OW, John Wayne and Communism

Le Chiffre · Post by **Le Chiffre** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 10:59 am

Can't reveal my source, but that is an authentic transcription from the original tape recording, done either by Rosenbaum or Bogdanovich. There's another segment of Welles talking about John Ford's "Irish" films that's just as bad, if not worse. I find myself wondering if Welles didn't have a few drinks in him when he rattled off some of that stuff. The French Ambersons DVD has a more complete version of the Welles/Bogdanovich Ambersons conversations then the TIOW set had, including Welles colorfully bashing Stanley Cortez and Delores Costello. I could be wrong, but it sounds like Welles may have been throwing back a few drinks there too. You can occasionally hear what sounds like ice rattling in a glass.

It'd be interesting to hear the complete Arkadin conversations, to see if Welles REALLY lets loose on Louis Dolivet. He may not have wanted to chance it, since that case actually did go to court.

chrissie · Post by **chrissie** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 2:59 pm

That's brilliant! Thanks for sharing. I always wanted to know the context of that Wayne/fascist stuff that's been alluded to here and there.

jaime marzol · Post by **jaime marzol** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 5:53 pm

wayne and ward bond were facists, and ran the american legion in the days that they thought comminists were going to take over america. chaplin blames wayne and bond personally for chasing him out of america. which was foolish for wayne to persecute chaplin through the american legion. he's much bigger than chaplin, he could have just gone over to chaplin's house and beat the crap out of the little tramp.

when ward bond died, ford closed the set of the film he was working on and flew to the funeral. when he got back, he looked at andy devine, and said, "well, ward bond is dead. now that makes you the biggest shit i know."

ford did not share wayne's and bond's politics

Terry · Post by **Terry** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 6:12 pm

i saw a great documentary wayne did on vietnam about how the powers that be were preventing the soldiers from winning the war. wayne didn't come across like a fascist, but like a patriot. hitler was a fascist. and head of a socialist party.

i'll have to dig up the wayne thing and watch it again to get a better sense of his politics. it's stereotypical for liberals to call conservatives fascists and conservatives to call liberals socialists and communists. and speaking of poopy diapers, i'll listen too to hear wayne's "baby talk" - that's the revelation for me today! Some of my favourite john ford and howard hawks films may be ruined for me now.:O

chrissie · Post by **chrissie** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 6:17 pm

I think OW was taking a very awkward approach to saying JW sounds like someone a little lacking in intellectual prowess. ;-)

Terry · Post by **Terry** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 6:32 pm

Then welles would have come out and said it - he didn't mince words. not what wayne said - how he said it.

i'm still trying to figure out what the damnation a "bulbous kind of monument" is. welles commented on the appearance of charlie chaplin's penis - i guess this referred to wayne's!

jaime marzol · Post by **jaime marzol** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:12 am

the reds were also taking wayne serious, they saw him as a threat. the 6 foot 2 in american facist was becoming a danger to them. there were 2 assasination attempt missions dispatched on wayne that didn't happen. kruschev sent an assasination squad here to kill wayne. when they arrived they asked for asylum. and during a speech in vietnam, sharp shooters were supposed to kill him but i forgot why they didn't.

in a playboy interview wayne said blacks should not have the vote, they were shaken out of trees a little over 100 years ago and the black brain had not evolved enough to vote. wayne had a lot of opinions like that. why would it be any of wayne's business what chaplin did? it's stuff like that that made people label wayne a facist.

don't get me wrong, i love all this stuff. i think it's hillarous, and makes me appreciate him that much more. wayne was superior and he knew it. that red head that was in THE QUIET MAN told an interesting story that reveals the wayne character. they were at ford's house, wayne was too drunk, ford told her to drive him home, get him out of there. on the drive home wayne said, "stop the car." she stopped the car. it's the middle of the night. wayne goes up to a house and knocks on the door. lights come on inside, some one finally opens the door. wayne asked them if they could make him a cocktail. they made him a cocktail. he said thank you, he got back in the car with her, and off they went.

how can you not love a guy that knocks on a stranger's door for a cocktail and gets it, a guy that shows up at a political rally in a tank, the guy that chased that commie chaplin out of our nation, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Le Chiffre · Post by **Le Chiffre** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 12:21 pm

Jaime,
Funny that you should mention Kruschev's rumored plot to assassinate John Wayne. If I remember correctly, the source of that information was none other then Orson Welles himself.

jaime marzol · Post by **jaime marzol** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 2:16 pm

i read it on the web, it was in a newspaper after some fbi documents were declassified. a friend sent me the link. i think i posted the link here somewere. so welles knew about it also? where did welles say this? i wonder if the plot was news in it's day but not the details?

i think the whole concept of an assasination team training to kill wayne, then arriving here and asking for asylum, is fabulous.

jaime marzol · Post by **jaime marzol** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 2:22 pm

mteal, you are right on the money. check out this link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1010266,00.html

whaaaaa, here is a quote from the article,

"John told the FBI to let the men show up and he would deal with them."

