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"WILD BILL": WILLIAM A. WELLMAN: CONTINUATION
Interview by
SCOTT EYMAN
a Film Comment online exclusive
Left: Track of the Cat
Generally, how do you go about working with actors?
I have never gotten along with actors. Oh, Joel McCrea was all right. And, like I said, Bob Taylor I was very fond of. But, you see, actors are different. Women look in a mirror all their lives to make themselves pretty and attractive and that's one of the reasons you fall in love with them. But a man looking in a mirror all the time, saying lines to himself,
looking at his face to see which is the best photographic angle . . . Well, one of two things happens. Either he learns to love the son of a bitch that he's always looking at or he learns to hate him. All the actors I've known learn to love him.
Yellow Sky (1951).
One of my favourite actors is in that - Greg Peck. I say that sarcastically. We made a good picture with him, despite him.
He asked me one day, "How can I get tough?" I said, "Well, you can't fight. Can you kick a football?"
He said, "Yes."
I said, "Well, then you're going to kick Widmark's head off."
So I showed him how to do it without hurting anybody. And, of course, the one who gives something like that the effect is the one who gets kicked, not the kicker. It's a question of timing. So that made him look tough. Of course, no matter what Peck did, Widmark took the picture away from him, pinned his ears back.
Another time Peck asked me, "How the hell am I going to fight Anne Baxter?"
So I said, "Anne Baxter will kick the hell out of you. And when you start that fight, you better look out for yourself and wear something over your - - - -, because she'll destroy you."
She was a wonderful gal; kicked the hell out of him in that scene. She didn't like him either and that was her one chance of getting even with him.
Did you like working with Wayne?
Did I like working with Wayne? Even though he's the greatest star this business has ever had, hell, no! I signed a contract with Batjac to make six pictures for them - three with Wayne, three without him. Of the three with Wayne, I was responsible for acquiring two - Island in the Sky and The High and the Mighty. How old is he, anyway?
Sixty-six, I think.
Well, he's pretty goddamn old to be a star, but the son of a bitch will keep going until he drops dead on top of a horse.
The problem is, he's a very set guy. Stubborn as hell. And he doesn't get along with directors, except for two. He gets along with Ford and he gets along with me. The only time we had trouble, I called him on it.
Which picture was this?
I think it was The High and the Mighty. I told him, "Look, I'm a goddamn sight better director than you are and you're a goddamn sight better actor than I am. And you coming back here and doing my work is going to be just as foolish as my going up and doing your personality with that lousy fairy walk that you've got. So behave yourself and we'll make a picture." And he did.
Of all your films that I've seen The High and the Mighty is my favourite.
Damn good picture. I own a part of it and, financially, it's the best picture I ever made. I own a third of it and it made a lot of money.
I'm inclined to agree with you about Wayne as a director, although he told me that his films The Alamo and The Green Berets did fifteen million the first time around [interview, FOCUS 20].
If you believe that, you're crazy. The Alamo fell right on its ass.
Well, I wasn't going to tell him he was full of shit.
Well, I'll tell him he's full of shit. As a director, he stinks. That's another problem with him: he's got great ego, he's very stuck on himself, and I think that's true of almost all actors.
What attracted you to Blood Alley?
Blood Alley I did because everything was all screwed up. They were having trouble with their director, Mitchum was acting up, and all sorts of other garbage. Wayne asked me as a favour if I'd do it. I said, "Yeah, I'll do it, but I think it's silly."
So I had Mitchum fired (it was one of those times when he was walking six inches above the ground) and took over. It was a story about rescuing Chinese. Now I think the Chinese are wonderful people: the kids are cute little fellows, the women are gorgeous, the men are hardworking. But goddamit, rescuing a bunch of Chinese doesn't mean anything to anybody.
I said, "Look, Duke, there's been one picture in the whole history of the business about the Chinese that was a success: The Good Earth." If they'd have filled the goddamn ferry-boat with dames, you'd have had something. But he didn't agree with me, so I did the best job I could on the thing, but it was no good. it wasn't exactly rotten, but it sure as hell was in the middle.
What do you think your weak spots are in relation to film-making?
You can't tell. The easiest thing to do is to foul up in your choice of material. How the hell can you figure what people are going to go see? I made a thing I thought was a delightful picture - Goodbye, My Lady. No one has seen it yet.
I love that film.
