September 1, 2023 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, John Ford was Hollywood’s greatest director (Rio Grande and The Seachers, for example). As WWII began, the 47-year-old Ford was at the top of his game when he quit Hollywood and joined the U.S. Navy. Roger McGrath is here to tell the story.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To subscribe to our podcasts, go to the iHeartRadio app
or wherever you get your podcasts. And up next another
Hollywood Goes to War story with Roger McGrath. McGrath is
(00:31):
the author of Gunfighters, Hollyman and Vigilantes, Violence on the Frontier.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
A US marine and former history.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Professor at UCLA, doctor McGrath has appeared on numerous History
Channel documentaries. He's a regular contributor for US here at
our American Stories, and we're telling this story because on
this day in nineteen seventy three, john Ford died.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Here's McGrath.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
John Ford was arguably Hollywood's greatest character. When the brilliant
Orson Wells was asked to name his three favorite directors,
he replied, the old Masters, by which I mean john Ford,
john Ford and john Ford. John Ford directed one hundred
and forty movies in documentaries, he won the Academy Award
(01:17):
for Best Director a record four times. Nine of his
movies were nominated for Best Picture and one of them
won it. Two of his documentaries won Best Documentary, and
He won Best Director of a Documentary for one of them.
John Martin Feeney is born in eighteen ninety four in
(01:38):
Cape Elizabeth, Maine, a small town near Portland. His father
is John Augustin Feini, a large and powerful man known
for his feats of strength and spellbinding storytelling, who had
immigrated to America from Spittal, a small town on the
coast of Galway Bay in Ireland. His mother is a
(01:59):
former Barb Curran, also an Irish immigrant, who had come
from the town of kilronan On Inishmore, the largest of
the Iren Islands, which lie at the entrance to Galway Bay.
For both John and Barbara, their first language is Gaelic.
The young John Feeney, the future John Ford, is called
(02:20):
Johnny by his family. He's one of eleven children, but
five die as infants. He spends his first several years
in Cape Elizabeth, and then the family moves to Monjoy Hill,
a mostly Irish neighborhood in Portland. His father works at
various times as a farmer, fisherman, and saloon keeper. By
(02:42):
the time Johnny Feeney is attending Portland High School, is
known as Jack. He excels in sports, especially football, and track.
He's a tall, strapping youth, something over six feet and
one hundred and eighty pounds. His stars as a fallback
on the varsity football team and earns the nickname Bowl Feenie.
(03:03):
In his senior year, the team wins the state championship.
He's also the school's top sprinter. After winning a sprint
against a rival school, Portland High's newspaper said Phoene's form
in the getaway and running was perfect, and his speed terrific.
Jack Feeney is also a voracious reader, partly helped by
(03:26):
a year he spent out of school, mostly in bed,
fighting diphtheria and clinging into life. An older sister read
book after book to him, and when he was strong enough,
he read book after book himself, although the diphtheria would
leave him with poor eyesight for the rest of his life.
Years later, when in high school, a classmate says, every
(03:49):
time you'd see him, he'd have a book in his hand,
Shakespeare or something. He'd fight at the drop of a hat,
but he had a great mind and a great sense
of humor. Would tell him a funny story, and the
next day he'd retell it, adding all.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Kinds of new touches to it.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Phoenie's performance in his classes varies from poor to excellent,
depending on whether he likes the teacher and the material.
Even when he applies himself, Phoene has little time to study.
All through high school. He drives a delivery wagon for
his older brother Pat's wholesale fish market. On weekends, he
(04:27):
works at a theater, which helps peak his interest in movies.
Jack Phoene especially likes westerns produced by Thomas Ince for
Bison Studios at a location Ince developed at what would
become the intersection of the Pacific Coast Highway and Sunset
Boulevard in Pacific Palisades. When Ince arrives there in nineteen eleven,
(04:52):
the area could pass for the Old West. Soon, the
collection of movie sets he builds there is known as Incefield.
Many of the western shot at Intsville are directed by
Francis Ford, the second oldest of the Feenie Boys. Francis
had dropped out of Portland High School in eighteen ninety
eight to fight in the Spanish American War. He later
(05:16):
becomes an actor on the stage in New York with
the surname Ford. Movie Makers liked his chiseled features and tall,
lanky frame and began using him in their films. When
movie production heads to Hollywood to avoid Thomas Edison's patent
monopoly in the East, Francis Ford goes too. He's soon
(05:39):
not only acting in Thomas Ince's films, but also directing them.
Movie historians generally credit Francis Ford with greatly increasing the
quality of the films produced by Inns, although Ince himself
often takes director credits for films directed by Francis Ford.
