finished it - well, allegedly finished is perhaps more accurate. In some ways, we blew it. We were accepted at the Venice Film Festival this past year, after they saw a rough cut. But we were unable to finish it and we had to decline.”
John says the initial cut was some nine hours long, but has been trimmed to about two and a half hours now for theatrical purposes. A DVD will likely show up at some point, probably longer than that (but no doubt shorter than nine hours), which is quite excellent news.
“The Cooper who emerged from research was such an astonishingly different guy than his public image - rather slow-witted cowboy, not much intellectual breadth, etc. - that I found myself in genuine awe of the man.
“Numbered among his good friends were not just Hemingway, but Picasso, John O’Hara, Irwin Shaw, Robert Sherwood, Clifford Odets, the Shah of Iran(?!?), Abba Eban, James Watson (co-discoverer of DNA), Babe Ruth, etc. His epic philandering has been well established, but the art connoisseur, the man of seemingly bottomless curiosity, infinite loyalty (as with trying to get Ingrid Bergman back to America and Hollywood by personally offering the lead opposite him in Friendly Persuasion, promising he’d take the heat for the decision), etc, were revelations.
“During the making of High Noon, Cooper became embroiled in the whole HUAC disgrace. In 1947, he had testified on the first day of hearings - named no names, no scripts, nothing - he was there, as he put it, to inform the committee that Hollywood was not a nest of communists. That this was a mistake, simply appearing, Cooper later acknowledged. But the waters hadn’t yet been muddied.
“When seemingly half of Hollwood’s leading men - Kirk Douglas, Peck, Brando, Heston, Clift - turned down High Noon, and a lettuce grower offered to put up the remaining $250,000 to meet its budget of $750,000, he did it with the proviso that Cooper star. No Cooper, no money.
“So, he read the script and leaped at it. Which is when the complex and very loyal man behind the myth came out. Jonathan Foreman, Carl Foreman’s son, graciously shared all of his father’s papers and notes and correspondence with me.
“Foreman, a former member of the Communist Party, was very concerned about Cooper and his political stand. So, he went to lunch with Cooper several months before shooting began and told him about having been a member of the Party. To his surprise, Cooper said it was Foreman’s business, not his.
“They became very friendly. When Foreman was publicly named as a Communist by an HUAC witness, there was a call for Foreman to be fired. John Wayne was a vocal leader in this. Cooper issued a statement to the press that, ‘Carl Foreman was the finest kind of American. His politics were his business, and his alone.’
“Foreman’s date to testify was two weeks into ‘Noon’s’ shoot. Wayne and his cohorts - Ward Bond and Ginger Rodgers, among others - warned Stanley Kramer that the film would be blackballed if Foreman’s name weren’t removed as screenwriter. Kramer agreed. But when Cooper and Fred Zinnemann heard of this, they told Kramer they were walking off the film if Foreman’s name weren’t kept on. They got their way.
“Which incensed Wayne. He approached Foreman and urged him to name names or his career would be ruined and his passport lifted (both of which happened). Then, Cooper offered to testify on Foreman’s behalf, but character witnesses weren’t permitted. When Wayne heard about this, he warned Cooper that his career would be over if he didn’t walk off the film.
“Cooper, of course, told Wayne to go to hell. After the film was finished and Foreman had been blacklisted, and before it had become such a huge hit, Foreman formed his own company. Cooper publicly invested in the company. Big headlines in the trades, an article how they’d both produce, Foreman would write and direct and Cooper star, etc.
“But pressure over the next few days became so intense that Foreman realized they’d never get a film made and Cooper’s career would be ruined, too. He released him from any obligations and left for England.
“So impressed by - and grateful for - Cooper’s behavior, Foreman ever after sent Cooper his scripts for first refusal, including The Bridge On The River Kwai, The Key and The Guns Of Navarone. Cooper’s age and failing health forced him to reject all three.”
Gary Cooper, John Wayne…and Oscar
I asked John about the real reason Coop asked Wayne to accept his Best Actor Oscar for High Noon at the 1953 Academy Awards, always a puzzle in view of Wayne’s views on the film. His answer left me tickled pink…
Said John: “I had a long talk with Anthony Quinn for Cooper/Hemingway. He knew them both and especially admired Cooper, who had saved him from being fired on his first day ever on a set (during The Plainsman). They became close friends.
“In March, 1953, during the Academy Awards ceremonies, Quinn and Cooper were down in Mexico shooting Blowing Wild. Both were nominated. As Quinn told me, he wanted to go up to LA for the awards, but when Cooper said he wasn’t going, he decided not to.