You're the only one that's seen it that I know of. I thought it was lovely. Maybe it would have been a big hit if the boy had had an affair with the dog. I know what went wrong with it, though. It's a very simple thing. Somebody asked me why the picture didn't work: I said, "I'm not Disney."
Maybe that's why I liked it.
I think Disney's done some good stuff, although not lately. Anyway, that's the answer I gave.
How do you know what goes wrong and makes a bad movie? I worked harder than any other goddamn director I know. I tried harder. I knew how to make a picture, but sometimes something was lacking, sometimes it wasn't. I made some fine pictures.
I've only had one real desire in this business: to make every kind of picture that was ever made. And I did. I made musicals, I made kid pictures, I made romantic comedies, the whole list. I'm very proud of that. Now, how many directors have done that?
Generally, do you overshoot a lot?
You bet your life I didn't. I'm the best goddamn two-take director in the business. One for the take I wanted, one in case something went wrong in the lab. Overshooting is asking for trouble.
When you went into the studio in the morning, did you know exactly what you wanted to get on film that day?
Absolutely. I knew exactly what I wanted. I had a script and I worked like hell at home. I used to work in this house as hard as I did on the set. I never slept well - four hours of sleep was a big night, so I did a lot of the work then.
Did you ever get bored by the time-consuming elements of film-making?
Terribly. I didn't always wait; most of the time, we'd try to figure out some screwy way of trying something new.
What's your definition of a bad movie?
A lot of mine.
Including Darby's Rangers?
It's one of THOSE. The thing never stops playing on TV. Must we talk about it?
How about Lafayette Escadrille instead?
That dumb Warner [Jack], my great hate: he raped my Lafayette Escadrille which, by the way, was not Lafayette Escadrille-it was originally called C'est Ia guerre.
It was the story of a very dear friend of mine. I had made it as a tragedy, which it was. It was previewed as a tragedy; it was the only preview I ever had where people stood up as the picture ended and said nothing. Then there was a beat and a beat and a beat and they suddenly started cheering.
And that dirty, rotten bastard decided that killing Tab Hunter - don't laugh - was impossible. At the time, he'd made a record that had sold two million copies. So they changed it to a happy ending and called it Lafayette Escadrille: it didn't have a damn thing to do with the Lafayette Escadrille. All the guys that were still alive thought I was nuts. I told Warner that if I ever caught him alone, which in his case is damn near impossible, what with all those disgusting yes-men, that I'd put him in a hospital. And, so help me God, if I could get hold of him right now, I'd try it. I have never hated a man as much as I hate him. And the whole story of the film was true.
The hero was in the Lafayette Flying Corps with me. (I was not in the Lafayette Escadrille. That was first formed by a particularly crazy bunch of Americans that were over in France, Bill Thor among them. I was in the Lafayette Flying Corps, which was formed by William K. Vanderbilt.) One day a French lieutenant - he was a drill sergeant - hit this pal of mine with a riding quirt, so my pal hauled off and knocked him on his ass. He was, of course, put in jail immediately. That night, we broke in and got him out, along with everybody else who was in the jail. He had to get away from there so he started for Paris. He had to get a change of uniform, so he tried to take a poilu's away from him. The poilu happened to be a savate champion, which started the goddamnedest fight that's ever been known. Finally, he knocked him out, got his uniform, terribly maimed all the time, and sneaked out to where his little gal was waiting for him. An old concierge, who'd lost an arm and was a wonderful old guy, and she nursed him back to health. Eventually, he went back to the whorehouse where he'd met his girl and got a job as a pimp, working between the Folies Bergere and the Olympia, I think. I was there when he married his little girl, his great love, who was an ex-whore and whom he'd met as a whore.
Finally one day he got a chance to see General Pershing, whom he talked into letting him go back and get his wings. He became a flyer and was flying, I think, somewhere in the Champagne when he got lost and strayed into Germany, where a couple of Fokkers dove on him and brought him down. His name appeared in the casualty lists that appeared in the daily Paris papers. She saw it and jumped into the Seine River, committing suicide. When they pulled her out, she had his identification tag clenched in her fist. The only two people who knew this story were General Pershing and myself.
Now, to me, that's a hell of a story. A tragedy. I put all my heart and soul into the thing: I almost went crazy over what happened.
So I made a deal. I shot the happy ending and came home to Dotty and said, "Dotty, I'm tired, I've worked too hard and I made a deal with a man I hate, knowing he's wrong. I'm never going to make another picture as long as I live.''
She said, "I don't want you to make another." And I never have.