(06:01):
Back in Portland, Maine, Jack Feeney is watching Ince's movies,
which often star his brother. When Jack graduates from high
school in nineteen fourteen, instead of accepting any of several
college scholarships for football and track, he boards a train
for Los Angeles. By now, Francis Ford is making movies
(06:21):
for Universal Studios, eighty of them from nineteen thirteen through
nineteen sixteen. A month after Jack arrives, his brother casts
him in The Mysterious Rose as a character named Dopey.
Francis plays the male lead, Detective Phil Kelly. The Mysterious
Rose is a humble beginning in Hollywood for Jack Feeney,
(06:45):
who is now billed as Jack Ford.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And we've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
of John Martin Feeney, who grew up in Cape Elizabeth, Maine,
a small town in the northeast. All is as small
as you can get in that part the country. Who
would think that the man who made epic westerns for
a living would come from a northeast coastal state. He
(07:09):
won Best Director four times. No one has touched it.
He had nine Best Picture nominations. When we come back
the rest of the story of John Martin Feeney, that
is John Ford. Here on our American Stories. Here are
(07:31):
our American Stories. We bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business,
faith and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country
that need to be told. But we can't do it
without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but
they're not free to make. If you love our stories
in America like we do, please go to our American
Stories dot com and click the donate button. Give a little,
(07:53):
give a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American Stories and with Roger McGrath, who's telling the
(08:13):
story of the great John Ford. And we're telling this
story because on this day in nineteen seventy three, John
Ford died.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
He appears in another fifteen movies before he begins directing
them himself in nineteen seventeen.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
He directs twelve movies.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
In nineteen seventeen, three of them starring himself, and a
half dozen starring Harry Carey, who Ford helps establish as
one of the leading actors in westerns. Carrie's wife, Olive,
described what the twenty three year old Jack Ford was.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Like in nineteen seventeen.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
He had a magnificent sense of humor, and he was
very graceful, and he walked. He was imaginative, didn't miss
a trick, a fantastic eye for the camera. He lined
up all the shots. He was fascinated with everything. The
trade papers regularly praised the young director. Reporting on Ford's
(09:18):
Three Mounted Men in nineteen eighteen, one of the papers declares,
you can always bank on Jack Ford producing a good picture.
When you add a good cast to it, then he
is bound to produce a knockout. Still, another notes that
his movies always have much to please the eye by
(09:39):
the way of artistically chosen locations in nineteen twenty, Ford
Mary's Mary McBride Smith and buys a house on four
acres of land in the Hollywood Hills. In nineteen twenty one,
they have a son, Patrick, and a year later a daughter, Barbara.
(10:00):
Seven months after Patrick's birth, Ford makes a trip to
Ireland to visit family in County Galway for the first
time since he was a child when he went with
his father. Ford's trip is paid for by his new employer,
Fox Studios. In nineteen twenty one, Ireland's War for Independence
(10:21):
is still raging and a special unit of British soldiers
known as the Black and Tans, are on patrols throughout Galway.
Ford's Feeney relatives are without houses, which the British have
burned down. The Fighting Age Feeney Men are volunteers in
the IRA, the Irish Republican Army, and are hiding in
(10:41):
the Connemera Mountains between missions. Their cousins, the Thornton Boys,
who have also had their homes burned down, are with them.
It's not by accident that in John Ford's blockbuster nineteen
fifty two film The Quiet Man, John Wayne's character is
Sean Thornton, avoiding the Black and Tans, Ford meets with
(11:05):
his cousin, Martin Feeney, a member of the IRA's East
Connema Brigade. Ford hands him a bundle of cash for
the IRA, possibly sixty thousand or more dollars.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
In today's money.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Shortly afterwards, the Black and Tans catch up with Ford
and take him into custody. Ford is interrogated and roughed up,
but he reveals nothing. After only four days in Ireland,
Ford is forced onto a ship and told never to return.
Once back in California, Ford continues his non stop movie making,
(11:40):
cranking out twenty three movies from nineteen twenty two through
nineteen twenty eight. His best movie of the era is
The Iron Horse, starring George O'Brien. It's the story of
the building of the first trans continental railroad and is
shot on location in Nevada. There's a cast of thousands.
(12:01):
Bad weather causes the shoot to fall far behind schedule
and to run well over budget. Fox Studios threatens to
shut down production. Ford hangs tough and finishes the movie
at a cost of two hundred and eighty thousand dollars,
a fantastic sum for.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
A movie in nineteen.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Twenty four, but The movie makes more than two million
dollars and even more fantastic sum halfway through nineteen twenty eight,
Ford makes his first talkie, and his transition to talkies
is seamless. His nineteen thirty one movie Aerosmith is a
(12:42):
blockbuster and receives four Academy Award nominations. Ford wins the
Academy Award for Best Director for his nineteen thirty five
movie The Informer, and the movie is nominated for Best Picture.
