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JOHN FORD: Imprimir la Leyenda
“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” This line from director John Ford’s film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance serves as an epigraph for the life of the legendary filmmaker.
Through a career that spanned decades and included dozens of films—among them such American masterpieces as The Searchers, The Grapes of Wrath, The Quiet Man, Stagecoach, and How Green Was My Valley—John Ford managed to leave as his legacy a body of work that few filmmakers will ever equal. Yet as bold as the stamp of his personality was on each film, he was reticent about his personal life. Basically shy, and intensely private, he was known to enjoy making up stories about himself, some of them based loosely on fact but many of them pure fabrications. Ford preferred instead to let his films speak for him. What mattered to Ford was always what was up there on the screen.
Now, in this definitive look at the life and career of one of America's true cinematic giants, noted biographer and critic Scott Eyman, working with the full participation of the Ford estate, has managed to document and delineate both aspects of John Ford’s life—the human and the legend.
Through a career that spanned decades and included dozens of films—among them such American masterpieces as The Searchers, The Grapes of Wrath, The Quiet Man, Stagecoach, and How Green Was My Valley—John Ford managed to leave as his legacy a body of work that few filmmakers will ever equal. Yet as bold as the stamp of his personality was on each film, he was reticent about his personal life. Basically shy, and intensely private, he was known to enjoy making up stories about himself, some of them based loosely on fact but many of them pure fabrications. Ford preferred instead to let his films speak for him. What mattered to Ford was always what was up there on the screen.
Now, in this definitive look at the life and career of one of America's true cinematic giants, noted biographer and critic Scott Eyman, working with the full participation of the Ford estate, has managed to document and delineate both aspects of John Ford’s life—the human and the legend.
590 pages, Paperback
First published November 11, 1999
About the author
Scott Eyman
29 books131 followersScott Eyman has authored 11 books, including, with Robert Wagner, the New York Times bestseller Pieces of My Heart.
Among his other books are "Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer," "Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford," "Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise," and "The Speed of Sound" (all Simon & Schuster) and "John Ford: The Searcher" for Taschen.
He has lectured extensively around the world, most frequently at the National Film Theater in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Moscow Film Theater. He's done the commentary tracks for many DVD's, including "Trouble in Paradise," "My Darling Clementine," and Stagecoach.
Eyman has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune, as well as practically every film magazine extinct or still extant.
He's the literary critic for the Palm Beach Post; he and his wife Lynn live in Palm Beach.
Among his other books are "Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer," "Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford," "Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise," and "The Speed of Sound" (all Simon & Schuster) and "John Ford: The Searcher" for Taschen.
He has lectured extensively around the world, most frequently at the National Film Theater in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Moscow Film Theater. He's done the commentary tracks for many DVD's, including "Trouble in Paradise," "My Darling Clementine," and Stagecoach.
Eyman has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune, as well as practically every film magazine extinct or still extant.
He's the literary critic for the Palm Beach Post; he and his wife Lynn live in Palm Beach.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
October 16, 2024
“John Ford transcended the imprisonment of his anger, insecurity, and disfiguring alcoholism, and cast his imagination outward, transmuting his deep flaws into a profounder form. His films are about the search for a place we can never find, and form an album of America as it was meant to have been, as well as of the place it really is. His films have the power to burn through space to a place inside us, an art about memory that makes our own lives more vivid. He shaped a vision of America for the twentieth century…It’s made up of soldiers and priests, of drunks and doctors and servants and whores and half-crazed men driven by their need to be alone, even as they journey toward home, toward reconciliation…”
- Scott Eyman, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford
John Ford is one of the most honored of all American film directors. He won four Academy Awards for Best Director. He made over 130 movies, from silent shorts to Technicolor epics. In his own time, he was revered by his contemporaries, including Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman. Steven Spielberg counts him among his strongest influences, as anyone who’s seen E.T. must know.
Yet it is hard to say what kind of impact he still has today. To be sure, he has many fans, and is a stalwart on Turner Classic Movies. Nevertheless, his place in modern culture does not exactly feel strong. There are good reasons for this.
Many of Ford’s movies are pre-revisionist westerns, a genre that has fallen far from both repute and popularity. Even some of his best works are exceedingly old-fashioned in tone and temperament; indeed, many were old-fashioned when they first came out, many decades ago. Unlike directors such as Orson Welles, he was never known for his technical craftsmanship, or the way he changed the nature of filmmaking. To the contrary, he liked to set his camera in one place, and then shoot. Having little patience for the difficulties low light, he often used day-for-night. I’ve watched a lot of his movies, and never, ever found myself thinking: Wow, Ford’s really ahead of the times here.
That said, John Ford at his best is moviemaking at its best. In masterpieces like The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Fort Apache, and especially The Searchers, Ford created exquisitely photographed worlds populated by timeless character actors that create their own reality.
Generally speaking, I am interested in the art, not the artist. But given how long Ford has been in my life – I started watching his westerns with my dad when I was five – I could not resist Scott Eyman’s Print the Legend. Famously reticent about the craft, I was intrigued by what insight Eyman might provide, especially with over five-hundred pages to work with.
The answer: not much. That doesn’t make Print the Legend a bad book. It is rather entertaining, all in all. Nevertheless, much like his biography of John Wayne, this is marred by inconsistent coverage, shallow defenses of critical arguments, and a frustratingly haphazard approach to Ford’s output.
***
John Ford is interesting because of the movies he made. Take away the movies, we wouldn’t be dwelling on his life story. Thankfully, Eyman realizes this, and spends very little time on Ford’s childhood and early years, though he can’t help but include some banal interviews with his old school classmates, as though this might shed any light on him. Suffice to say, Ford had a relatively stress-free, near-middle class childhood in Maine, which is a far cry from the poor-Irish legend he crafted for himself.
