John ford

John Ford (Cape Elizabeth, Maine, February 1, 1894 – Palm Desert, California, August 31, 1973) —baptized John Martin Feeney and who began his film career under the name Jack Ford— was an American four-time Academy Award-winning actor, director, and film producer. With a professional career of more than 50 years, in which he participated in almost all facets of the cinematic art before turning to directing, Ford directed more than 140 films, many of them silent films, and is widely considered one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. Filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles considered him one of the great film directors of all time.

He was also a sailor and soldier. He participated in World War II as an officer in the United States Army Film Services and was wounded in action during the Battle of Midway. After the end of the war, he continued as a reservist, helped make documentaries during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and rose to the rank of rear admiral.

Early Years

Birth and infancy

Lighthouse of Cape Elizabeth, Maine town where Ford was born.

The future John Ford was born on February 1, 1894 (although many times he would say that it was in 1895) on a farm in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and was baptized with the name of John Martin Feeney, the son of two Irish emigrants who gave him they passed on their native Gaelic and love for their native Ireland. His father, Sean A. Feeney, was a Galway native, as was his mother, Barbara "Abbey" Curran, although the latter's family hailed from the Aran Islands. It was probably his mother who inspired the home's enduring association with the figure of a woman present throughout his filmography. There are doubts about the boy's real name, since the Irish "Sean" seems to have been replaced by the Anglo-Saxon equivalent "John", which gave rise to his familiar familiarity like "Jack". As for his last name, he is written in various ways, such as O & # 39; Fienne or O & # 39; Fearna. Also, Ford himself said many times that his middle name was Aloysius. All this motivated many controversies among his biographers.

He was the youngest of eleven or thirteen children. At the age of four, the economic difficulties that the family was going through forced him to move to Portland (Maine), replacing the family farm with an apartment. There he came to complete his secondary studies without showing more artistic concerns than an ability for caricature that was highly appreciated by his friends. He began working in the advertising department of a shoe factory, and it seems that he tried in vain to enter the Academy Annapolis Naval Service; in any case, Ford would show his love for the Navy years later.

First contact with the film industry

His older brother, Frank O'Feeney, had moved to Hollywood in 1911. There, under the stage name Francis Ford, he began a promising career in the nascent film industry. Young Jack would join him in 1913, working under him at various jobs: stageman, stuntman, prop artist, assistant to his brother, and actor. He soon adopted the stage name of Francis and went by the name Jack Ford, much to the annoyance of his parents, who disliked his professional activity. These years served young Jack to become familiar with cinema from different angles and in different genres. His brother was not only the first, but perhaps the most important influence on his way of making movies, which always caused Jack some envy. Outside of his brother's tutelage, Ford participated as an extra in the filming of The Birth of a Nation (1915), which allowed him to discover the way of working of David W. Griffith, a director for whom Ford had always respected. These years with his brother helped him get to know the industry, but he was still unaware of the real possibilities of film directing.

The Silent Age

The move to the management of Ford seems a logical evolution in his career, although chance had a lot to do with such a transition. His first film as a director is usually considered to be The Tornado (1917), for which he is also listed as a screenwriter. It was a short-lived, silent western , starring his brother Francis, and it is doubtful whether John was already the director or was still limited to helping his brother assuming more and more responsibilities. The film, of which no copy has survived, should have been limited to a succession of stunts performed by stuntmen, but it marked the beginning of a long and brilliant professional career. Of the 62 films of various lengths that Ford shot during the silent period, only between fifteen and twenty survive (some mutilated), which makes it difficult to make a global assessment of his work in this formative period.

Universal and Harry Carey

Image of Harry Carey in The mountain ranges (1919). The actor's collaboration with Ford in 25 westerns I'd throw both of them.