In nineteen thirty nine, Ford produced and directs the movie
Stage Coach, which is nominated for Best Picture and he's
(13:05):
nominated for Best Director. Although Ford directed dozens of westerns
in the Silent era, this is his first Western in
the sound era. Stage Coach is also the first western
that Ford shoots in Monument Valley, and it's the movie
that takes John Wayne out of b westerns and into
(13:28):
feature films. Ford wins the Academy Award for Best Director
for his nineteen forty film The Grapes of Wrath. He
wins Best Director again for his nineteen forty one film
How Green Was My Valley, and the.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Movie wins Best Picture.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
John Ford is at the top of his game and
at the top of Hollywood.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
He has money, fame, and power.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
He's forty seven years old, So what does he do?
He quits Hollywood and goes on active duty in the Navy.
Back in nineteen thirty four, Ford, who owned a yacht
and had been sailing since his childhood, was commissioned a
lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve. For the next six years,
(14:13):
he sailed the California Mexican coasts and quietly photographed and
made notes on Japanese shipping activity and Japanese settlements. He
filed the photos and the notes with the eleventh Naval District,
and in nineteen forty received a commendation for his initiative
in securing valuable information. Even before the Japanese sneak attack
(14:38):
on Pearl Harbor on December seventh, nineteen forty one, Ford
proposes creating a unit to film and photograph the US Navy.
The Navy tentatively accepts Ford's proposal, and during the fall
of nineteen forty one, it begins organizing the Naval Motion
Picture and Field Photographic Unit. Ford's recruits come from Hollywood,
(15:03):
and they are each chosen for their particular skills in
the making of movie's. As the unit is taking shape,
it's put under the command of William Donovan, the head
of the Office of Strategic Services. The OSS Ford Unit
now becomes the Field photographic branch of the OSS. A
(15:27):
World War One hero who was awarded the Medal of Honor.
While Bill Donovan gives Ford great latitude in independence exactly
what the contrary and crusty Ford likes. Ford gets in
the office in Washington, d C. And a generous budget.
Ford doesn't spend much time in Washington and will soon
(15:48):
be found on battlefronts around the world. After assignments to
Pearl Harbor, Iceland, and the Panama Canal, Ford is board
the carrier Hornet in April nineteen forty two to document.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Jimmy Doolitvel's raided on Tokyo.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
In early June, Ford is at Midway Act All when
the epic Battle of Midway erupts. Standing atop the power
plant on Eastern Island, Ford films the arrival of first
Japanese planes and continues filming throughout the attack. At one point,
he's knocked out when a bomb explodes and sends a
(16:27):
chunk of concrete flying into him. He regains consciousness and
continues filming. Minutes later, he's knocked flat by another Japanese
bomb and suffers shrapnel wounds.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
To his left arm.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
In pain and bleeding, he struggles to his feet and
continues filming.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And we've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
of john Ford. It's a part of our Hollywood Goes
to War series, and my goodness, what a thing to do.
He's just won two Oscars for Best Director year after year.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
When's the last time that's happened?
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Best Director for The Grapes of Wrath in nineteen forty,
Best Director for How Green.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Was My Valley in forty one? And then what does
he do? Well? He goes active.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Duty in the Navy and becomes a part of the OSS,
and he goes into combat to film what's really happening
with all of our men and women overseas. And we've
told similar stories about Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Henry Fonda,
and Eddie Albert giving up lucrative careers at the height
of their fame to serve their country at war. When
(17:35):
we come back more of john Ford's remarkable story. It
continues here on our American stories, and we continue here
(18:09):
with our American stories and the story of John Ford
as told by Roger McGrath. And we're telling this story
because on this day in nineteen seventy three, John Ford died.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Let's pick up where we last left golf.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Ford puts the footage from his filming together with footage
taken by another cameraman to create the documentary The Battle
of Midway. He has actors from his movies Donald Crisp,
Jane Darwell, Henry Fonda narrate, and has a musical score
that includes America's favorites anchors Away, Red River, Valley, the
(18:49):
Marines Hymn, A Star Spangled Banner, Onward Christian Soldiers, My
Country tis of thee. Before the documentary is released, there
are those who think it's too emotionally evocative to be
released as it is. The footage, narration and the music
pluck every chord in the American heart. Ford says, it's
(19:13):
released as it is, or it's not released at all,
and it goes into theaters without further editing. It wins
the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in November and
December nineteen forty two. Ford is at the battlefront with
the Army's thirteenth Armored Regiment in Algeria and Tunisia and
(19:37):
leads his photographic unit into the thick.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
Of the action.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
General O'Donovan, in a letter to the Director of Naval Intelligence,
says Ford inspires a real devotion among his men. He
has evidenced his leadership and his courage in his photographic
work with the fleet in the Pacific as well as
with the forces in Tunisia. Both as a man and
(20:03):
as an officer, I consider Commander Ford superior and outstanding.