“Quinn said: ‘Whatever Coop did, I would do. He was literally my idol’. So, a radio feed was set up. And Quinn was all excited, there was a party. But then he spotted Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck each grab a bottle of wine and start out. He asked Cooper if he wasn’t going to listen to the awards. Cooper said no and he and Stanwyck disappeared. Quinn said he really wanted to listen, maybe he’d win, but if Coop wasn’t going to listen, he wasn’t.
“Quinn grabs a bottle of wine and joins Cooper and Stanwayck, who’d settled up a hill, drinking their wine.
“After a while, the three of them are laying on their backs gazing up at the night sky, when Cooper starts chuckling to himself. Pretty soon, he’s laughing so hard that he has to sit up. Quinn and Stanwyck had no idea what he was laughing at. They asked him what was so funny.
“Cooper told them he’d run into Wayne a week before over in Cuernavaca. Quinn hoped that he’d belted him. But Cooper shook his head and said he’d asked him to pick up his Oscar should he win. Quinn said he couldn’t believe this, after Wayne had tried to get him blacklisted.
“But Cooper had this wonderfully dry sense of humor - both his parents were from England and he had spent three years in school in England - and Quinn said he almost rubbed his hands together with delight when he said: “What’s the sonuvabitch going to say if I win!”
“Well, Cooper did win and Wayne did pick up the Oscar. And with utter chutzpah, colossal hypocrisy, Wayne said that he was going to ask his agent why he wasn’t offered High Noon by such a great writer as Carl Foreman.
“Wayne’s acceptance is on tape, and it is absolutely jaw-dropping. Why be surprised, I suppose. This is the man who ducked WW II (claimed he was sole support of his two children, as if farmers and bank clerks and cops, etc. weren’t)…was such a force during HUAC, and then had the gall to tell young men in the 1960s that they were cowards for not willing to die for their country in Vietnam.
“When I was going through Cooper’s papers, researching Coop/Hemingway - they’re in three different bins on the east side of Manhattan; I’d sit there all day, sometimes with Maria, his daughter, other times alone, amazing stuff in them - I came upon a carbon of a letter from some producer, might have been Hal Wallis, can’t be sure. And it was offering Cooper a role in a film called Lewis And Clark. Cooper would be Lewis and Wayne would be Clark.
“There was a huge ‘NO!!!’ scrawled across the bottom half…”
On High Noon
MODA has also completed a new documentary Inside High Noon for Paramount for a 2-disc SE of High Noon that was slated for release last autumn in the U.S., but which has not materialised. Directed and written by John, it includes on screen interviews with Maria Cooper Janis (Gary Cooper’s Daughter), President William Clinton, Tim Zinneman (son of director Fred Zinneman) , Jonathan Foreman (son of screenwriter Carl Foreman), Prince Albert of Monaco, Brian Garfield, Lee Clark Mitchell, Stephen Prince and Meir Ribalow.
“Zinnemann sent Maria Cooper a letter in the late ’80s, in which he expresses frustration and, actually, some bitterness over the various lies about the final cut of ‘Noon’” John told me.
“Maria reads it on in the documentary. But he (Zinnemann) is especially angry over Kramer’s claim that he is the father of the final cut, claiming credit for inserting the clocks.
“But Zinnemann’s annotated script, which we use (and which he sent Bill Clinton a copy while Clinton was President), clearly shows the clocks were there from the beginning. There are lines - ‘Tight on clock, 11:07; close up clock, 11:25, etc.’
“As he explains in the letter, not only were the close ups there from the beginning, but that the script as written by Foreman precluded any realy editing magic. It was mostly precut because of the clocks in the background. To mess around with sequences would have been impossible, due to the clocks on the wall, on mantles, etc.
John added that far from what my research turned up for my original High Noon post, it was always, apparently, intended to play in ‘real time’, and Foreman’s shooting script, a couple of scenes aside (described in the afrementioned post), is pretty much what you see on the screen.
“So much of what you delve into in your article is what we cover in the doc. Stuff I thought few others had ever noticed. Like, for example, the sweaty, dirty, clothing worn by the men in the saloon. Never really focused on, merely a part of the tapestry, but there none the less. More than a decade before Leone.
“The swipes at Coooper’s performance have always annoyed me. That whole ulcer nonsense is such a canard. If it were so debilitating, then that makes the performance even greater. These people always knock Cooper for being so self-pitying, so put-upon, in High Noon.