Fortunately for Ford, Westerns weren't very popular then, and the heads of Universal Studios were reluctant to direct them. That caused a vacuum that his sister Francis took advantage of by recommending him to the studio. Ford would shoot a total of 37 films for Universal in five years. From there was born a professional relationship and friendship between John Ford and actor Harry Carey, who would shoot together a total of twenty-five hastily made and increasingly profitable silent films. Carey it was Universal's response to actors like Tom Mix or Broncho Billy and, hand in hand with Ford, it composed a hero far removed from traditional archetypes. His usual character received the name Cheyenne Harry ( Cayenne , in certain Spanish versions), although it was not much different when he received other names. The actor was the second most important influence in Ford's cinema after his brother Francis.Carey's box office success allowed Ford's salary to rise little by little. It seems that the films had excellent cinematography and some exterior scenes that highlighted the violent plot. Only Straight Shooting (Bulletproof, 1917) and Hell Bent (The Avenging Cowboy or The devil's ravine, 1918).

In January 1920, Ford shot The Prince of Avenue A, notable for being his first non-western film. In the summer of that year, Ford married Mary France McBride Smith, with whom he would have two children: Patrick (1921), who would become a low-budget film producer and director; and Barbara (1922), who would eventually work as an editor. In that same year, his brother Francis definitively abandoned directing and focused on working as an actor.

Go Fox

At the end of 1920, Ford filmed Just Pals (Good friends), his first job with the Fox production company, with which he would maintain an almost exclusive relationship until 1931 and with which he would shoot more than fifty films throughout his life. This is a "modern" set in his own time and which narrates the relationship between a homeless man and a child in a comedy tone. Although Ford continued to shoot a few films with Universal and Carey, the new production company allowed him to work with Tom Mix as well. Around this time he took a trip to Ireland, where he made contact with Sinn Féin and the Anglo-Irish conflict. He returned home having strengthened his ties to his father's land.

In 1923, he shot his biggest-budget film to date: Cameo Kirby (Knave, Horse and King), starring John Gilbert and colored in some sequences. Probably the importance of the assignment motivated him to sign for the first time with his final name of John Ford.

A blockbuster

Announcer Poster The Iron Horsein which the name of John Ford is already featured.

In 1924, Ford filmed his biggest production to date, the epic-toned western The Iron Horse.. The film was not initially conceived as a blockbuster, but Fox spared no expense as filming progressed, developed during the first quarter of the year. The film narrates in an epic tone the construction of the Transcontinental railroad by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific companies between 1863 and 1869, a plot accompanied by a sentimental relationship between the protagonists, played by George O'Brien and Madge Bellamy.

Filming took place in difficult conditions, as the large crew did not go to Nevada prepared for the station's harsh weather. Adequate accommodations for the large team had to be improvised. The production company made a significant economic effort aimed at enhancing the epic tone. Two entire cities had to be built for general takeovers. Since one of the Fox executives had become infatuated with the lead actress, scenes shot without Ford's help were later added to enhance her role.

Perhaps The Iron Horse is not the best film of Ford's silent days, but the director showed that he knows how to face adversity and lead a large team in difficult conditions. The result was a blockbuster that allowed the company to more than recover its high investment. This strengthened Ford's position at Fox and in the Hollywood industry in general. The grandiose tone of the film is compensated with a certain irony, in which the characters of three old Irish drunkards collaborate (a type that will become common in later films by the director).

Diversity of genres

The success of The Iron Horse guaranteed Ford continuity as a director, and he subsequently made films with different themes in which he experimented with genres other than westerns. After the now-defunct Hearts of Oak, a melodrama with a maritime setting, Ford shot Lightnin' (Don Pancho), an unpretentious but excessively long comedy, whose action takes place in the peculiar Hotel Calivada, located right on the border between the States of California and Nevada. The location will give rise to various comic situations, in which the couple who run the hotel stand out, characters that prefigure others that will later populate the Fordian work (such as Jeeter Lester from Tobacco Road).

Kentucky Pride (track blood) allowed Ford to enter the environment for which he liked horse racing. The comedy begins from the subjective point of view of the equine protagonist until it goes on to tell us the parallel stories of its owner, a wealthy man who loses his fortune and his horse, and the stable boy, an Irishman played by J. Farrel McDonald. and that anticipates future Ford characters. The Fighting Heart (Intrepid Heart) is a now-defunct melodrama that revolves around the consequences of alcoholism, notable for being the first appearance of a young Victor McLaglen in the cinema of Ford, of which the actor would become an emblem.