***
By the time we are thirty pages in, Ford – through the help of his brother Francis – is working on studio backlots. The thing that stands out in this section is the openness of the opportunities for someone with talent. Films were still a relatively new technology, and it didn’t take Ford long to start accumulating real responsibility. More precisely, by the time we get to page forty, he is already a director.
***
Print the Legend has chronology as its overall guide, but it’s all over the place in terms of what it discusses, to what depth that discussion goes, and what is skipped entirely. If there is a throughline, it is Ford’s films, and Eyman discusses the important ones: the hits, the flops, and the ambitious misfires.
Reading about movies is never a chore. Furthermore, there’s some good stuff here. Ford’s pathological mistreatment of his actors is an especially fascinating ongoing motif, a perverse kind of cruelty that seemed calibrated to get the performances he wanted, as though this could not have been communicated in any other way. Every now and then, Eyman will also reveal an interesting behind-the-scenes factoid.
Unfortunately, Eyman eschews any delineable strategy for his film discussions. Sometimes he’ll give a synopsis of the plot, sometimes he won’t, meaning that if you haven’t seen the movie, you’ll be lost. Sometimes he’ll present a truncated review of its merits, other times he’ll just present the impressions of those who worked on it. Obviously, Eyman is a celebrity biographer, not a film critic. Still, if you’re looking for a sharp discussion of Ford’s work product, you should look to Peter Bogdanovich.
***
Though Print the Legend is heavily tilted towards Ford’s professional career, Eyman does not neglect his personal life, and actually does a pretty good, honest job with it. Like most humans, Ford was a person of contradictions. Unlike most of us, his contradictions have been held up to the scrutiny of posterity. He could be a mean bastard, but also generous. He loved his wife, but also seems to have had an affair with Katherine Hepburn, among others. He worked hard and efficiently on his film sets, but was also a fall-down drunk who went on lengthy binges that saw him drooling and peeing on himself.
Eyman also takes fleeting glances at Ford’s politics, racial views, and treatment of American Indians, who feature prominently in many of his movies. Outwardly conservative – like many of the players in his stock company – he was pretty liberal in his personal life. In Cheyenne Autumn and Sergeant Rutledge, he made movies expressly designed to tackle racism and Indian dispossession. That said, he had a habit – quite typical in Hollywood for a long time – of casting white people as Indians, especially when they were speaking roles. Eyman also makes sure to give an account of Ford’s service in the Second World War. Despite his age, he got into uniform, and found himself at the Battle of Midway, his camera rolling.
Overall, I think it’s fair to say he was a spot better than his times, but blemished for all that.
***
I believe that subtitles should be honest. If your book is about “the life and times” of someone, it should include both the life and the times. Print the Legend does not, and it’s frustrating. Eyman’s focus stays so tight on Ford that the fascinating world he inhabited goes completely unexplored. There is no real conversation about Ford’s transition from silents to talkies, or from black-and-white to color. Eyman loves to give box office totals, but never explains how studio accounting worked. Thus, the numbers he provides – the cost, ticket sales, and gross profit or loss – seldom add up. Factors impacting Ford’s movies – such as the censorship board – are mentioned in passing, without any indication as to how it worked.
Instead of basic background, Eyman is busy chasing down interviews, and then cramming the results into the book, whether it’s necessary or not. This is why we get several pages on the drinking habits of his daughter Barbara, which pops up out of nowhere, and is immediately dropped. In other words, much of the content here is derived from what others were willing to talk about.
***
The tortured artist is a cliché about which I have little interest. If you’re tortured about making art, learn how to weld or plumb or nurse. There are, after all, other ways to be useful. Perhaps the most refreshing aspects of John Ford – an aspect that endures, even as he starts to look like a dinosaur – is his unpretentiousness. Ford seemed to sense the inherent ridiculousness in the way he achieved his fortune. He let his pictures speak for themselves. While Print the Legend is fine enough, the best way to know Ford is not by reading a book, but by watching his films.
- Scott Eyman, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford
John Ford is one of the most honored of all American film directors. He won four Academy Awards for Best Director. He made over 130 movies, from silent shorts to Technicolor epics. In his own time, he was revered by his contemporaries, including Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman. Steven Spielberg counts him among his strongest influences, as anyone who’s seen E.T. must know.
Yet it is hard to say what kind of impact he still has today. To be sure, he has many fans, and is a stalwart on Turner Classic Movies. Nevertheless, his place in modern culture does not exactly feel strong. There are good reasons for this.
Many of Ford’s movies are pre-revisionist westerns, a genre that has fallen far from both repute and popularity. Even some of his best works are exceedingly old-fashioned in tone and temperament; indeed, many were old-fashioned when they first came out, many decades ago. Unlike directors such as Orson Welles, he was never known for his technical craftsmanship, or the way he changed the nature of filmmaking. To the contrary, he liked to set his camera in one place, and then shoot. Having little patience for the difficulties low light, he often used day-for-night. I’ve watched a lot of his movies, and never, ever found myself thinking: Wow, Ford’s really ahead of the times here.
That said, John Ford at his best is moviemaking at its best. In masterpieces like The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Fort Apache, and especially The Searchers, Ford created exquisitely photographed worlds populated by timeless character actors that create their own reality.
Generally speaking, I am interested in the art, not the artist. But given how long Ford has been in my life – I started watching his westerns with my dad when I was five – I could not resist Scott Eyman’s Print the Legend. Famously reticent about the craft, I was intrigued by what insight Eyman might provide, especially with over five-hundred pages to work with.
