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14 JANUARY 2016
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Badge of Courage, but Dore Schary let Huston
know that he was apprehensive in hiring the
novice actor for a starring role. The smooth talking
Huston then presented a credible argument as to
why he thought Murphy a perfect match for the
lead role in the movie.
"Dore, I've spoken to the kid about his part in
the movie and do you know what he told me?"
Schary shook his head. Huston dropped his voice
a little, "Murphy said ten seconds after the first
shot was fired at him by the enemy, combat was
no longer glamorous. All he wanted to do after that
was to stay alive. He got so scared that first day in
combat he almost ran." Huston continued, "The kid
then said that sometimes it takes more courage to
run than to stay."
Huston waited for a few seconds for that last
sentence to be digested by Schary. "Dore, this kid
has lived the role in real life and that's why he's a
cert for the part."
Schary looked directly at Huston for what
seemed like an awfully long time, before he finally
nodded. "Okay John, we go with the kid."
This became the background to the meeting in
Mayer's office, where Schary informed him that
he had decided to let Huston make his picture
and now needed Mayer to agree to the finances.
Despite the vagaries of the box office and the
subsequent faltering profits under his watch,
Mayer still considered himself top dog at the
studios that bore his name. He now stubbornly
refused to allocate the funds for "Huston's damn
civil war picture". Schary rose from the seat in front
of Mayer's desk and said, "Louis, I'm sorry you feel
that way for I believe it has a chance of becoming
a highly important motion picture that will bring
honour to the studio, and it is even possible that it
will be a classic." Schary paused before adding, "I
suggest we let Nick Schenck decide."
During his short tenure, Schary had turned
the studio around and the motion pictures he
had green-lit to date had put the profits of MGM
back into the black for the first time in two years.
Consequently, as far as MGM's parent company
Loew's was concerned, their young production
chief could walk on water and had now become
vital to the reversal of MGM's fortunes. Sure
enough, when Schary contacted Loew's president
Nicholas Schenck in NewYork for
support in making The Red Badge
of Courage, Schenck immediately
backed him. Strenuous objections
from an enraged Mayer ensued,
which were overruled by
Schenck.
The following
morning theLos Angeles Times
carried a column written by
Hedda Hopper announcing that
Audie Murphy would star in
The Red Badge of Courage,
with John Huston directing.
She concluded her column
with, "For a change, we'll have a real soldier,
playing a real soldier on the screen." When Mayer
was shown the newspaper column he snorted, "I
wouldn't make this damn film with Sam Goldwyn's
money." (Mayer had always disliked Goldwyn.)
The movie's budget was set at $1.6 million
with a 30-day shooting schedule. Huston had
wanted to film his battle scenes on location in
Virginia where the actual battle took place, but the
budget would not stretch that far. Consequently,
he decided to film those scenes on his ranch in the
San Fernando Valley, which was only 30 miles from
the MGM studios, and the rest of the picture on
the studio backlot. To further reduce costs, he cast
relatively unknown actors for the main supporting
characters: Douglas Dick as The Lieutenant; John
Dierkes as The Tall Soldier; Royal Dano as The
Tattered Man; Bill Maudlin, another WWII veteran,
as The Loud Soldier; and a walk-on part for the
western character actor Andy Devine, as The
Cheery Soldier.
The role of producer went
to Gottfried Reinhardt, the
son of Austrian film director
Max Reinhardt, who set
about procuring Huston's
pre-production requirements,
which consisted of 600 Union
blue uniforms, 100 horses,
four artillery teams and
numerous authentic looking hook-
on beards and crepe moustaches.
During the initial script-reading
rehearsals, Huston noticed that
his leading man, Audie Murphy,
appeared sullen and unresponsive
towards him and the rest of the cast. Huston
guessed the kid was troubled and it would
need a lot of one-on-one coaching from him to
ease Murphy into the role of The Youth.
The following day Reinhardt contacted Huston
and said, "John, we are going to have major
problems putting this film together. Schary okayed
the 600 uniforms from wardrobe, but now Mayer
has countermanded it. You do know we are in the
middle of two civil wars – the one on the screen
and the one between Mayer and Schary."
Louis B. Mayer had indeed grown increasingly
critical of Schary's decision to make this movie,
and studio scuttlebutt was buzzing with plots and
counterplots. Even before he had filmed a single
frame, Huston instinctively knew that his motion
picture was being held hostage in a political war for
the control of MGM studios. Treachery and betrayal
would soon follow.
To be concluded...
Director John Huston coaching Audie Murphy
during the making of The Red Badge of Courage