The Shamrock Handicap (Cloverleaf) allows Ford to return to the theme of horsemanship. It tells the story of a kind Irish aristocrat ruined for being generous with his tenants. This forces him to sell his best horse to compete in the United States. What could have been a tragedy acquires overtones of an optimistic story of personal growth in which the nobleman, his daughter and his best jockey will emigrate to North America, succeed in the races and return to their homeland victorious. second generation emigrant like Ford. It also narrates an emigration from Ireland Mother Machree (My goodness!), a film with which Fox experimented with synchronizing music and images and whose release was delayed two years. Only partially preserved, the film is overly sentimental and discursive and, while close to Ford's usual subject matter, is far from it in result.

Return to the western

George O'Brien next to Heather Angel in a 1936 picture. The actor starred The Iron Horse, Three bad men and other Ford movies this time. The actress would work with Ford in Pilgrimage and The delator.

3 Bad Men is considered by many critics to be the best film of Ford's silent period. Based on historical fact, the Dakota Territory free land race could have spawned another blockbuster epic like The Iron Horse. However, while the memorable race sequence follows that approach, the rest of the film departs from it. Oscillating skillfully between comedy and drama, the film follows three good-hearted bandits who decide to defend a young orphan girl and take on an evil sheriff. The outlaws, aware that their time has passed, will sacrifice themselves for the girl and her boyfriend, whom they themselves have helped to choose, in what constitutes an unquestionable foretaste of the twilight western .

The film was not a box office success, despite being included in the genre in which Ford began his career and with which he had achieved his greatest success. It would be years before the director turned his gaze to the west again.

Drama Success

After the corseted The Blue Eagle (El águila azul), a film with a military atmosphere, Ford will know his greatest success of the silent era thanks to the war drama Four Sons (Four sons). In this case, the public and critics walk hand in hand when considering it a great film. Although today it remains almost forgotten, it brought Ford to the same level as figures of the time such as Griffith himself. The film deals with Ford's usual themes, such as war, nostalgia for the lost homeland (Bavaria in this case replaces the usual Ireland) and emigration as a way of rebuilding one's life.

End of an era

Ford would say goodbye to silent movies with three very different films. The Hangman's House ( The Tragic Legacy ) represents a return to Ireland from the nationalist perspective that characterized him after his contact with the IRA, as well as to horse racing. The film is noteworthy for being John Wayne's first accredited collaboration under Ford's orders, in addition to having Victor McLaglen again. Riley the Cop, again starring J. Farrell McDonald, is an unpretentious comedy related to the slapstick around an agent who boasts of never having made an arrest and is sent on a mission abroad. Strong Boy (Long Live Ambition!) was also starring McLaglen and seems to have been lost. The last two films were released as silent films but with musical synchronization, a technique used by studios in the transition phase to sound.

Ford directed more than sixty films during the silent era. Even if his career had been cut short with the advent of sound, as occurred with great creators such as D. W. Griffith, Erich von Stroheim or Buster Keaton, his work would be worthy of consideration in the history of cinema. But Ford still had much more to contribute.

A decade of adaptation

Napoleon's Barber (Napoleon's Barber) is Ford's first contact with talkies. It is a short Fox movie that deals with a fictional anecdote: on his way to Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte stops at a barbershop to be shaved; the barber, who does not recognize him, goes on explaining what he would do to the Emperor if he were in front of him... until he ends up recognizing him. Today lost, the film does not seem to have more interest than that of Ford's experimentation with sound, arguing with the technicians about the limits of the new technique.

Years later, Ford told Peter Bogdanovich how production companies fired him and other directors with the advent of sound and replaced them with stage directors. When they failed at a job they were completely unfamiliar with, Ford and the others were rehired with a raise. According to him, the fact that the actors recited their dialogue during filming was not new, since it was already done during the silent era by the public who knew how to read lips. In any case, Ford was one of the directors who survived technical development; and he did it thanks to assuming his status as an employee who had to obey the rules imposed by the boss.