The fall of nineteen forty three finds Ford with Donovan
in Chung King with Chang Kai Shek and a Chinese
nationalist forces. Among other photographic missions, Ford takes aerial reconnaissance
(20:24):
flights over Japanese positions in Phillip's Japanese Air Raids. Then
John Ford undertakes a mission that is like something out
of one of his movies. The forty nine year old
director leaps out of a C forty seven in parachutes
behind enemy lions into a Burmese jungle on the ground.
(20:48):
Irondezvous with Father James Stewart, an Irish priest who had
served with the IRA and then as a medical missionary
in Burma, and is now leading a catch and guerrilla
band against the Japanese. By the end of January nineteen
(21:08):
forty four, Ford is in India and eventually back to
the United States by way of Africa and Brazil. Ford's
not home for long before he's off to England to
prepare his photographic unit for the landings at Normandy. He
assigns his cameramen to different waves in the landing and
even rigs some of the landing craft with cameras that
(21:30):
automatically start rolling when the ramps drop. Ford himself coordinates
everything from the cruiser Augusta. Once the landings begin, Ford
leaves the safety of the ship and climbs aboard a
landing craft and hits for the beach. Ford wades the
shore and begins moving inland with the American troops. One
(21:53):
of Ford's directors is crouched low behind a hedgerow when
he spies Ford standing tall and observing the fighting in
front of him. Many later said Ford not only seemed fearless,
he actually seemed delighted, the happiest they had.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
Ever seen him.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Here's John Ford in the nineteen sixty six interview with
the BBC.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
I've tried to figure it out. I am. I am
really a coward. I know I am, so That's why
did foolish things and I was decorated eight or nine times,
try to prove that I was not a coward. But
after all over I still knew that. I still know
(22:38):
that I was a coward. I've always found out the little, quiet,
little man with nobody passant attention to usually has more guts.
They use guts, and BBC sure has more guts and
courage than the big blow hard, the big, noisy, outspoken, fellttle,
(23:01):
so little man that does a courageous scene.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
After more than two months on the battlefront, with brief
periods in London, Ford is back in Washington in September.
By October, Ford and the Navy or in serious discussions
about making a movie honoring the daring, dew and sacrifice
of the Pet boats in the Philippines during nineteen forty two.
(23:27):
In February nineteen forty five, Ford begins shooting. They were
expendable in Florida. By the end of May, filming is
finished and post production begins. At the end of June.
Ford is promoted to Captain Ford's thoughts now turn to
the Pacific and the anticipated invasion of Japan. However, the
(23:51):
atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the war in August
and avoid what would have been a monumental bloodbath. At
the end of September, his Field Photographic Unit is decommissioned
and john Ford is released from active duty. His decorations include,
(24:11):
among many others, the Legion Amerit and the Purple Art.
His officer's fitness report says personnel of his organization performed
with outstanding distinction and valor in clandestine operations in combat
in the world's battlefronts. This record of high accomplishments results
(24:33):
from Captain Ford's outstanding ability. His devotion to duty is
loyalty to and love for his subordinates. The discipline of
his organization was outstanding, their accomplishment superb.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
This could result.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Only from great leadership. Ford remains in the Naval Reserve,
and the law fifty six years old is called the
active duty. During the Korean War, he spends several months
in Korea making the documentary This Is Korea, and gets
along especially well with Chesty Puller, the Salty and honrey
(25:11):
and highly decorated marine legend. Upon Ford's return to the States,
he is promoted to Rear Admiral and retired from the Navy.
Mark Armistead, a veteran of the Field Photographic Unit who
was with Ford again in Korea, said the famous director
(25:32):
was probably more proud of the admiral stripe than he
was of all his oscars combined. From the late nineteen
forties into the nineteen sixties, john Ford continues to make
movies that both critics in the American public love, including
Ford Apache She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande, A
(25:56):
Quiet Man, Mister.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Roberts, and The Searchers.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
John Ford dies in nineteen seventy three. He is buried
at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. On his headstone,
he is identified not as an actor, director, or producer,
but as Admiral John Ford.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
And a terrific job by Greg Hangler on the production
and a special thanks to Roger McGrath for telling the
story of John Ford and what john Ford did during
World War Two, including my goodness getting an oscar for
the Battle of Midway, but more importantly the way he
served his country doing it. The risks he took, and
(26:41):
then the self effacement to know that he wasn't exactly
calling himself a hero, and giving that credit and the
credit of courage to the many others who fought every
day on the ground, every day until they got to Berlin,
or until those bombs were dropped over Nagasaki in Hiroshima.