The answer: not much. That doesn’t make Print the Legend a bad book. It is rather entertaining, all in all. Nevertheless, much like his biography of John Wayne, this is marred by inconsistent coverage, shallow defenses of critical arguments, and a frustratingly haphazard approach to Ford’s output.
***
John Ford is interesting because of the movies he made. Take away the movies, we wouldn’t be dwelling on his life story. Thankfully, Eyman realizes this, and spends very little time on Ford’s childhood and early years, though he can’t help but include some banal interviews with his old school classmates, as though this might shed any light on him. Suffice to say, Ford had a relatively stress-free, near-middle class childhood in Maine, which is a far cry from the poor-Irish legend he crafted for himself.
***
By the time we are thirty pages in, Ford – through the help of his brother Francis – is working on studio backlots. The thing that stands out in this section is the openness of the opportunities for someone with talent. Films were still a relatively new technology, and it didn’t take Ford long to start accumulating real responsibility. More precisely, by the time we get to page forty, he is already a director.
***
Print the Legend has chronology as its overall guide, but it’s all over the place in terms of what it discusses, to what depth that discussion goes, and what is skipped entirely. If there is a throughline, it is Ford’s films, and Eyman discusses the important ones: the hits, the flops, and the ambitious misfires.
Reading about movies is never a chore. Furthermore, there’s some good stuff here. Ford’s pathological mistreatment of his actors is an especially fascinating ongoing motif, a perverse kind of cruelty that seemed calibrated to get the performances he wanted, as though this could not have been communicated in any other way. Every now and then, Eyman will also reveal an interesting behind-the-scenes factoid.
Unfortunately, Eyman eschews any delineable strategy for his film discussions. Sometimes he’ll give a synopsis of the plot, sometimes he won’t, meaning that if you haven’t seen the movie, you’ll be lost. Sometimes he’ll present a truncated review of its merits, other times he’ll just present the impressions of those who worked on it. Obviously, Eyman is a celebrity biographer, not a film critic. Still, if you’re looking for a sharp discussion of Ford’s work product, you should look to Peter Bogdanovich.
***
Though Print the Legend is heavily tilted towards Ford’s professional career, Eyman does not neglect his personal life, and actually does a pretty good, honest job with it. Like most humans, Ford was a person of contradictions. Unlike most of us, his contradictions have been held up to the scrutiny of posterity. He could be a mean bastard, but also generous. He loved his wife, but also seems to have had an affair with Katherine Hepburn, among others. He worked hard and efficiently on his film sets, but was also a fall-down drunk who went on lengthy binges that saw him drooling and peeing on himself.
Eyman also takes fleeting glances at Ford’s politics, racial views, and treatment of American Indians, who feature prominently in many of his movies. Outwardly conservative – like many of the players in his stock company – he was pretty liberal in his personal life. In Cheyenne Autumn and Sergeant Rutledge, he made movies expressly designed to tackle racism and Indian dispossession. That said, he had a habit – quite typical in Hollywood for a long time – of casting white people as Indians, especially when they were speaking roles. Eyman also makes sure to give an account of Ford’s service in the Second World War. Despite his age, he got into uniform, and found himself at the Battle of Midway, his camera rolling.
Overall, I think it’s fair to say he was a spot better than his times, but blemished for all that.
***
I believe that subtitles should be honest. If your book is about “the life and times” of someone, it should include both the life and the times. Print the Legend does not, and it’s frustrating. Eyman’s focus stays so tight on Ford that the fascinating world he inhabited goes completely unexplored. There is no real conversation about Ford’s transition from silents to talkies, or from black-and-white to color. Eyman loves to give box office totals, but never explains how studio accounting worked. Thus, the numbers he provides – the cost, ticket sales, and gross profit or loss – seldom add up. Factors impacting Ford’s movies – such as the censorship board – are mentioned in passing, without any indication as to how it worked.
Instead of basic background, Eyman is busy chasing down interviews, and then cramming the results into the book, whether it’s necessary or not. This is why we get several pages on the drinking habits of his daughter Barbara, which pops up out of nowhere, and is immediately dropped. In other words, much of the content here is derived from what others were willing to talk about.
***
The tortured artist is a cliché about which I have little interest. If you’re tortured about making art, learn how to weld or plumb or nurse. There are, after all, other ways to be useful. Perhaps the most refreshing aspects of John Ford – an aspect that endures, even as he starts to look like a dinosaur – is his unpretentiousness. Ford seemed to sense the inherent ridiculousness in the way he achieved his fortune. He let his pictures speak for themselves. While Print the Legend is fine enough, the best way to know Ford is not by reading a book, but by watching his films.
March 5, 2015
Too Chatty
I am always in for John Ford, and someone who writes a whole book about this brilliant director starts out with a lot of bonus points with me. After all, watching Ford’s movies is so much fun that a person who writes about them can at least lay claim to the ability to make the most of his time.
Therefore, I started my reading enterprise of Scott Eyman’s Print the Legend. The Life and Times of John Ford with a lot of enthusiasm only to find my eagerness grow lamer and lamer in the process, which I found sad as I really wanted to like that book as much as I liked what other people, like Kitses, Gallagher and McBride, had to say about my second-favourite director. Maybe, however, it was not too wise to compare Eyman with those three. After all, Kitses’s expeditions into the western genre were ground-breaking and help you understand and fully appreciate the genre, and if there is one book that really goes into the depth of John Ford’s movies – sometimes in a brain-twisting intensity – it is Gallagher’s merit to have written it. Finally, there is McBride, who spent several years of his life writing a gripping biography of Ford in which he pays equal attention to that man’s life and his films, and whose commitment to his topic – in German I would even say Herzblut - can be felt on every single page.
