Quote of the Day/Week- John Ford

Today, in honor of the Oscars broadcast in late February, we are quoting Oscar-winning film directors, and we start with John Ford (1894-1973). Though he was known primarily for his westerns, none of the record four Oscars that Ford won came from films within that genre. And, only one of those films, "The Quiet Man" (1952) featured his frequnet collaborator John Wayne.

The other three films Ford Oscared for include "The Informer" (1935), "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940) and "How Green Was My Valley" (1941).

Ironically, Ford did not win for his two most acclaimed films "Stagecoach" (1939) and "The Searchers" (1956). Many film historians also consider his film "How Green Was My Valley" which also won an Oscar for Best Picture to be the most dubious in Oscar history since "Citizen Kane" also came out in 1941. But, Orson Welles, who directed "Citizen Kane" considered Ford to be both a major influence and one of his favorite film directors.

We also highly recommend two BFI books by Ed Buscombe (full disclosure: he taught a class on westerns that I took at Hollins University in Roanoke, Va.) on "The Searchers" and "Stagecoach."

Here is Ford's quip:

"How did I get to Hollywood? By train?"

SIDEBAR: For some reason, both former American Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes and country singer Dolly Parton, who were both subjects of entries on this blog, are among are hot links this week!

Program Alert- "The Dirty Dozen "on TCM, Sunday at Noon

As we have previously professed on our blogs, we are huge admirers of the late character actor Lee Marvin, who won a Best Actor Oscar for "Cat Ballou" in 1965. He is one of many great novelty screen legends in the epic action film "The Dirty Dozen" (1967. d-Robert Aldrich). Some of the other actors in the flick are Charles Bronson, Ernest Borgnine, Telly Savalas, John Cassavetes, Donald Sutherland, Jim Brown and George Kennedy. Of those actors, Borgnine (well at last report), Kennedy, Brown and Sutherland were still alive. We weren't sure about Kennedy until I saw on the IMDB that he is alive at age 85 though he has not supposedly made a film in a long time. Alas, the others are not.

I recently saw Marvin and Cassavetes in the second version of "The Killers" (1964, d-Don Siegel) which is best known as Ronald Reagan's last film role (he played a mob boss who slaps Angie Dickinson across the face.) Marvin also co-starred with Bronson in several films, including the early eighties novelty film "Death Hunt," which is still not available on Netflix!

"The Dirty Dozen" airs Sunday at noon on TCM, and it is one of several war films that the network is showing for Memorial Day weekend.

According to the IMDB, John Wayne was originally offered Marvin's role (Maj. John Reisman), but he turned it down to star and direct in his pro-Vietnam War film "The Green Berets."

Marvin himself liked "The Big Red One" (1980) which was directed by his good friend Sam Fuller as he said it better reflected his own war experiences, which he saw as both difficult and disturbing. Marvin, who was (perhaps surprisingly given his tough guy image) a political liberal, also publicly expressed reservations about how "The Dirty Dozen" glorified war.

Like Marvin, Savalas, Bronson and Borgnine all served in World War II.

Jack Palance actually turned down the Savalas role because of all the violence in "The Dirty Dozen."

Sutherland was a late addition to the cast, and his role in the film lead to him being cast in Robert Altman's vintage film "MASH" (1970) which was certainly not a pro-war film!