Wayne then apparently hatched a plot with his scriptwriter at the time, Jimmy Grant, to abduct the assassins, drive to a beach and stage a mock execution to frighten them."

incredible. all this john wayne talk is making me feel like watching my super cool 2 hr john wayne documentary.

Le Chiffre · Post by **Le Chiffre** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 4:16 pm

Thanks for the link, Jaime. Looks like there still isn't much hard evidence to support the rumor, and maybe there never will be. It's an interesting story, though. I especially like this part:

"Wayne then relied upon a group of loyal stuntmen who infiltrated communist cells in America and learned of plots to kill him. He then gathered all the stuntmen, went to the communist meetings, and had a huge fight"

Probably would've made a great John Wayne movie!

Welles's comment about Wayne's 'bulbous monument' may have referred to his bulging gut by the late 60's. If so, it would have been a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Just to take a wild stab at swinging this back to Arkadin territory, Welles said Arkadin was based on Stalin, and the film was a parable of the Cold War. Others have said Van Stratton was based on Nixon who, as Ike's vice-president/bulldog, had more dealings with Kruschev then Stalin, sometimes pretty contentious, as shown in this picture.
But then, the older man/younger man conflict would fit more neatly with a Nixon vs. Stalin scenario, even if Stalin was already dead by that time. It sure would be nice to have a more definite idea of what (or who) Welles had in mind for the characters. I'd settle for Louis Dolivet's thoughts, if he ever made them public. Maybe in those court transcripts of his lawsuit against Welles. I wonder if it would be possible to get a copy of them.

chrissie · Post by **chrissie** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 7:57 pm

No, I'm guessing he meant JW had a kind of huge greatness about him. Visually, presumably.

Terry · Post by **Terry** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:11 pm

Why are words like d*a*m*n and h*e*l*l censored by the board, which allows words like sh*t and f*ck?

This board is encouraging me to swear.

Jaime - which one was the super cool Wayne docu? I'm sure my dad should have had it in his complete Duke library - unless it was from the last three years.

jaime marzol · Post by **jaime marzol** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 4:23 am

wayne docu:
i taped it off the history channel. it's not the one they show on a&e that begins with that zoom on wayne from stagecoach. this one is 2 hours long, and it's great. i don't know what the title is, but i'll look.

mteal:
i read that van straten looked like an ugly nixon, but i don't think they were comparing him with nixon. stalin was a hair raising guy. my god he was as bad as hitler if not worse. in fact, stalin killed more russians than hitler did. stalin was a piece of shit just like trotsky, and lenin. all of them should have had their heads pinched off at birth and spared the world the suffering and agony they caused. the last romanoff was a bit of a twit too. russia would have been better off if groucho marx would have been running the country. groucho would have made rasputin get a hair cut and carry a big horn like harpo did. once rasputin had to carry a big horn, that's it, no more prophet, just another guy with a horn.

Le Chiffre · Post by **Le Chiffre** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 3:08 pm

it's stereotypical for liberals to call conservatives fascists and conservatives to call liberals socialists and communists.

Yeah, that seems true, Store Hadji. That reminds me of Rosenbaum accusing Welles of being 'hyberbolic' when Welles accused conservative members of Cahiers-du-Cinema of being Fascists in the 50's. Political discourse often has a tendency to offer more heat then light.

Chrissie,
You may be right about Welles referring to Wayne as a 'visual monument'. Like George Washington, Wayne is almost more monument then man in the American psyche. The term 'bulbous' though, could refer either to Wayne's gut or his bloated icon status. A good Shakespearean like Welles would probably always be on the lookout for the opportunity to use the 'double sense'.

Jaime,
I'm just speculating; there's not much evidence to suggest Van Stratton was based on Nixon. But if you look at Gregory Arkadin as a metaphor for California's mysterious 'Committee of One Hundred' that Donald Freed (who co-wrote a screenplay with Weles) claimed shaped the political careers of both Nixon and Ronald Reagan after WWII, the idea could make some sense. Welles probably would have had some inside political knowledge at the time, and Nixon might have seemed like a Van Stratton that was being groomed to be an Arkadin. He was also one of the leaders of HUAC, so Welles would've had a bone to pick with him there too.