And that humility comes through. And of course that tombstone
(27:02):
says it all with what it doesn't say. It merely says,
admire the story of John Ford, who died on this
day in nineteen seventy three. Here an our American stories
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To subscribe to our podcasts, go to the iHeartRadio app
or wherever you get your podcasts. And up next another
Hollywood Goes to War story with Roger McGrath. McGrath is
(00:31):
the author of Gunfighters, Hollyman and Vigilantes, Violence on the Frontier.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
A US marine and former history.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Professor at UCLA, doctor McGrath has appeared on numerous History
Channel documentaries. He's a regular contributor for US here at
our American Stories, and we're telling this story because on
this day in nineteen seventy three, john Ford died.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Here's McGrath.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
John Ford was arguably Hollywood's greatest character. When the brilliant
Orson Wells was asked to name his three favorite directors,
he replied, the old Masters, by which I mean john Ford,
john Ford and john Ford. John Ford directed one hundred
and forty movies in documentaries, he won the Academy Award
(01:17):
for Best Director a record four times. Nine of his
movies were nominated for Best Picture and one of them
won it. Two of his documentaries won Best Documentary, and
He won Best Director of a Documentary for one of them.
John Martin Feeney is born in eighteen ninety four in
(01:38):
Cape Elizabeth, Maine, a small town near Portland. His father
is John Augustin Feini, a large and powerful man known
for his feats of strength and spellbinding storytelling, who had
immigrated to America from Spittal, a small town on the
coast of Galway Bay in Ireland. His mother is a
(01:59):
former Barb Curran, also an Irish immigrant, who had come
from the town of kilronan On Inishmore, the largest of
the Iren Islands, which lie at the entrance to Galway Bay.
For both John and Barbara, their first language is Gaelic.
The young John Feeney, the future John Ford, is called
(02:20):
Johnny by his family. He's one of eleven children, but
five die as infants. He spends his first several years
in Cape Elizabeth, and then the family moves to Monjoy Hill,
a mostly Irish neighborhood in Portland. His father works at
various times as a farmer, fisherman, and saloon keeper. By
(02:42):
the time Johnny Feeney is attending Portland High School, is
known as Jack. He excels in sports, especially football, and track.
He's a tall, strapping youth, something over six feet and
one hundred and eighty pounds. His stars as a fallback
on the varsity football team and earns the nickname Bowl Feenie.
(03:03):
In his senior year, the team wins the state championship.
He's also the school's top sprinter. After winning a sprint
against a rival school, Portland High's newspaper said Phoene's form
in the getaway and running was perfect, and his speed terrific.
Jack Feeney is also a voracious reader, partly helped by
(03:26):
a year he spent out of school, mostly in bed,
fighting diphtheria and clinging into life. An older sister read
book after book to him, and when he was strong enough,
he read book after book himself, although the diphtheria would
leave him with poor eyesight for the rest of his life.
Years later, when in high school, a classmate says, every
(03:49):
time you'd see him, he'd have a book in his hand,
Shakespeare or something. He'd fight at the drop of a hat,
but he had a great mind and a great sense
of humor. Would tell him a funny story, and the
next day he'd retell it, adding all.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Kinds of new touches to it.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Phoenie's performance in his classes varies from poor to excellent,
depending on whether he likes the teacher and the material.
Even when he applies himself, Phoene has little time to study.
All through high school. He drives a delivery wagon for
his older brother Pat's wholesale fish market. On weekends, he
(04:27):
works at a theater, which helps peak his interest in movies.
Jack Phoene especially likes westerns produced by Thomas Ince for
Bison Studios at a location Ince developed at what would
become the intersection of the Pacific Coast Highway and Sunset
Boulevard in Pacific Palisades. When Ince arrives there in nineteen eleven,
(04:52):
the area could pass for the Old West. Soon, the
collection of movie sets he builds there is known as Incefield.
Many of the western shot at Intsville are directed by
Francis Ford, the second oldest of the Feenie Boys. Francis
had dropped out of Portland High School in eighteen ninety
eight to fight in the Spanish American War. He later
(05:16):
becomes an actor on the stage in New York with
the surname Ford. Movie Makers liked his chiseled features and tall,
lanky frame and began using him in their films. When
movie production heads to Hollywood to avoid Thomas Edison's patent
monopoly in the East, Francis Ford goes too. He's soon
(05:39):
not only acting in Thomas Ince's films, but also directing them.
Movie historians generally credit Francis Ford with greatly increasing the
quality of the films produced by Inns, although Ince himself
often takes director credits for films directed by Francis Ford.