First sound works

The director's first serious challenge was The Black Watch (known as Shari, the Sorceress or Shari, the Oriental Sorceress in the realm Hispanic). Fox was looking for an exotic adventure show with a British colonial overtone that would bear certain similarities to The Four Feathers, of which a new version had been filmed that same year, 1929. Once again, he is one of the favorite actors of Ford, Victor McLaglen, who plays the lead officer, seconded by Myrna Loy in the female role. The film is weighed down by the desire to fully exploit the possibilities of sound, which is why songs, military music and bellicose cries abound. In addition, the producers hired a theatrical director to shoot new, fake scenes with the leads, in which the camera was fixed and the actors declaimed theatrically, much to Ford's further annoyance. Despite this, the film has some positive visual notes that led critic Tag Gallagher to define it as a neowagnerian melodrama.

The previous film met economic expectations, and Ford received a new commission from Fox: Salute (known in Spanish as El triunfo de la audacia or La audacity triumphs, 1929). Perhaps the lesser ambition of the commission made him think that he would receive less pressure; or perhaps it was the expectation of shooting in a pleasant environment (the Peaks Island military installations) in the company of his friends Ward Bond and John Wayne that attracted him. The film, starring again by George O'Brien, narrates in a comedy tone, the existing rivalry between members of the Army and the Navy of the United States (two institutions that are very pleasing to the director) that will culminate in an American football game.

Men Without Women (Underwater Tragedy) marks the first collaboration of the Maine director with writer Dudley Nichols, a fruitful union that would last for fourteen more films. Nichols himself would later recount the experience, admitting his initial ignorance of how to write a script and how Ford taught him, but Nichols did know how to tell stories and soon mastered film technique. Their joint work would inspire some of his best films. Since the screenwriter had served in the Navy, he proposed a naval theme for his first film, something readily accepted by the director. The film recounts the tragedy of the trapped crew of a hopelessly sinking submersible and their desperate efforts to survive.. The oppressive environment is softened by the habitual use of humor in small collateral situations to the main plot. Ford would later recall that it was the first film to be shot on a real submarine. Technically it is still a silent film but with synchronized sound, including music (even a few songs), sound effects, and some dialogue.

In Born Reckless (The Intrepid), again with the help of Nichols, Ford assumed the opposite role to the one he had suffered in The Iron Horse or The Black Watch, since he had to finish a film commissioned to another director. Not liking the project, he opted to introduce a baseball game as a comic element, similar to how he had done in Salute. Something similar happened with Up the River (Upstream), which had a prison script that Ford disliked. He and comedian Bill Colliér rewrote the script into a hilarious blockbuster comedy in which the leads were constantly in and out of prison. The result is a bizarre mix of genres that brought fame to an unusual pairing of near-debuts Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart, but the original screenwriter was very upset with Ford.

More interest is Seas Beneath, a new maritime adventure by Dudley Nichols and with the collaboration of George O'Brien. On this occasion, the performance of the crew of a "submarine hunter" during the Great War. Although certain critics highlight expressive findings that endow great "physicality" to action, such as placing a camera on the stern of the submarine during its rise, Ford was upset by the studio's imposition of a leading actress whom he considered incapable.

Much less noteworthy is The Brat (La huerfanita), a comedy of which Ford only remembered years later an energetic fight between two women.

First approach to medicine

Arrowsmith (premiered in Spain as Doctor Arrowsmith and in Argentina as Doctor and Lover) is an interesting film for several reasons. First of all, it is Ford's first work with a production company other than Fox Film Corporation after a long exclusive relationship with it; Collaborating with producer Samuel Goldwyn on an ambitious play was not easy for the director. Secondly, it constitutes the first approach to a theme that would later reappear in Ford, medicine, this time through the adaptation of a prestigious novel by the recent Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis, a book that had, in turn, been awarded with the Pulitzer Prize. Ultimately, it is Ford's first serious effort to describe a complex character in depth.

Although critics have later considered it to be a failure in several respects, it earned four Academy Award nominations in 1932, including Best Picture, the first time a Ford work had ever won. this kind of recognition.

The movie had consequences of a different kind. Ford breached the contract signed with Goldwyn that prohibited him from drinking during filming, which caused him to be sanctioned for that and, then, Fox terminated the exclusive contract that he had enjoyed for years. From that moment on Although Ford continued to collaborate with Fox, he was free to develop projects with other studios. This meant an important change in the way of working for a director accustomed until then to being on a company's payroll.