“How do these “critics” miss that Cooper gives, in effect, two separate performances? When he is with others, when he is in public, he’s always got his masculine facade on, he is firm, in control, never showing a sign of weakness, even when asking for help, he’s strong. But when he’s alone, when no-one is watching, he’s anther man entirely. He’s angry, bitter, self-pitying, downright frightened.
“This is captured beautifully when he breaks down and cries, all alone, noon approaching. A man, crying! Then, when he realizes the boy has seen him, he sits back, stiffens his back, shifts his shoulders and his expression for an instant is startled, then the masculine mask is back on. He’s firm, in control.
“All man.
“It’s one of the most emotionally naked performances in all of film, though not emotionally naked in the style of a Brando or a Pacino.”
Again, my profound thanks to John Mulholland, not only for taking the time out to reply to my blog, taking the time to make a complete stranger happy, but for going several steps further and transforming a simple post into a wonderful treasure trove; seems we are both paid up members of The Gary Cooper Appreciation Society. Which is nice.
I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.
Last Word…
If memory serves it was around 1963 or ‘64 that I won a wooden Doctor Who jigsaw (Daleks! Cor…) in a - I think - Century 21 magazine competition. To win the prize, I had to colour in a ‘Doctor Who’ picture, which I did to the very best of my ability, keeping the crayon (mostly) within the lines, my tongue lolling on my lips as I did it, concentrating fiercely
I was absolutely stunned and overjoyed when the box containing the prize came through the post with a signed letter from the editor telling me: ‘Congratulations! You Are A Winner.’ Blimey. Me?
Damn near wore out that jigsaw in a matter of weeks, fingering the thick, gaily coloured pieces, putting them in place, putting them back in the box, putting them in place again. Cleaning the pieces. Imagine that; cleaning! I was just so bloody grateful.
Being deemed FilmJournal’s current ‘Best Blog’, I feel much the same right now. I shall endeavour to keep on keeping within the lines. Well, mostly…
Comments»
This is fascinating stuff, and the award is well deserved, thanks John.
Fascinating and very informative reading on Gary Cooper!
Attack John Wayne and you are attacking one of the greatest Americans. In the first place, the United States gave John Wayne the Medal Of Freedom, not Gary Cooper. John Wayne stood up his whole life for America. Cooper went to Russia in the late fifties, spending two weeks touring. Wayne never would have done that.
In the second place, the government wanted John Wayne to make war movies during WW II, not serve in the armed forces. Wayne’s great war movies during the war were a major reason America had the backbone to fight the war. I don’t think that Cooper even made any war movies during WW II.
In the third place, Wayne was a powerful force behind rooting out commies in Hollywood, unlike Cooper, who protected them. Wayne made a great movie in which he played a HUAC investigator called Big Jim McClain.
In the fourth place, Wayne was too old to serve in Vietnam. He made one of the best war movies ever in Green Berets. He would have served in Vietnam if he had been younger.
John Wayne, American
It is pretty well documented that it was Herbert Yates who wanted Wayne to continue making movies, and money, for Republic during the war years, and alledgedly applied for the exemptions on Wayne’s behalf; Wayne could have objected, and did make (very) half-hearted attempts to somehow get involved with John Ford’s ‘Field Photo’ unit.
The simple fact is he could have stood up for America in the most tangible way and served his country in action during WWII, but chose not to. I’ve tried to make sense of this over the years, but despite the fact that I’ve always wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, I can’t and I think it was a guilt Wayne lived most of his life. It’s probably the reason he became the ’superpatriot’ that he did.
I don’t there’s much hard evidence that Wayne ‘rooted out commies’; that Wayne was such a major force in stiffening America’s backbone, and his serving in Vietnam had he been of age, will have to remain a matter of opinion and conjecture (and I don’t think too many will argue against the fact that Wayne’s war films were of propaganda value). However, Cooper’s ‘Sergeant York’ was made specifically to help persuade isolationist Americans that they should get involved in WWII. It was a belief held not only by Cooper and Hawks, but by Warners themselves and was made despite protestations from those opposed to the war.
I’ve been fans of many of the the movies of Gary Cooper and John Wayne most of my life. I still am. ‘Big Jim McLain’, however, is not one of them.
Thanks for posting, and thanks for confirming that there are still people out there who think that HUAC was ’a good thing’. Fascinating. Truly.
Nat & Nick; many thanks for your comments too.
Regarding HUAC and Wayne’s impact on ‘rooting out commies’, Randy Roberts and James S. Olsen in their book “John Wayne: American,” wondered, “how many loyal Americans may actually have converted to communism out of embarrassment that their country could produce” such films as Big Jim McLain.”
