Mark your calendars for Wednesday May 10, 9 PM for the the PBS (yes PBS) series "American Masters". The first documentary of this year's series will feature the relationship between John Ford and John Wayne. The Washington Post has an article on the documentary as follows:
By Judith S. Gillies
Washington Post Staff Writer
Marion Morrison was a college student working as a prop man when he met John Ford, an established director.
Ford began giving background parts and bit parts to Morrison, known as "Duke" from his football days. A friendship developed -- cemented in poker parties on Ford's yacht -- that spawned 14 films, including nine Westerns, and spanned five decades.
Individually, Ford and Morrison -- better known as John Wayne -- had extraordinary careers. And together, they made movies for more than 20 years, including "Stagecoach" in 1939, "The Quiet Man" in 1952 and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" in 1962.
"John Ford/John Wayne: The Filmmaker and the Legend," which launches the 20th season of the "American Masters" PBS series, examines the intersection of their lives as artists and as people.
The 90-minute documentary shows "the complexity of their relationship and how that enabled these men to create some of the great American films," said Sam Pollard, who directed the program.
"I liked all those Ford films," Pollard said, "but had more fondness for the ones with Wayne. It was the whole male testosterone thing."
Susan Lacy, who created "American Masters" two decades ago to make a record of the most important cultural forces in the 20th century, said the Ford-Wayne documentary "is an interesting way of looking at how a director molded a B-movie actor into an image."
In the program, Ford biographer Joseph McBride says, "Somebody once said to me that John Wayne was to Ford what David was to Michelangelo."
The documentary features scenes from films the two created; home movies and back-lot footage; plus interviews with directors Peter Bogdanovich, John Milius, Mark Rydell and Martin Scorsese.
"Most people become John Wayne fans and then they realize that, gee, all these really good movies are made by John Ford," says Dan Ford, the director's grandson, who also told TV Week about spending summers on Ford's yacht, which he jokingly called "Camp Paint and Varnish."
Ford's friendship with the film icon continued through World War II and the McCarthy era, despite their different political outlooks. Ford served in World War II filming battles on active duty, for example, winning two Oscars for best documentary. Meanwhile, Wayne remained in Hollywood.
By the early '50s, Wayne's influence had grown, enabling the Duke to broker a deal for the man he called "Pappy" and "Coach."
That deal gave Ford the opportunity to make "The Quiet Man," which earned him a fourth Oscar for directing.
"For Wayne, it was fulfilling a debt he owed the Coach," says narrator Sydney Pollack.
Ford and Wayne died in the 1970s, six years apart, having left a body of work that largely chronicles what America was about and how the country had changed.
"Any of us should live one-tenth of the life of my grandfather. He worked his way up, saw it all, did it all. He was an extraordinary man," Dan Ford said. "He and Wayne are similar, and yet they're different. In a way they were birds of a feather, but they were two alpha males."
John Ford (1895-73) directed 14 major films starring John Wayne (1907-79), including nine Westerns (in bold):
* "Stagecoach," 1939
* "The Long Voyage Home," 1940
* "They Were Expendable," 1945
* "Fort Apache" 1948
* "Three Godfathers" 1948
* "She wore a Yellow Ribbon" 1949
* "Rio Grande," 1950
* "The Quiet Man," 1952
* "The Searchers," 1956
* "The Wings of Eagles," 1957
* "The Horse Soldiers," 1959
* "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," 1962
* "How the West Was Won," 1962
* "Donovan's Reef," 1963<