Scott’s book, in my opinion, can hardly compare with these three. It is not downright bad and probably somebody who has never read any book on Ford before will be able to capitalize on it when Scott, for instance, works out how Ford tried to keep a balance between making “artsy” movies that express his inner self or give him the opportunity to experiment and doing “a job of work”, as he was wont to describe the business of a director with his typical understatement. My major criticism of Print the Legend, though, is that Ford’s films are dealt with rather superficially compared with the three scholars named above. Instead, Scott concentrates on Ford’s life but to my taste, he spends a lot of time amassing details and telling anecdotes, sometimes not even on Ford himself but on other people working with him, and that is why I think that Scott fails to achieve the unity of effect that makes Joseph McBride’s Searching for John Ford such a gripping book to read. McBride not only has searched for John Ford but also found him. Scott, on the other hand, looks here and there and often describes the trees rather than telling us something about the forest. I might have guessed something like that from the title The Life and Times of John Ford but still I was disappointed all in all and felt often tempted to reiterate the famous words of Ford’s tragic loner Ethan Edwards, “Put an amen to it!”
So, if this is your first book on John Ford, you might find it worth your while but from the middle on I surprised myself more and more frequently flicking through the pages and hopping from paragraph to paragraph.
I am always in for John Ford, and someone who writes a whole book about this brilliant director starts out with a lot of bonus points with me. After all, watching Ford’s movies is so much fun that a person who writes about them can at least lay claim to the ability to make the most of his time.
Therefore, I started my reading enterprise of Scott Eyman’s Print the Legend. The Life and Times of John Ford with a lot of enthusiasm only to find my eagerness grow lamer and lamer in the process, which I found sad as I really wanted to like that book as much as I liked what other people, like Kitses, Gallagher and McBride, had to say about my second-favourite director. Maybe, however, it was not too wise to compare Eyman with those three. After all, Kitses’s expeditions into the western genre were ground-breaking and help you understand and fully appreciate the genre, and if there is one book that really goes into the depth of John Ford’s movies – sometimes in a brain-twisting intensity – it is Gallagher’s merit to have written it. Finally, there is McBride, who spent several years of his life writing a gripping biography of Ford in which he pays equal attention to that man’s life and his films, and whose commitment to his topic – in German I would even say Herzblut - can be felt on every single page.
Scott’s book, in my opinion, can hardly compare with these three. It is not downright bad and probably somebody who has never read any book on Ford before will be able to capitalize on it when Scott, for instance, works out how Ford tried to keep a balance between making “artsy” movies that express his inner self or give him the opportunity to experiment and doing “a job of work”, as he was wont to describe the business of a director with his typical understatement. My major criticism of Print the Legend, though, is that Ford’s films are dealt with rather superficially compared with the three scholars named above. Instead, Scott concentrates on Ford’s life but to my taste, he spends a lot of time amassing details and telling anecdotes, sometimes not even on Ford himself but on other people working with him, and that is why I think that Scott fails to achieve the unity of effect that makes Joseph McBride’s Searching for John Ford such a gripping book to read. McBride not only has searched for John Ford but also found him. Scott, on the other hand, looks here and there and often describes the trees rather than telling us something about the forest. I might have guessed something like that from the title The Life and Times of John Ford but still I was disappointed all in all and felt often tempted to reiterate the famous words of Ford’s tragic loner Ethan Edwards, “Put an amen to it!”
So, if this is your first book on John Ford, you might find it worth your while but from the middle on I surprised myself more and more frequently flicking through the pages and hopping from paragraph to paragraph.
April 9, 2014
Very well written and fascinating biography. Many things I had never known about John Ford:
He was actually on Midway and filming the attack himself.
When John Wayne was directing and acting in "The Alamo", John Ford was bored and decided to visit the set. Ford began directing various scenes and inviting himself to do things that no one wanted. Wayne, anxious to not anger Ford, gave Ford a 2nd unit to film with to keep him out of the way while Wayne himself directed the rest of the movie.
Ford and Henry Fonda got into a fistfight over how Ford was directing "Mr. Roberts". Fonda had played Mr. Roberts in the Broadway play to great success. Ford was becoming more interested in what Jack Lemmon was doing (who plays Ensign Pulver) and was making many slap-stick scenes to accommodate Lemmon's comic timing. Ford and Fonda finished the movie, but were estranged afterwards. Because Ford could no longer call Fonda to act in his movies, Ford relied more and more on John Wayne as his actor of choice. Because of that, the direction his later films went was in the type of movies Wayne was successful in making, i.e. Westerns. It is interesting to think what different trajectory Ford's latter movies would have made if he had not estranged Fonda.
Ford's son, Pat, is quoted as saying that his father was a genius in the film industry but a lousy father.
Ford created a small economy for decades for the Navajos living in Monument Valley.
Ford probably had an affair with Kathryn Hepburn. He and Spencer Tracey whom she later lived with, were very similar men -- both Irish, both alcoholics, and both in the film industry.
This biography carefully places the genius that Ford had in "seeing" what he wanted to film beforehand with the darker side of Ford's personality. All men are complex, and Ford was no exception. What is interesting to me is the juxtaposition of Ford's cruel side with the fact that he was a father-figure to so many Hollywood actors. Ford was never above pushing an actor or actress into an emotional state against him to get a better scene. For instance, Victor McLagen was a long time friend of Ford's and had appeared in most of Ford's early films. When filming "The Quiet Man", Ford gave McLagen very specific acting directions in the scene when McLagen's character refuses to give his sister her dowry. McLagen did exactly what Ford asked five times. Each time he would do it, Ford would tell him to do exactly the same thing, and they would take the scene again. Ford stopped filming for the day, leaving McLagen seething in anger. The next morning, they filmed the scene again and McLagen was so angry that he sweeps the money off the table so hard it almost hits the opposite wall. Ford smiled, and then told McLagen that was exactly what he was looking for.