(06:01):
Back in Portland, Maine, Jack Feeney is watching Ince's movies,
which often star his brother. When Jack graduates from high
school in nineteen fourteen, instead of accepting any of several
college scholarships for football and track, he boards a train
for Los Angeles. By now, Francis Ford is making movies
(06:21):
for Universal Studios, eighty of them from nineteen thirteen through
nineteen sixteen. A month after Jack arrives, his brother casts
him in The Mysterious Rose as a character named Dopey.
Francis plays the male lead, Detective Phil Kelly. The Mysterious
Rose is a humble beginning in Hollywood for Jack Feeney,
(06:45):
who is now billed as Jack Ford.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And we've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
of John Martin Feeney, who grew up in Cape Elizabeth, Maine,
a small town in the northeast. All is as small
as you can get in that part the country. Who
would think that the man who made epic westerns for
a living would come from a northeast coastal state. He
(07:09):
won Best Director four times. No one has touched it.
He had nine Best Picture nominations. When we come back
the rest of the story of John Martin Feeney, that
is John Ford. Here on our American Stories. Here are
(07:31):
our American Stories. We bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business,
faith and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country
that need to be told. But we can't do it
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(07:53):
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That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue with
our American Stories and with Roger McGrath, who's telling the
(08:13):
story of the great John Ford. And we're telling this
story because on this day in nineteen seventy three, John
Ford died.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
He appears in another fifteen movies before he begins directing
them himself in nineteen seventeen.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
He directs twelve movies.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
In nineteen seventeen, three of them starring himself, and a
half dozen starring Harry Carey, who Ford helps establish as
one of the leading actors in westerns. Carrie's wife, Olive,
described what the twenty three year old Jack Ford was.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Like in nineteen seventeen.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
He had a magnificent sense of humor, and he was
very graceful, and he walked. He was imaginative, didn't miss
a trick, a fantastic eye for the camera. He lined
up all the shots. He was fascinated with everything. The
trade papers regularly praised the young director. Reporting on Ford's
(09:18):
Three Mounted Men in nineteen eighteen, one of the papers declares,
you can always bank on Jack Ford producing a good picture.
When you add a good cast to it, then he
is bound to produce a knockout. Still, another notes that
his movies always have much to please the eye by
(09:39):
the way of artistically chosen locations in nineteen twenty, Ford
Mary's Mary McBride Smith and buys a house on four
acres of land in the Hollywood Hills. In nineteen twenty one,
they have a son, Patrick, and a year later a daughter, Barbara.
(10:00):
Seven months after Patrick's birth, Ford makes a trip to
Ireland to visit family in County Galway for the first
time since he was a child when he went with
his father. Ford's trip is paid for by his new employer,
Fox Studios. In nineteen twenty one, Ireland's War for Independence
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is still raging and a special unit of British soldiers
known as the Black and Tans, are on patrols throughout Galway.
Ford's Feeney relatives are without houses, which the British have
burned down. The Fighting Age Feeney Men are volunteers in
the IRA, the Irish Republican Army, and are hiding in
(10:41):
the Connemera Mountains between missions. Their cousins, the Thornton Boys,
who have also had their homes burned down, are with them.
It's not by accident that in John Ford's blockbuster nineteen
fifty two film The Quiet Man, John Wayne's character is
Sean Thornton, avoiding the Black and Tans, Ford meets with
(11:05):
his cousin, Martin Feeney, a member of the IRA's East
Connema Brigade. Ford hands him a bundle of cash for
the IRA, possibly sixty thousand or more dollars.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
In today's money.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Shortly afterwards, the Black and Tans catch up with Ford
and take him into custody. Ford is interrogated and roughed up,
but he reveals nothing. After only four days in Ireland,
Ford is forced onto a ship and told never to return.
Once back in California, Ford continues his non stop movie making,
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cranking out twenty three movies from nineteen twenty two through
nineteen twenty eight. His best movie of the era is
The Iron Horse, starring George O'Brien. It's the story of
the building of the first trans continental railroad and is
shot on location in Nevada. There's a cast of thousands.
(12:01):
Bad weather causes the shoot to fall far behind schedule
and to run well over budget. Fox Studios threatens to
shut down production. Ford hangs tough and finishes the movie
at a cost of two hundred and eighty thousand dollars,
a fantastic sum for.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
A movie in nineteen.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Twenty four, but The movie makes more than two million
dollars and even more fantastic sum halfway through nineteen twenty eight,
Ford makes his first talkie, and his transition to talkies
is seamless. His nineteen thirty one movie Aerosmith is a
(12:42):
blockbuster and receives four Academy Award nominations. Ford wins the
Academy Award for Best Director for his nineteen thirty five
movie The Informer, and the movie is nominated for Best Picture.
