The casting of Robert Montgomery (1904–1981) in They Were Expendable was uncommonly appropriate. The suave, handsome actor made his name in debonair romantic comedies throughout the 1930s, but like John Ford he didn’t wait until America was dragged into war before enlisting. In 1940, fired up by the life-and-death struggles raging in Europe, he abandoned his M-G-M contract, went to France, and volunteered as an ambulance driver. Only a few weeks went by before he had it shot out from under him — one film magazine of the era reported (or perhaps exaggerated) that he narrowly avoided capture with the help of a French priest, and escaped the country mere hours before it fell to the Germans.
Back in the states he enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve, and over the next three years served in many capacities before finding his way to the Pacific theater, where he met John Bulkeley and became his executive officer. Montgomery commanded a PT boat in many battles, and eventually headed up to Normandy as an operations officer for a destroyer squadron. While preparing for D-Day, he remembered later, “I saw Bulkeley on his PT Boat and waved to him. There was another man on the bridge with him. I had no idea then it was Jack Ford.”
Soon after D-Day, Montgomery was felled by a serious bout of tropical fever and was sent back stateside. In four years of war he had earned, among other decorations, the Bronze Star and a Chevalier ranking in the French Legion of Honor. All in all, Ford’s kind of guy. When it came time to cast the Bulkeley part in Expendable, the choice was obvious.
Montgomery arrived in Florida not having acted in four years, and the prospect of stepping in front of the camera again terrified him and triggered debilitating panic attacks. But Ford — capable of immense kindness when least expected — treated his problems with understanding, and over a period of several days gently coaxed him back into the acting groove. Ultimately, They Were Expendable would become one of the actor’s best performances, quietly understated but richly nuanced. Montgomery later said that
Ford had a great crew; they all knew him and they were all fiercely loyal. They’d have defended him to the death. They gave me as good . . .
So little of what I did in Hollywood gives me any pride of achievement. Three or four pictures out of sixty-odd. It’s not very much. Ford was the best I’d ever worked with: the only one I’d call creative. After Expendable I’d cheerfully have signed a contract to work with him exclusively. I don’t know that the idea would have appealed to him, of course. But I’d have been happy. He was a genius.
The respect was mutual. Near the end of filming, Ford took a nasty fall off of a studio scaffold and fractured his leg (“Jesus Christ, you clumsy bastard!” Wayne yelled when he and Montgomery found Ford writhing on the ground). When M-G-M called him frantically in the hospital, wondering who could possibly step in on short notice to finish the picture, Ford christened Bob Montgomery as the man who would direct the few remaining scenes.
After Expendable, Montgomery went on to a fruitful later career, first as a director of several well-regarded noir films, then as a popular television personality. His then-twelve-year-old daughter Elizabeth would later grow up to be a star, too — most famous for playing the madcap enchantress Samantha in the 1964 television series Bewitched.
Donna Reed (1921–1986), was just coming into her own as a young actress in 1944, and like so many others before her she was putty in Ford’s hand. In the beginning Ford deliberately didn’t speak to her for weeks, and his rudeness served to build up the hardened exterior she would need for playing her opening scenes in the hospital, stoically assisting meatball surgeons. Later on in the production, however, the wily director changed tactics.
Right before the scene where she is treated by Wayne and his unit to a charmingly improvised candlelight dinner, Ford suddenly softened her up with a string of lovely pearls, ostentatiously presenting them to her in front of the whole crew as a sort of tribute to the nurses of Bataan. This gift from the fearsome, crotchety director was so unexpected that her face lit up with a radiant glow which carried over into the scene, lending genuine conviction to her reactions throughout the dinner, the serenade, and all the way up to her tearful final line, “They’re just such nice guys!”
Film critic Bosley Crowther, the Roger Ebert of his era and no fan of stridently patriotic movies, would write in the New York Times that, “Donna Reed is extraordinarily touching in the role of an Army nurse who figures into the story in a brief romance which is most tastefully and credibly handled.” This was the start of Reed’s career as a true star, and the very next year she would appear in her most immortal film role, that of Jimmy Stewart’s devoted wife in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Incredibly, after They Were Expendable was released, the real-life counterparts of the Wayne and Reed characters both sued for damages, claiming that — even though the names in the movie are all fictitious — the film insinuates that they had a romantic relationship in real life. How anyone could complain about being portrayed by the likes of John Wayne and Donna Reed is beyond me, but in the end they both won damages in court (a few thousand for the man, several hundred thousand for the woman). And so it was this film that prompted the widespread use of the disclaimer we have seen on countless movies ever since, about all characters being fictitious and any resemblance to real people “living or dead” being coincidental.
