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Produced by John Wayne --- Part Two

Of the Batjacs, Seven Men from Now may be an only one called canonical. Of westerns, it is close to a top of fifties heap. Extras for Seven Men from Now are lush with profiling of Budd Boeticcher, Kennedy, Gail Russell, more from the 1956 project. 2010 and thereabouts was when DVD buyers really got a money’s fillup. “Sparkhill” made these pocket documentaries. I don’t know if they are still in business, but they did a crackerjack job. Where your 78-minute feature comes with as much length again of bonuses, there is $5.99 well spent (Amazon’s current price, used discs low as $2.50). How much visual difference does Blu-Ray, let alone 4K make, unless you intend projecting your image on a coliseum wall? Between online bargains and what flea markets turn up, one could build a more than imposing DVD collection for as many dimes, though there is argument too for streaming option, where Seven Men from Now is had in HD for $3.99. Seven Men from Now once nowhere is accessible now as a commonest object. “Collectible” is quaint term by modern parlance. I thought to have hung the moon with my turned-red 16mm print of Seven Men from Now, like revealing treasure to ones my age or less I knew would not have seen it elsewhere. Where/how could they? Here was artifact exclusive to whoever had luck of discovery and pride of ownership. Open access to come was more democratic, so of course to be preferred, but what was having a Faberge egg when anyone might get cartons of them? I could exit the house today and fairly trip over Seven Men from Now.

Coming out of late seventies televised cloud courtesy CBS (a single run), The High and the Mighty seemed less high despite fond memories from 1954, not so mighty as hit status from earlier time implied. Were watchers easier to please in the fifties, or had airplane disaster films become too much more sophisticated, like air travel itself? A damaged reputation can seep into bones of anyone’s revisit, even those making any/all allowance for things vintage. The High and the Mighty, twenty-five years old when the network booked 1979 flight, seemed older and was cramped besides by square-tube the bane of post-53 product. I had focused on what was weak about High/Mighty until recent visit to discover instead fine aspects of it, easy at last to grasp what made this a historic hit for John Wayne and distributing Warner Bros. Here was first-time spectacle of modern air travel on Cinemascope/color terms, suspense of near-doom for star ensemble as seasoning. If ever there was can’t miss feeling among trade watchers and WB sales force, The High and the Mighty had it. Peril plays for me because aspects of then-aeronautics raise concern of how resource of seventy-years back can save this planeload of humanity. DVD extra said flights from Honolulu to US west coast were a longest in the world over ocean and with no landing available in case of emergency, twelve hours aboard unless you come down sudden into water like a mountain you’d slam into. Shivers me to think on it … imagine same in 1954. Did The High and the Mighty discourage commercial air travel? Can’t imagine major lines being happy, despite repeated mantra that one is safer on planes than driving an automobile. Some reassurance when you’re going down …

Spencer Tracy was supposed to do the Wayne pilot part. I’m glad he didn’t. Like name actresses who turned down spots among crowded cast, Tracy may have balked at High/Mighty not revolving around him, as John Wayne might were this not his company producing. Wayne was chief pilot aboard whatever craft he sat, let alone one flying under his own colors, off-casting his compromised “Dan Roman,” perceived failure and now underling who saw passengers, including wife and son, perish years before in a crash impliedly his fault. Roman is humble/humbled to near finish where Wayne dynamic force comes to final act rescue of his imperiled flock. Dan Roman is among Wayne’s best and quietist leads, his authority the greater for being withheld so long. Flashback of him stumbling off a doomed craft to find his child’s burning teddy bear packs expected wallop, moment reminiscent for me of Wayne as Sean Thornton in the boxing ring just after killing his opponent, or Ethan finding torn clothes of victims in The Searchers. It works splendidly in context of full-out melodrama that is The High and the Mighty. Success of latter and previous Hondo were career peaks for Wayne, both done on his terms and without crutch that was Ford or Hawks. I don’t wonder that impetus for The Alamo increased the more around this time. If Wayne could ramrod High/Mighty/Hondo, where was limit to energy/ability? Suppose anyone suggested to Wayne a reissue for The High and the Mighty after success of Airport in 1970? Guess he would have felt it too spent by then.

Some picture DVD as a dead format, but discs like these Paramount Batjacs should be cherished. We need Blu-Ray to fill properly a jumbo screen, but for television large in themselves, plain discs work fine. The High and the Mighty has a second DVD devoted to extras, one about passenger flying in the fifties with survivors of the era, many of whom had flown during the war. I was captivated. You’ll not duplicate this today for such veterans being gone. Track of the Cat was next of watches, scope and strange and largely bereft even of color by director William Wellman on experimental tour. Never mistake him for conventional. And yet coming from Wayne meant money, Robert Mitchum the star, Track of the Cat good for two million in worldwide rentals against negative cost of $1.1 million. Wayne/Fellows and later Batjac had keen commercial instinct. Track of the Cat was bleak, dark, radical almost, yet profited. William Wellman wished in hindsight he had never done it, but could late interviews really reflect his views?, the director acknowledging upheaval that had come with age, his seventies memoir which he referred to as necessary therapy entitled A Short Time for Insanity. Wellman was in fact house director for Wayne/Fellows, having signed to do six features, overall prosperity of the firm result in part of his being there and ready to pitch in not only to projects where credited, but ones needing eleventh hour help.

One limping was Ring of Fear, a circus cloak of many colors (plus Cinemascope) adjudged unreleasable until Wellman did repairs. Ring of Fear gave 1954 three rings of precisely what it wanted  … a wide screen, circus-based thrills, and of all incongruous things, Mickey Spillane, as himself, cracking a midway mystery at behest of lion wrangler Clyde Beatty, something for every-single-one it seemed. Wellman did miracles at his forge, Ring of Fear entertaining well as any such hodgepodge, and again, it was a hit, a sizeable one (finished for less than a million, and $1.8 million in profit). Besides being valued record of Beatty taming cats, not a thing to be underestimated, there is Spillane as actor, and a pleasing one. Sean McClory as a psycho killer applies acid-to-aerial ropes the bane of performing under movie big tops it seems. Wayne had grown a stock company of players, all good and seemingly liked by viewership. A number of support folk are profiled within Paramount/Batjac DVD’s. Others recommended but not here in depth are Island in the Sky, another by Wellman, and some say best of his for the company, Hondo directed by John Farrow, an outstanding Wayne western with or without 3-D. With Man in the Vault there is opportunity to observe Batjac’s second string showing what they could do with leads, a 73 minute B by definition but good at the time to absorb overhead for what had become a major-minor operation, Wayne-Fellows/Batjac being how-to for making star independence work.