In nineteen thirty nine, Ford produced and directs the movie
Stage Coach, which is nominated for Best Picture and he's
(13:05):
nominated for Best Director. Although Ford directed dozens of westerns
in the Silent era, this is his first Western in
the sound era. Stage Coach is also the first western
that Ford shoots in Monument Valley, and it's the movie
that takes John Wayne out of b westerns and into
(13:28):
feature films. Ford wins the Academy Award for Best Director
for his nineteen forty film The Grapes of Wrath. He
wins Best Director again for his nineteen forty one film
How Green Was My Valley, and the.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Movie wins Best Picture.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
John Ford is at the top of his game and
at the top of Hollywood.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
He has money, fame, and power.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
He's forty seven years old, So what does he do?
He quits Hollywood and goes on active duty in the Navy.
Back in nineteen thirty four, Ford, who owned a yacht
and had been sailing since his childhood, was commissioned a
lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve. For the next six years,
(14:13):
he sailed the California Mexican coasts and quietly photographed and
made notes on Japanese shipping activity and Japanese settlements. He
filed the photos and the notes with the eleventh Naval District,
and in nineteen forty received a commendation for his initiative
in securing valuable information. Even before the Japanese sneak attack
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on Pearl Harbor on December seventh, nineteen forty one, Ford
proposes creating a unit to film and photograph the US Navy.
The Navy tentatively accepts Ford's proposal, and during the fall
of nineteen forty one, it begins organizing the Naval Motion
Picture and Field Photographic Unit. Ford's recruits come from Hollywood,
(15:03):
and they are each chosen for their particular skills in
the making of movie's. As the unit is taking shape,
it's put under the command of William Donovan, the head
of the Office of Strategic Services. The OSS Ford Unit
now becomes the Field photographic branch of the OSS. A
(15:27):
World War One hero who was awarded the Medal of Honor.
While Bill Donovan gives Ford great latitude in independence exactly
what the contrary and crusty Ford likes. Ford gets in
the office in Washington, d C. And a generous budget.
Ford doesn't spend much time in Washington and will soon
(15:48):
be found on battlefronts around the world. After assignments to
Pearl Harbor, Iceland, and the Panama Canal, Ford is board
the carrier Hornet in April nineteen forty two to document.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Jimmy Doolitvel's raided on Tokyo.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
In early June, Ford is at Midway Act All when
the epic Battle of Midway erupts. Standing atop the power
plant on Eastern Island, Ford films the arrival of first
Japanese planes and continues filming throughout the attack. At one point,
he's knocked out when a bomb explodes and sends a
(16:27):
chunk of concrete flying into him. He regains consciousness and
continues filming. Minutes later, he's knocked flat by another Japanese
bomb and suffers shrapnel wounds.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
To his left arm.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
In pain and bleeding, he struggles to his feet and
continues filming.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And we've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
of john Ford. It's a part of our Hollywood Goes
to War series, and my goodness, what a thing to do.
He's just won two Oscars for Best Director year after year.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
When's the last time that's happened?
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Best Director for The Grapes of Wrath in nineteen forty,
Best Director for How Green.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Was My Valley in forty one? And then what does
he do? Well? He goes active.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Duty in the Navy and becomes a part of the OSS,
and he goes into combat to film what's really happening
with all of our men and women overseas. And we've
told similar stories about Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Henry Fonda,
and Eddie Albert giving up lucrative careers at the height
of their fame to serve their country at war. When
(17:35):
we come back more of john Ford's remarkable story. It
continues here on our American stories, and we continue here
(18:09):
with our American stories and the story of John Ford
as told by Roger McGrath. And we're telling this story
because on this day in nineteen seventy three, John Ford died.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Let's pick up where we last left golf.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Ford puts the footage from his filming together with footage
taken by another cameraman to create the documentary The Battle
of Midway. He has actors from his movies Donald Crisp,
Jane Darwell, Henry Fonda narrate, and has a musical score
that includes America's favorites anchors Away, Red River, Valley, the
(18:49):
Marines Hymn, A Star Spangled Banner, Onward Christian Soldiers, My
Country tis of thee. Before the documentary is released, there
are those who think it's too emotionally evocative to be
released as it is. The footage, narration and the music
pluck every chord in the American heart. Ford says, it's
(19:13):
released as it is, or it's not released at all,
and it goes into theaters without further editing. It wins
the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in November and
December nineteen forty two. Ford is at the battlefront with
the Army's thirteenth Armored Regiment in Algeria and Tunisia and
(19:37):
leads his photographic unit into the thick.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
Of the action.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
General O'Donovan, in a letter to the Director of Naval Intelligence,
says Ford inspires a real devotion among his men. He
has evidenced his leadership and his courage in his photographic
work with the fleet in the Pacific as well as
with the forces in Tunisia. Both as a man and
(20:03):
as an officer, I consider Commander Ford superior and outstanding.