Throughout the decades in which he worked, John Ford collected about himself a motley assortment of character actors, stuntmen, ex-soldiers, and personal friends, people he particularly enjoyed working with. Together they became informally known as the John Ford Stock Company, and over the course of thirty years they matured into an experienced acting troupe much greater than the sum of their parts, to the point where you can usually judge the merit of a Ford film based on how many members of his Stock Company are listed in the credits. Astoundingly versatile, they were by turns raucously hilarious or deeply affecting, depending on Ford’s whims. For fans of the director’s films, the sight of one of their weathered, well-loved faces on screen is always a cause for rejoicing.
Along with John Wayne, the Company’s most prominent member was Ward Bond (1903–1960). Both Wayne and Bond came to Ford in the late 1920s as a pair of frat-boy college football players from USC looking for summer studio work as grips, stuntmen, whatever they could get. A hardworking character actor, Bond had a different kind of appeal than the Duke, but one no less important to Ford’s films.
Bond was a human bulldog — pug-nosed, round-bellied, big-assed. He looked like someone’s father or brother, eminently blue-collar and dependable, with no guile in his face whatsoever. This allowed him to stand in front of a camera and bring lines to life that in other mouths would have sounded shamelessly corny:
“It means service — tough and good.”
No fancy wordplay, no flowery prose. Just honest sentiments, presented with all the simplicity you would expect from a rugged sailor searching for a manly way to express himself to his buddies. In Ford’s oeuvre, Bond continually grounds scenes in reality that might otherwise become too saccharine, as when in They Were Expendable he serenades Donna Reed (a scene that both Bond and Reed would repeat the very next year in Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life, with Bond playing Bert the Cop).
Like Wayne, Bond also didn’t serve during the war — rejected due to his epilepsy — and so instead became an air-raid warden in Los Angeles. In July 1944, he suffered a horrible accident while riding his motorcycle on Hollywood Boulevard. According to fellow John Ford Stock Company member Harry Carey Jr.:
He was hit by a car, and his left leg was torn to shreds. The story is that one doctor wanted to amputate it because it was evidently hanging by a thread of flesh, but Duke Wayne threatened to annihilate the doc if he did that. Somehow, after months and months of treatment and skin grafts, the leg was saved. Ward wore a huge brace on it much of the time, but covered it so well you could hardly tell. One part of his leg never did heal. He always had to wear some kind of dressing on it.
With Expendable filming at the end of that year, Bond was in no condition to play such a physically demanding role. Yet like with Robert Montgomery’s panic attacks, Ford reacted to the news with kindness. He kept his friend in the cast and worked around the injury, blocking his scenes so he wouldn’t have to walk more than a step or two in any one shot, and later having his character injured in the script so he could hobble around on a crutch.
It was a good choice — Bond is one of the highlights of They Were Expendable, providing generous helpings of pathos and comic relief in equal measure. One indication of the respect Ford had for his abilities is that Bond was paid more than any other actor on the picture aside from Montgomery and Wayne — $37,000 all told, compared to Montgomery’s $170,000 and Wayne’s $80,000. (For the record, Jack Holt made $30,000, many of the other second-tier actors brought in $15,000 or so, and Donna Reed got $5000 for her few days of studio work.)
In addition to Wayne and Bond, the two giants of the Stock Company, They Were Expendable relies on the talents of other longtime members. Russell Simpson (1880–1959) is “Dad” Knowland, the aged mechanic who refuses to abandon his forty-year home in the Philippines, and is last seen sitting laconically on his doorstep, totally alone in the jungle, cradling his shotgun and a jug of whiskey, waiting for death at the hands of the soon-to-arrive Japanese vanguard. And Harry Tenbrook (1887–1960) portrays the lovable lug “Squarehead” Larsen, the unit’s cook, who ever pines for “the Arizona to come steaming up the bay with her fourteen-inch guns blazing, and the best cook stoves in the Navy.” Neither of these actors were household names, but Ford gave them small, key moments to hold up in the picture, and as always they shine.
(Stuntman Frank McGrath (1903–1967) — a Ford favorite who over a decade later would become a star in the hit television show Wagon Train with Ward Bond — can also be spied as an unnamed sailor in a late scene. He’s the one who tells John Wayne “Glad to see ya back, Mr. Ryan” after Wayne’s character finds Brickley and his men once again.)
Special mention must be made, however, of Stock Company regular Ronald J. “Jack” Pennick (1895–1964). In They Were Expendable he plays Doc, the old weeping sailor being put out to pasture in the clip we saw earlier, but who ultimately stays behind to fight alongside the doomed Army on Bataan. His is a name few people remember today, but anyone who professes admiration for the movies of John Ford needs to know it. Jack Pennick meant a great deal to the director, so much in fact that he holds the honor of appearing in more Ford pictures than any other actor.
Pennick was a two-bit Hollywood trouper when he first met Ford in the late silent era, and he appeared in several of the then-youthful director’s pictures in the late 1920s and early 1930s. A particularly kind and gentle man under his rough, hangdog exterior, it impressed Ford greatly to later discover that Pennick was also a lifelong soldier — a tough-as-nails former Marine drillmaster who had fought in both World War I and the “Banana Wars” of the 1920s. As if that wasn’t enough, over the years he also educated himself into becoming one of the foremost experts on soldiery and military history that Ford or anyone else had ever met.