It's sad that what I wanted to be my best picture became such a rotten, disappointing thing. That wasn't the first time that happened to me, but it was the worst. Usually pictures are screwed up in New York. Up to a point you can control what's happening out here in California. But even men like Capra lose eventually.
You like Capra's pictures?
Frank Capra, in my estimation, is the greatest director of them all - on one kind of a picture.
Do you ever watch your films on TV?
Never. Never.
Even if Nothing Sacred pops up?
Oh, that's different. I'd watch that, damn right.
How do you feel about the critical attention you've been getting in recent years: the BFI retrospective in London, etc?
Oh, it's all right. It's a switch from before, that's for sure. I never had a publicity man in my whole life - everybody else did, but I never did. I figured the money should be spent publicising the people I was photographing: the Stars.
Besides, who the hell do you think is going to pay money to see Bill Wellman's new picture unless it's some idiot in New York or Hollywood or London? Out in Oshkosh and places where the money comes that makes the business what it is, they don't know who Bill Wellman is and they don't give a good goddamn. Or Capra or Ford.
They might remember who Hitchcock is, maybe von Stroheim if they're old enough, and maybe Orson Welles, who's always gone both ways. In his time, Griffith was a box-office name. But don't tell me I could retire on the box-office value of Bill Wellman! I'm sorry, but I'd be in the Old Soldiers' Home.
What do you consider the director's job to be?
To make the picture. I make that film. I am the director, not Mr. Wayne or Mr. Cagney or Mr. Colman. And they knew it. Women always used to hate working with me, because I wouldn't let them use make-up.
What do you think of institutionalized film-making? Do you think someone can learn to make films by going to school?
I can answer that very quickly. No.
Somewhat in line with that: I won't tell you the director's name. I know him and he's a very successful director. About a year ago, I turn on the TV set and there he is, giving a talk at the American Film Institute - a place, I'm proud to say, where I'm not liked. There were about twenty eager, hopeful directors listening to this man. I said to myself, "This I've got to listen to. Now I'll find out how to make pictures." When that man was through I was so damned confused I wondered how the hell I ever made a hundred pictures. It was pathetic, tragic.
What is the best way to learn to direct?
You have to learn how to live before you learn how to direct. About fifteen years ago, twelve of the so-called "successful" TV directors asked me to come and talk to them. They wanted to know if there was any way I could suggest for them to break into the making of motion pictures. I've never been in TV but I said, "I'll tell you one way it might be done. Find out what some of our great writers have got that the producers wouldn't buy. Guys like Ben Hecht, Johnny Lee Mahin. Get to know these guys, find out what they've got that they think is great. Then read it, see if it's any good and, if it is, go sell yourself to one of these stars. Don't go to the agents, they'll kill you. See one of the stars and sell it to him with the idea that you make it." That's the only suggestion I could give them.
Do you think Pay-TV will mean the death of movies as we know them?
I think the industry is dead now. You can't judge it because of Love Story or The Godfather. God Almighty, you could show those in a toilet and people would pay to see them. In the days I'm talking about, MGM was making sixty-five pictures a year, Paramount the same and so were Warner and Universal - all pictures with stars in them. The problem now is that we don't have any stars anymore, not really. The minute you leave, I'm gonna watch the football game or golf, and I'm gonna watch the stars - the best there are!
What did you enjoy most about making pictures?
The money. A lot of people will say, "How frightful to talk that way about the 'Art' of motion pictures." Well, whatever you want to call it, I had my own way of making a motion picture. I worked very fast; and no one ever over-acted in one of my pictures. That I couldn't stand. I had my own idea of making a picture and I made it my own way. And I got damn well paid. Certainly I wanted the money. I wanted to get to the point where I'd never have to work again if I didn't want to. When I got to that point, it wasn't as nice as I thought it would be. Now, I don't go to see many pictures because I don't want to get the fever again.
You sound discontented.
On the contrary, I'm very happy. I'm seventy-eight years old, I've got a lovely wife - we've been married for forty years (she was only nineteen and for a while I thought they were going to put me away for kidnapping). We've got twelve grandchildren and she personally was a magician. She gave me a girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl. Now, that's calling your shots! And on top of all that, she house-broke me. The only disappointing thing about her to me is how the hell she could stand me for forty years: it hasn't been easy.
As far as my career was concerned, I accomplished what I wanted. I was independent, I made every kind of picture I wanted, I worked like hell and, like I said, I'm seventy-eight years old. What more can a man say?
© 2004 by Scott Eyman