As Jay points out, Cooper visited Russia in 1959. To bolster his argument versus Cooper, here’s a kicker to that. After returning home, the Coopers threw a party for a visiting delegation of Russian artists — painters, filmmakers, writers, actors, etc. — whom they’d met in Russia. When gossip maven Hedda Hopper heard about this, she write a column excoriating Cooper for having gone “soft on Communism.”
She then called Cooper at home and started to take him apart, at which point the Cooper behind the Cooper took over. As his daughter Maria recalls, he lit into Hopper, blasted her up and down and then hung up on her.
As for WW II, Cooper enlisted in the army, at age 40, a few weeks after Pearl Harbor. He was rejected on medical grounds, his year as a stunt man had done considerable internal damage and he (stupidly?) continued to do most of his own stunts as long as the insurance company permitted, and he had been almost killed in a car accident at 17, received wrong advice on how to take care of the hip and it never healed correctly.
After being rejected for service, Cooper made a conscious decision to avoid the slew of war films offered. He felt genuine guilt for not taking part and with so many of his friends now seeing action (including James Stewart and Glenn Ford), he couldn’t get himself to feel natural playing the war hero on a soundstage.
The only war film he made had to do with Dr. Wassell’s extraordinary evacuation of wounded soldiers off Java. The fact that this film is hardly watchable is another story.
When, after the war, Cooper expressed to Hemingway his guilt for not having served, he told him: “Never feel bad about missing war, Coop.”
Cooper did make a couple of war films after the war, Cloak And Dagger and Task Force.
Wayne must have felt tremendous guilt at having ducked WW II, otherwise why lie for 35 years that it was a football injury which kept you out?
Whether Wayne would have served in Vietnam were he younger, well … all I know is there’s something flat out despicable about telling others that they are cowards and un-American for not going over to fight and die for their country when you yourself refused to do so.
Wonder if Dick Cheney is a John Wayne fan?
I’ve always been baffled why Gary Cooper and John Wayne are constantly lumped together. Sure Cooper was great in westerns, the best from my perspective, but he made barely a fraction that Wayne made. And Cooper made some war films, but not nearly the number Wayne did. They had two distinctly different careers.
Just list the directors Cooper worked with: Vidor, Wells, Fleming, Von Sternberg, Lubistch, Borzage, Hathaway, Milestone, Capra, DeMille, Wyler, Wood, Lang, McCrary, Walsh, Curtiz, Zinnemann, De Toth, Robson, Fregonese, Aldrich, Preminger, Wilder, Mann, Daves, Anderson, Rossen. I’ve no doubt left out some, but that is an amazing roster of top flight directors.
Cooper was ecellent in drawing room comedy, screwball comedy, action/adventure, drama, melodrama, westerns, historical romances, bio pix, etc.
Wayne can’t match Cooper’s extraordinarily diverse career. His range wasn’t nearly as wide as Cooper’s, even though there are some who maintain Cooper had but a very narrow range. I challenge anyone to consider Cooper’s work in 1941 alone, Sergeant York, Meet John Doe, Ball Of Fire, and say he wasn’t a great actor. Three classic films, with Cooper utterly different in each film. What a year!
To keep comparing Cooper to Wayne is a disservice to Cooper’s legacy as an actor. Tom Hanks has said that watching Gary Cooper’s 90 second bit in the silent Wings is to watch the future of film acting.
Cooper wasn’t only playing himself, he was acting.
Not saying Wayne didn’t have his strengths; only have to watch him in Liberty Valance, The Searchers, Quiet Man, Red River, They Were Expendable, some others, and realize he was a better actor than given credit for.
As for their personal lives, what can I say? I didn’t know either man, though it is certainly disheartening to consider that Wayne chose not to take part in WW II, this goes against everything he said that he stood for. And I didn’t know until reading this that he had played a role in getting people blacklisted. That is awful, can’t get around it. Nor did I know that he was apparently involved in promoting the war in Vietnam. Not saying any of this in Wayne’s background is something to be proud of, it sure isn’t. But I guess I will try to watch his films and separate the man from the actor.
Hope that I can!
Chris means, perhaps, Wellman, not Wells, in the list of directors with whom Cooper worked?
Either way, an impressive list indeed.
Had he not turned down Hitchcock (Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur) and Ford (Stagecoach), two more immortals would be on that list.
Cooper had also been approached by Michael Powell to play the explorer Robert Scott. He was also Laughton’s first choice for Night Of The Hunter, but turned it down to do Friendly Persuasion, no little irony there.