This cruel streak is balanced by the thoughtful care he took of those friends who had worked with him for decades. Many of the actors in his silent films were always cast in his newer films, giving them an opportunity to make a living when otherwise many of them would have not had jobs.
He was actually on Midway and filming the attack himself.
When John Wayne was directing and acting in "The Alamo", John Ford was bored and decided to visit the set. Ford began directing various scenes and inviting himself to do things that no one wanted. Wayne, anxious to not anger Ford, gave Ford a 2nd unit to film with to keep him out of the way while Wayne himself directed the rest of the movie.
Ford and Henry Fonda got into a fistfight over how Ford was directing "Mr. Roberts". Fonda had played Mr. Roberts in the Broadway play to great success. Ford was becoming more interested in what Jack Lemmon was doing (who plays Ensign Pulver) and was making many slap-stick scenes to accommodate Lemmon's comic timing. Ford and Fonda finished the movie, but were estranged afterwards. Because Ford could no longer call Fonda to act in his movies, Ford relied more and more on John Wayne as his actor of choice. Because of that, the direction his later films went was in the type of movies Wayne was successful in making, i.e. Westerns. It is interesting to think what different trajectory Ford's latter movies would have made if he had not estranged Fonda.
Ford's son, Pat, is quoted as saying that his father was a genius in the film industry but a lousy father.
Ford created a small economy for decades for the Navajos living in Monument Valley.
Ford probably had an affair with Kathryn Hepburn. He and Spencer Tracey whom she later lived with, were very similar men -- both Irish, both alcoholics, and both in the film industry.
This biography carefully places the genius that Ford had in "seeing" what he wanted to film beforehand with the darker side of Ford's personality. All men are complex, and Ford was no exception. What is interesting to me is the juxtaposition of Ford's cruel side with the fact that he was a father-figure to so many Hollywood actors. Ford was never above pushing an actor or actress into an emotional state against him to get a better scene. For instance, Victor McLagen was a long time friend of Ford's and had appeared in most of Ford's early films. When filming "The Quiet Man", Ford gave McLagen very specific acting directions in the scene when McLagen's character refuses to give his sister her dowry. McLagen did exactly what Ford asked five times. Each time he would do it, Ford would tell him to do exactly the same thing, and they would take the scene again. Ford stopped filming for the day, leaving McLagen seething in anger. The next morning, they filmed the scene again and McLagen was so angry that he sweeps the money off the table so hard it almost hits the opposite wall. Ford smiled, and then told McLagen that was exactly what he was looking for.
This cruel streak is balanced by the thoughtful care he took of those friends who had worked with him for decades. Many of the actors in his silent films were always cast in his newer films, giving them an opportunity to make a living when otherwise many of them would have not had jobs.
June 18, 2014
Exemplary film biography of one of cinema's legends, written by someone who sounds as though he knows his subject inside and out, and whose analysis of the art of film-making - and Ford's approach to it - is obligatory reading for anyone even remotely interested in crafting a film themselves.
Ford could be difficult, and cruel, in his personal as well as in professional life. He was an alcoholic whose benders sound legendarily appalling, but, for the most part, he avoided alcohol when working. But he lived and breathed cinema, and his instinctive understanding of the form didn't just revolutionise visual storytelling, but provided America with some of its most enduring myths.
Some myths about the man are themselves debunked. He wasn't nearly as right-wing as he is painted (just read about the DGA showdown with ultra-right Cecil B DeMille during the McCarthy era), he respected Native Americans much more than he is usually given credit for (you can see it in the films as well as in his dealings with his Native American extras offscreen), he was a man's man and yet one of his best friends was homosexual, and his sentimentality was tempered with a harsh realism, as can be seen in his last masterpiece, The Searchers.
All in all, a great read. Highly recommended.
Ford could be difficult, and cruel, in his personal as well as in professional life. He was an alcoholic whose benders sound legendarily appalling, but, for the most part, he avoided alcohol when working. But he lived and breathed cinema, and his instinctive understanding of the form didn't just revolutionise visual storytelling, but provided America with some of its most enduring myths.
Some myths about the man are themselves debunked. He wasn't nearly as right-wing as he is painted (just read about the DGA showdown with ultra-right Cecil B DeMille during the McCarthy era), he respected Native Americans much more than he is usually given credit for (you can see it in the films as well as in his dealings with his Native American extras offscreen), he was a man's man and yet one of his best friends was homosexual, and his sentimentality was tempered with a harsh realism, as can be seen in his last masterpiece, The Searchers.
All in all, a great read. Highly recommended.
August 27, 2024
I’ve read many movie history books by author Scott Eyman, but I think this is his best. I got fascinated about John Ford from the recent seven-part TCM podcast, The Plot Thickens, Season 5 hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, called “Decoding John Ford.” Eyman was heard frequently during the podcast and I decided to take a chance on this voluminous book, which weighs in at over 600 pages. I’m glad I did. Eyman has a way of humannzing his subjects, while still doing a very thorough examination of them. Ford is a fascinating subject; while the bulk of his films are Westerns—categorically NOT my favorite genre—his eye for composition and his straight-forward method of storytelling make him one of the most—if not THE most—respected filmmakers in Hollywood history, revered by just about all of his peers and subsequent directorial giants. He’s also an extremely flawed man, at times petty and intractable, but also capable of great generosity and caring. At this point, I’ll pretty much read anything from Eyman on movies. I think he’s one of the best film historians out there, and I look forward to whatever he has up his sleeve next.