Freelance

Ford returned to work with the company from its beginnings, Universal, on the set of Air Mail (Men Without Fear, 1932). There he will meet Commander Frank W. Spig Weady, a highly decorated Navy pilot who collaborated as a screenwriter on this and other films (including They Were Expendable, again with Ford), with whom he would come to join a close friendship. The film is set in the world of airmail pilots, and its theme is similar to that of Howard Hawks' later great film Only Angels Have Wings (Only Angels Have Wings , 1939). However, Ford lacks the personal experience that Hawks did have and that allowed him to impregnate the film with verisimilitude, so the Fordian film is much colder than that of the aviator-filmmaker.

Flesh (Meat, 1932) marks Ford's first collaboration with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In this drama, a strong Wallace Beery he must face both a gang of gangsters and a fearsome femme fatale. Ford's name does not appear in the credits.

With Pilgrimage (Peregrinos or Peregrinación in its Spanish premieres, 1933) Ford returned to work with Fox Film Corporation. The film is based on a narration by I.A.R. Wylie, the same author of the story that gave rise to Four Sons, Ford's greatest success in the silent film era. Again the story is about mother-child relationships, but in this case the mother is a tough woman who refuses to let her son get married and breaks up with him. The son will die in the war and the mother will only reconcile with her daughter-in-law and grandson after meeting another soldier who has had an experience similar to that of her deceased son.

A new icon

In 1933, Ford accepted a commission to make a film starring the wildly popular actor Will Rogers. The success of Doctor Bull will lead to the making of two other films, Judge Priest (1934) and Steamboat' Round the Bend (1935), composing a cycle that, for bringing together a series of its own characteristics, is sometimes called the Will Rogers trilogy.

New jobs

He recovers Dudley Nichols for The Lost Patrol that the RKO puts on stage in 1934 with Victor McLaglen, to whom he would offer a new great role in Hangman's house. Ford will always hate his next movie The World in Motion set in the late 19th century and early del XX even though it has several very realistic war scenes. More successful was Judge Priest with Dudley Nichols in the script and the actor Will Rogers who had directed the year before in Doctor Bull and would direct again in 1935 in the film Steamboat round the bend, just before he died in a tragic plane crash. This movie is one of the director's favorites. A new version was made in 1952 titled The Sun shines for all the World.

In 1934, Ford began to participate financially in his films. He bought himself a yacht that he named 'L' Araner'. in homage to Ireland that he would have until 1970. He would shoot two more films and begin to have problems due to the pressure of Hollywood. He continued his friendship with John Wayne, who worked with him as an extra on his first films, on The Informer.

In 1935 he founded, with King Vidor, Lewis Milestone, William A. Wellman, Frank Borzage and Gregory La Cava, the Directors Association, thus replacing the Motion Picture Directors Association. The Whistleblower, made very quickly for RKO allowed him to tackle the subject of British Ireland. His sympathy for the IRA is no mystery. In this film the Ford of the interior decorations is discovered, he is far from the great productions of him and classic western decorations. With this work, inspired by expressionist cinema, he received his first Oscar for best director that would go to the previously founded Directors Association.

In 1935, 20th Century Pictures absorbed Fox, renamed Darryl F. Zanuck's 20th Century Fox. He performed alongside his new producer, a big fan of Abraham Lincoln's Prisoner of Hate. The problems between Ford and Zanuck began with the confrontation over Warner Baxter's southern accent. Ford was about to leave 20th Century Fox, but eventually agreed to Zanuck's wishes. Since then they have maintained a close friendship and admiration.

He directed Katharine Hepburn in Mary of Scotland for RKO in 1936. He also directed Hurricane on the Island in 1937 Produced by Samuel Goldwyn.

In 1937 he enlisted in the Cinematographic Committee for Aid to the Spanish Republic to help the Republican combatants in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). He personally took charge of sending an ambulance with the International Brigades. He was also very active in the fight against Nazism. In 1938 he defended the blockade of Nazi Germany and is named a member of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League. The signing of the German-Soviet pact earned him criticism from the communists who accused him of "war propaganda."