The fall of nineteen forty three finds Ford with Donovan
in Chung King with Chang Kai Shek and a Chinese
nationalist forces. Among other photographic missions, Ford takes aerial reconnaissance
(20:24):
flights over Japanese positions in Phillip's Japanese Air Raids. Then
John Ford undertakes a mission that is like something out
of one of his movies. The forty nine year old
director leaps out of a C forty seven in parachutes
behind enemy lions into a Burmese jungle on the ground.
(20:48):
Irondezvous with Father James Stewart, an Irish priest who had
served with the IRA and then as a medical missionary
in Burma, and is now leading a catch and guerrilla
band against the Japanese. By the end of January nineteen
(21:08):
forty four, Ford is in India and eventually back to
the United States by way of Africa and Brazil. Ford's
not home for long before he's off to England to
prepare his photographic unit for the landings at Normandy. He
assigns his cameramen to different waves in the landing and
even rigs some of the landing craft with cameras that
(21:30):
automatically start rolling when the ramps drop. Ford himself coordinates
everything from the cruiser Augusta. Once the landings begin, Ford
leaves the safety of the ship and climbs aboard a
landing craft and hits for the beach. Ford wades the
shore and begins moving inland with the American troops. One
(21:53):
of Ford's directors is crouched low behind a hedgerow when
he spies Ford standing tall and observing the fighting in
front of him. Many later said Ford not only seemed fearless,
he actually seemed delighted, the happiest they had.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
Ever seen him.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Here's John Ford in the nineteen sixty six interview with
the BBC.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
I've tried to figure it out. I am. I am
really a coward. I know I am, so That's why
did foolish things and I was decorated eight or nine times,
try to prove that I was not a coward. But
after all over I still knew that. I still know
(22:38):
that I was a coward. I've always found out the little, quiet,
little man with nobody passant attention to usually has more guts.
They use guts, and BBC sure has more guts and
courage than the big blow hard, the big, noisy, outspoken, fellttle,
(23:01):
so little man that does a courageous scene.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
After more than two months on the battlefront, with brief
periods in London, Ford is back in Washington in September.
By October, Ford and the Navy or in serious discussions
about making a movie honoring the daring, dew and sacrifice
of the Pet boats in the Philippines during nineteen forty two.
(23:27):
In February nineteen forty five, Ford begins shooting. They were
expendable in Florida. By the end of May, filming is
finished and post production begins. At the end of June.
Ford is promoted to Captain Ford's thoughts now turn to
the Pacific and the anticipated invasion of Japan. However, the
(23:51):
atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the war in August
and avoid what would have been a monumental bloodbath. At
the end of September, his Field Photographic Unit is decommissioned
and john Ford is released from active duty. His decorations include,
(24:11):
among many others, the Legion Amerit and the Purple Art.
His officer's fitness report says personnel of his organization performed
with outstanding distinction and valor in clandestine operations in combat
in the world's battlefronts. This record of high accomplishments results
(24:33):
from Captain Ford's outstanding ability. His devotion to duty is
loyalty to and love for his subordinates. The discipline of
his organization was outstanding, their accomplishment superb.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
This could result.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Only from great leadership. Ford remains in the Naval Reserve,
and the law fifty six years old is called the
active duty. During the Korean War, he spends several months
in Korea making the documentary This Is Korea, and gets
along especially well with Chesty Puller, the Salty and honrey
(25:11):
and highly decorated marine legend. Upon Ford's return to the States,
he is promoted to Rear Admiral and retired from the Navy.
Mark Armistead, a veteran of the Field Photographic Unit who
was with Ford again in Korea, said the famous director
(25:32):
was probably more proud of the admiral stripe than he
was of all his oscars combined. From the late nineteen
forties into the nineteen sixties, john Ford continues to make
movies that both critics in the American public love, including
Ford Apache She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande, A
(25:56):
Quiet Man, Mister.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Roberts, and The Searchers.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
John Ford dies in nineteen seventy three. He is buried
at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. On his headstone,
he is identified not as an actor, director, or producer,
but as Admiral John Ford.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
And a terrific job by Greg Hangler on the production
and a special thanks to Roger McGrath for telling the
story of John Ford and what john Ford did during
World War Two, including my goodness getting an oscar for
the Battle of Midway, but more importantly the way he
served his country doing it. The risks he took, and
(26:41):
then the self effacement to know that he wasn't exactly
calling himself a hero, and giving that credit and the
credit of courage to the many others who fought every
day on the ground, every day until they got to Berlin,
or until those bombs were dropped over Nagasaki in Hiroshima.
And that humility comes through. And of course that tombstone
(27:02):
says it all with what it doesn't say. It merely says,
admire the story of John Ford, who died on this
day in nineteen seventy three. Here an our American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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