February 8, 2020
I do not often read biographies. In fact, I can only think of two in recent years, this book and Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, both given to me by my son Sean, who knows of my love of history and my admiration for John Ford’s movies. Both are detailed accounts; Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton is a daunting 995 pages, while Scot Eyman’s Print the Legend runs 660 pages. I guess he also understands my love of reading!
Print the legend has its origin in Ford’s last great western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. In the film Jimmy Stewart’s character, Senator Ransom Stoddard, returns to the town where his political career began to bury his old friend, Tom Doniphan (played by actor John Wayne.) The senator’s fame as the man who shot and killed the stagecoach robber Liberty Valance is a lie, and Stoddard comes back not only to pay tribute to his friend but to finally reveal the truth that it was Doniphan who killed Valance (portrayed on screen by the actor Lee Marvin,) not him. However, the truth is never printed. The newspaper editor interviewing the senator kills the story, with the now famous line, “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Just as the myth of the Old West is what people want to remember, it is the myth that surrounds John Ford that moviegoers most want to associate with one of cinema’s greatest directors.
After this motion picture, John Ford was no longer the master of his craft; age and infirmity had taken its toll. With illness (cancer) overwhelming him, he no longer had the energy to direct movies that so vividly depicted early American life. He had created the mythology of westward expansion and the transition from wilderness to civilization using beautiful landscapes and richly drawn characters who embodied the spirit of the new nation; so much so that Ford became known as “the man that invented America.”
His genius lay in his ability to visualize the scene in his head, positioning the camera in the right spot (never moving it) to recreate that scene, minimizing dialogue, and manipulating actors to achieve the desired performance in one take. He could be a tyrant, humiliating even the biggest names in show business to get the performance that he desired.
Ford also demanded total loyalty from his cast and in return used the same actors in multiple movies often carrying them on the payroll for an entire shoot regardless of how small or even non-existent their role was in the finished film. Contradict or question him on set, however, and though he would outwardly remain your friend, you might never again work in another one of his projects.
Scott Leyman doesn’t spare the reader the many inconsistencies between the man and the legend. Ford was an alcoholic who would go on binges that left him totally incoherent. He was stereo typically Irish, subject to melancholy and self-doubt. The son of a bartender from Maine, he never felt at ease in society, and created a persona that didn’t care about anyone’s opinion but his own. He could be cruel, crude, arrogant and snobbish, but underneath that facade was a very private sentimental old man that simply didn’t know how to relate to the people he most loved. A Roman Catholic, Ford never considered divorce from his wife of over fifty years, Mary, though he apparently had both flings and affairs with other women, most notably Katherine Hepburn. He was estranged from his son Pat and would later disinherit him, while he indulged his daughter Barbara in spite of her alcoholism. Politically he was thought to be a die-hard conservative, while in fact he was a life-long Democrat and liberal. He filmed many of his movies in Monument Valley using Navajo Indians to portray Apache, Comanche, and Cheyenne. It didn’t matter. He saw the plight of the Navajo Nation and tried to assist it economically by using the locale over and over casting the same people each time. He argued against racism in his masterpiece, The Searchers, and strongly advocated equality and dignity towards the black race in the film Sergeant Rutledge.
In many regards these films reflect the political realities of Vietnam and the changing attitudes and tastes of his viewing audience in the 1960s. The public desire for movies that glorified the Old West had been replaced by the demand for a more nuanced portrayal of the events and those involved in them. Ironically, it led John Ford to dismantle the very mythology that he had created in his earlier movies.
There is absolutely no way that I can capture the essence of John Ford in this post. His career and filmography spanned several decades, 1914-1971. He remains the most decorated film director of all time, winning six Academy Awards. He received the Purple Heart Medal for wounds suffered during the Battle of Midway in WWII, and rose to the rank of Admiral in the Navy. Prior to his death August 31, 1973, he became the first recipient of the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the President of the United States.
I wrote previously of his influence on my decision to write my western novel, Palo Duro:
The western genre no longer holds the public’s attention as it once did in cinema and published media. But I grew up in the age of Director John Ford and his rousing tributes to the U.S. cavalry in the film trilogy “Fort Apache,” She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” and “Rio Grande,” as well as his homage to one of the most recognized icons of the Old West, Wyatt Earp, in the classic film “My Darling Clementine.”
I have watched John Ford’s movies countless times in my youth and into my adult life, and there is no doubt that they have left a lasting legacy not only on me, but on the motion picture industry. After reading Scott Eyman’s book, I now know many details about Ford’s private life that are contradictory to my image of him, but while it has often been said that “familiarity breeds contempt,” I prefer to remember his towering achievements.
“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Print the legend has its origin in Ford’s last great western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. In the film Jimmy Stewart’s character, Senator Ransom Stoddard, returns to the town where his political career began to bury his old friend, Tom Doniphan (played by actor John Wayne.) The senator’s fame as the man who shot and killed the stagecoach robber Liberty Valance is a lie, and Stoddard comes back not only to pay tribute to his friend but to finally reveal the truth that it was Doniphan who killed Valance (portrayed on screen by the actor Lee Marvin,) not him. However, the truth is never printed. The newspaper editor interviewing the senator kills the story, with the now famous line, “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Just as the myth of the Old West is what people want to remember, it is the myth that surrounds John Ford that moviegoers most want to associate with one of cinema’s greatest directors.
After this motion picture, John Ford was no longer the master of his craft; age and infirmity had taken its toll. With illness (cancer) overwhelming him, he no longer had the energy to direct movies that so vividly depicted early American life. He had created the mythology of westward expansion and the transition from wilderness to civilization using beautiful landscapes and richly drawn characters who embodied the spirit of the new nation; so much so that Ford became known as “the man that invented America.”