The Classical Period

From Stagecoach to The Fugitive

Ford in 1946

With Stage, Ford returned to the western. In this movie he has John Wayne who gets the chance of a lifetime from him and he will become a big star. The exteriors were shot in Monument Valley. The film was nominated for eight Oscars, of which he won the one for supporting actor with Thomas Mitchell and the one for soundtrack, and Ford received the New York Film Critics Award. Stagecoach is considered the best Western of all time.

Later, and together with Zanuck, he returned to his passion for Lincoln and they filmed together Young Lincoln with Henry Fonda, who will be the protagonist of his next two films: The Grapes of Wrath (The Grapes of Wrath, Vines of Wrath or The Grapes of Wrath) (collaboration number twelve with screenwriter Nunnally Johnson) and Indomitable hearts. In 1941 he again won the Best Director Oscar for The Grapes of Wrath. His talent is finally recognized by professionals and critics.

He worked again with John Wayne on The Long Voyage Home. Ford's last film before the war (How Green Was My Valley) was a great success with audiences and critics. It received five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director (taking it away from Orson Welles' Citizen Kane).

In 1939 Ford had an inkling that America would soon be entering World War II. He led a group of filmmakers who asked Franklin Roosevelt to boycott Nazi Germany and founded a group of Hollywood people at the service of the American Navy, called the Naval Field Photographic Unit. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, two other similar groups were founded.

During the war, Ford and his team toured the theaters of military operations. At the beginning of 1942 they went to the Pacific front and made for the Navy the documentaries December 7th (about the attack on Pearl Harbor) and The Battle of Midway (a decisive battle from which the United States gradually began to win the war). The images of the Japanese attack on Midway Island were shot by Ford himself. The two reports earned him an Oscar for best documentary. He also made a short film for the families of the Midway victims called Torpedo Squad . In 1942 he went to North Africa to cover the landing. During 1943 he covered multiple foreign operations as well as Allied victories in Victory in Burma (Victory in Burma ). He also covers the Normandy landings in 1944. He also follows the army during the preparation of the Nuremberg Trial.

From February to June 1945, he filmed They were expendable for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with John Wayne, Robert Montgomery and Donna Reed. This is, along with Brave Men (1940), Ford's only World War II film in which he was so actively involved. The money raised from this film went to veterans of the Field Photo Unit and the Field Photo Farm.

After the war he returned to Hollywood and shot again in Monumental Valley: Passion of the Strong. In The Fugitive (1947) she worked again with Henry Fonda, whom she allowed to interpret with total freedom.

The Quiet Man

He directed it in 1952, again in the company of his favorite actor, John Wayne. The film is about an American boxer, Sean Thorton (played by Wayne), who returns to his native Ireland to take back his farm and escape his past. There he falls in love with a cheerful girl, although to get her he must fight local customs, including the payment of a dowry and the opposition of the temperamental brother of his fiancée.

The film earned seven Oscar nominations, including best picture, and was honored for two. One of the statuettes went to Ford and the other to cinematographers Winton C. Hoch and Archie Stout. It is considered one of the best films in the history of cinema.^{[citation required]}

Filmography

Manager

Screenwriter

• Three bad men (Three Bad Men(1926)
• Submarine tragedy (Men Without Women(1930)
• Peace caravan (Wagon Master(1950)

Actor

• His Lordship (His Lordship) (1936)
• Everybody Does It (Everybody Does It) (1949)

Awards and distinctions

Oscar Awards

Golden Globe

National Board of Review

Venice International Film Festival

Pop Culture

Cinema

In the 2019 film, Midway (2019 film), he was portrayed by actor Geoffrey Blake.

Used bibliography

• Houses, Quim (1989). John Ford, art and legend. Barcelona: Directed by... S.A. p. 495. ISBN 84-87270-01-8. Archived from the original on 23 June 2013. Consultation on 8 December 2012.
• Bogdanovich, Peter (1971). John Ford. Madrid: Editorial Fundamentos. p. 197. ISBN 84-245-0009-1. |fechaacceso= requires |url= (help)
• Gallagher, Tag (1986). John Ford: The man and his cinema. Tres Cantos (Madrid): Editions Akal. p. 768. ISBN 978-84-460-2304-3. Consultation on 14 April 2013.