The two men got on famously, and soon Ford adopted Pennick as his all-around, ever-present aide-de-camp. He did virtually everything for the director, from waking him up each morning on location and hand-delivering his first cup of coffee, to tucking him into bed unconscious after a long night of drinking and poker. The man Ford affectionately called “the big six-foot-four-and-a-half mick” also served with him during World War II, devotedly following him around the world and supposedly (according to professional bullshitter Ford, so take it with a huge grain of salt) even winning the Silver Star. “Wild Bill” Donovan, the founder of the OSS, once reverently said of Pennick, “There is the most perfect soldier I have ever met.” To the end of his days, whenever John Ford would exit a car or enter a room, Jack Pennick would jump up and snap off a perfect salute to his benefactor.
All of this appealed greatly to Ford’s boundless sense of drama and history and duty, and he reciprocated Pennick’s loyalty many times over in the post-war years. In all the director’s greatest movies you can see the winningly ugly ex-soldier appear in some minor role, usually as a sergeant or barman. He was much more useful behind the scenes, mercilessly drilling pampered actors and teaching them how to comport themselves as real servicemen. Anyone wondering how it must have felt for John Wayne and the rest of the John Ford Stock Company to be worked over by ol’ Jack Pennick need only check out this little clip from Ford’s Fort Apache (1948), which has a funny scene of him whipping some green cavalry troops into shape:
[youtube 4QlEW-o1zg4 — click here to watch in full-screen HD]
My guess is that, given his druthers and some recalcitrant recruits, he could have given R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket a run for his money.
Pennick was also kept on hand to ensure that all the military costumes and lingo were as accurate as possible. It was he who famously walked into West Point during Ford’s filming of The Long Grey Line (1955), took one glance at an old coat-of-arms on the wall, and nonchalantly proclaimed it inaccurate — the swords hanging in the display, he assured the docents, were upside down. When they checked their manuals they discovered to their astonishment that he was right — the display had been hanging wrong for decades until Pennick tipped them off.
When today’s filmmakers, flush with the power of CGI and modern camera techniques, declare their gloomy anti-war films more realistic and thus superior to the hokey military movies of yore, I can only think of guys like Jack Pennick, men who infused old movies with their patriotism, optimism, loyalty, and expertise. One of John Ford’s greatest gifts to posterity is his immortalization of such people on screen, reminding future generations of their caliber.
Next Saturday in For Conservative Movie Lovers, we conclude our coverage of They Were Expendable with a look at John Ford’s postwar legacy, and his place in film history as a champion of the American spirit.
Previous posts in the series “John Ford, John Wayne, and They Were Expendable“:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
FURTHER READING AND VIEWING
Company of Heroes: My Life as An Actor in the John Ford Stock Company by Harry Carey, Jr. For those wishing to learn more about the group of Fordian actors mentioned above, there is no better source than this volume of delightful stories by Mr. Carey (who as of this writing is 88 years old and still hale and hearty). There are many laugh-out-loud (and some cringe-worthy) moments featuring John Ford, John Wayne, Ward Bond, Jack Pennick, and all the rest. A must read if you watch the films of John Ford — it will add layers of meaning to each picture, and make them that much more satisfying.
The Earl of Hollywood: a nice website dedicated to the life and career of Robert Montgomery. Lots of rare pictures, including ones of Montgomery as an ambulance driver in France, and in uniform on the cover of various magazines. Well worth perusing.
MOVIE TRIVIA ANSWER: Looks like no one came close to getting the answer to our trivia question last week. Future film director Blake Edwards, in his early acting days, played an unnamed sailor in They Were Expendable, appearing in two main scenes. First, he shows up as a wet-behind-the-ears seaman in the bar during Doc’s farewell party (he’s the one who gets a “very small beer” from actor and former wrestler Sammy Stein).
Much later his character is seen again, this time as a bearded, now-veteran member of John Wayne’s dejected crew, attending an impromptu funeral for two comrades and then listening gravely as the radio in the bar heralds the fall of Bataan.
If you think about it, Ford here creates a shattered mirror image of the first bar scene. Some of the same kids who cheerfully toasted Doc’s health with beer, sarsaparilla, and ginger ale are now at a much different tavern, this time drinking hard liquor, having in the interim become seasoned, war-hardened sailors fully aware of the meaning of “service — tough and good.”
All of these scenes were shot on Hollywood sound stages as opposed to on location in Key Biscayne, Florida, which explains why Edwards doesn’t appear in any outdoor shots.
Other movies the young Blake Edwards can be seen in include The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), where he plays a corporal at the ATC (Air Transport Command) counter in the beginning of the film (“Guess I’m goin’ to Cleveland,” he tells Andrews). He also played the lead in several schlocky B films, including the immortal Strangler of the Swamp (also 1946).
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