His genius lay in his ability to visualize the scene in his head, positioning the camera in the right spot (never moving it) to recreate that scene, minimizing dialogue, and manipulating actors to achieve the desired performance in one take. He could be a tyrant, humiliating even the biggest names in show business to get the performance that he desired.
Ford also demanded total loyalty from his cast and in return used the same actors in multiple movies often carrying them on the payroll for an entire shoot regardless of how small or even non-existent their role was in the finished film. Contradict or question him on set, however, and though he would outwardly remain your friend, you might never again work in another one of his projects.
Scott Leyman doesn’t spare the reader the many inconsistencies between the man and the legend. Ford was an alcoholic who would go on binges that left him totally incoherent. He was stereo typically Irish, subject to melancholy and self-doubt. The son of a bartender from Maine, he never felt at ease in society, and created a persona that didn’t care about anyone’s opinion but his own. He could be cruel, crude, arrogant and snobbish, but underneath that facade was a very private sentimental old man that simply didn’t know how to relate to the people he most loved. A Roman Catholic, Ford never considered divorce from his wife of over fifty years, Mary, though he apparently had both flings and affairs with other women, most notably Katherine Hepburn. He was estranged from his son Pat and would later disinherit him, while he indulged his daughter Barbara in spite of her alcoholism. Politically he was thought to be a die-hard conservative, while in fact he was a life-long Democrat and liberal. He filmed many of his movies in Monument Valley using Navajo Indians to portray Apache, Comanche, and Cheyenne. It didn’t matter. He saw the plight of the Navajo Nation and tried to assist it economically by using the locale over and over casting the same people each time. He argued against racism in his masterpiece, The Searchers, and strongly advocated equality and dignity towards the black race in the film Sergeant Rutledge.
In many regards these films reflect the political realities of Vietnam and the changing attitudes and tastes of his viewing audience in the 1960s. The public desire for movies that glorified the Old West had been replaced by the demand for a more nuanced portrayal of the events and those involved in them. Ironically, it led John Ford to dismantle the very mythology that he had created in his earlier movies.
There is absolutely no way that I can capture the essence of John Ford in this post. His career and filmography spanned several decades, 1914-1971. He remains the most decorated film director of all time, winning six Academy Awards. He received the Purple Heart Medal for wounds suffered during the Battle of Midway in WWII, and rose to the rank of Admiral in the Navy. Prior to his death August 31, 1973, he became the first recipient of the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the President of the United States.
I wrote previously of his influence on my decision to write my western novel, Palo Duro:
The western genre no longer holds the public’s attention as it once did in cinema and published media. But I grew up in the age of Director John Ford and his rousing tributes to the U.S. cavalry in the film trilogy “Fort Apache,” She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” and “Rio Grande,” as well as his homage to one of the most recognized icons of the Old West, Wyatt Earp, in the classic film “My Darling Clementine.”
I have watched John Ford’s movies countless times in my youth and into my adult life, and there is no doubt that they have left a lasting legacy not only on me, but on the motion picture industry. After reading Scott Eyman’s book, I now know many details about Ford’s private life that are contradictory to my image of him, but while it has often been said that “familiarity breeds contempt,” I prefer to remember his towering achievements.
“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
July 6, 2012
John (Jack) Ford, who was born Sean O'Feeney, never left his Irish behind. He carried it in a holster on his hip and used it to beat anyone bloody who challenged his authority. He was particularly brutal to those closest to him, including big stars like A#1 John Wayne, who submitted like a drugged sheep. This is a big, wide-ranging biography of one of the creators of cinema; not exactly a page-turner, but slow and steady and useful.
May 9, 2008
John Wayne emerges as a heroic man of character in this biography of John Ford. It is also a fascinating study of the complex relationship between a man's genius and his demons.
June 16, 2024
Scott Eyman's life of John Ford is well-written and fascinating, as if one were watching a rattlesnake or a car wreck. Eyman's research is voluminous, impeccable, and fair. It's his subject I came not to like. That's why this is a four, not a five, star review. Reading this book is like getting to know someone you don't like.
Ford made over 140 films in his long life and won (but refused to receive in person) six Academy Awards. Of the films of his I've seen, "Stagecoach" is an unmistakable landmark, and "How Green Was My Valley" and "Grapes of Wrath" are undisputed masterpieces, "...Wrath" may be the greatest film ever made.
It helps the books were great. Ford had an eye for material. And for scenery. Monument Valley, his favorite location, and the green hills of Ireland are undisputedly gorgeous. It would be hard not to make good pictures there. But the man himself was an old-time director, a tyrant, and a control freak, which screams insecurity. And he was insecure, with good reason. He was sodden, rude, profane, abusive, often unprofessional, and mean. As I tell my directing students, it shows you can be an incredible artist (like Alfred Hitchcock) and not be a good actors director. Not even a good person.
For example, The story goes that he fought with producer Walter Wanger to cast John Wayne in the lead for "Stagecoach." Wayne was unknown at the time. Wanger wanted star Gary Cooper to insure his investment. Ford dug in his heels and got Wayne, making him a star and launching his career. Ford was generous like this but then berated Wayne constantly throughout their long collaboration; "Jesus. Duke! When are you going to learn to act!" supposedly to elicit better performances. Yet, Wayne stayed with him, remaining loyal, forgiving, and tolerating Ford's abuse and many faults. And not just Wayne, but many others: Ward Bond, Jimmy Stewart, Woody Strode, and his son, Pat. Yet, it is clear that the actors and crew he worked with idolized him. Inexplicitly, he engendered loyalty.
He remains influential, inspiring filmmakers like Spielberg. He was a fearless patriot, walking erect across battlefields during World War II, either brave or stupid. It's a good book about a bad, sad, but lucky man.
Ford made over 140 films in his long life and won (but refused to receive in person) six Academy Awards. Of the films of his I've seen, "Stagecoach" is an unmistakable landmark, and "How Green Was My Valley" and "Grapes of Wrath" are undisputed masterpieces, "...Wrath" may be the greatest film ever made.
It helps the books were great. Ford had an eye for material. And for scenery. Monument Valley, his favorite location, and the green hills of Ireland are undisputedly gorgeous. It would be hard not to make good pictures there. But the man himself was an old-time director, a tyrant, and a control freak, which screams insecurity. And he was insecure, with good reason. He was sodden, rude, profane, abusive, often unprofessional, and mean. As I tell my directing students, it shows you can be an incredible artist (like Alfred Hitchcock) and not be a good actors director. Not even a good person.
For example, The story goes that he fought with producer Walter Wanger to cast John Wayne in the lead for "Stagecoach." Wayne was unknown at the time. Wanger wanted star Gary Cooper to insure his investment. Ford dug in his heels and got Wayne, making him a star and launching his career. Ford was generous like this but then berated Wayne constantly throughout their long collaboration; "Jesus. Duke! When are you going to learn to act!" supposedly to elicit better performances. Yet, Wayne stayed with him, remaining loyal, forgiving, and tolerating Ford's abuse and many faults. And not just Wayne, but many others: Ward Bond, Jimmy Stewart, Woody Strode, and his son, Pat. Yet, it is clear that the actors and crew he worked with idolized him. Inexplicitly, he engendered loyalty.
He remains influential, inspiring filmmakers like Spielberg. He was a fearless patriot, walking erect across battlefields during World War II, either brave or stupid. It's a good book about a bad, sad, but lucky man.
June 14, 2020
When Orson Welles was once asked who his favorite directors were, he replied: "I prefer the old masters. By which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford." During his fifty years in the film industry, other director was so honored by his peers. Among his many awards were four Oscars for Best Director. Many of his films, most notably "The Searchers" (1956), are commonly listed among the greatest ever made. He is the only director to date who won consecutive Best Director Oscars, in 1940 and 1941 for "The Grapes of Wrath" and "How Green Was My Valley." If nothing else, he is perhaps most noted for having created the cultural icon that we now know as John Wayne.
Scott Eyman's 1999 biography is the best single work on Ford the director and Ford the person. The man born as John Martin Feeney in Portland, Maine, in 1894 was at times contrary, cantankerous, not a bit mean; at times, his behavior toward actors and crew bordered on the sadistic. They put up with a lot, especially John Wayne, who owed his success to Ford. But he got results, which is why people put up with him. In short, he made great films that still hold up today, and then some: "The Informer," "Fort Apache," "Young Mr. Lincoln," to name a few.
Eyman, then, offers a fair and balanced assessment of Ford. You get a real sense here of just exactly how he directed actors and elicited such great performances. It's a book that heightens your understanding of, and appreciation for, his films and makes you want to revisit them if you haven't already. This is not a technical book by any means, but neither is it "dumbed down." Instead, it's accessible, readable and relevant. As Martin Scorsese said, anyone serious about film has to view Ford's movies. This is the best introduction you will find.
Scott Eyman's 1999 biography is the best single work on Ford the director and Ford the person. The man born as John Martin Feeney in Portland, Maine, in 1894 was at times contrary, cantankerous, not a bit mean; at times, his behavior toward actors and crew bordered on the sadistic. They put up with a lot, especially John Wayne, who owed his success to Ford. But he got results, which is why people put up with him. In short, he made great films that still hold up today, and then some: "The Informer," "Fort Apache," "Young Mr. Lincoln," to name a few.
Eyman, then, offers a fair and balanced assessment of Ford. You get a real sense here of just exactly how he directed actors and elicited such great performances. It's a book that heightens your understanding of, and appreciation for, his films and makes you want to revisit them if you haven't already. This is not a technical book by any means, but neither is it "dumbed down." Instead, it's accessible, readable and relevant. As Martin Scorsese said, anyone serious about film has to view Ford's movies. This is the best introduction you will find.
August 3, 2022
As a huge fan of John Ford's work, I appreciated Eyman's biography for offering such detailed insight into the director's life. John Ford was a very strange man, closed off to almost everyone in his life, and capable of very bizarre moments 'bullying', usually directed towards his actors. His life was centered around films and the film industry, and Eyman's work provides details about Ford's mindset and lifestyle heading into almost all of the dozens of films he directed. Ford would intentionally mislead others about his true beliefs and values, making the work of a biographer difficult, but Eyman is able to offer enough testimonial from those closest to him and enough quotes from movie sets and letters that the reader is able to piece together an image of a brilliant but unpleasant man who was capable of great kindness and was able to stand up for his convictions (which generally seem to have aligned with what seems 'morally right' to a modern reader) when it mattered. Despite his strangeness, his political and moral understanding of the world seems to have been able to be boiled down to a strikingly simple dichotomy that motivated much of his artistic expression--that the British Empire were imperialistic bullies who dominated decent peoples, his beloved Irish, who represented a pastoral, working class, more egalitarian society. Through this prism a great number of Ford's films can be better understood: who represents the British and who represents the Irish. Thanks to Eyman's book I feel that I have at least a basic grasp of the great director's personality and a good outline of the course of his life.
June 10, 2020
The greatest biography I have ever read. Eyman exhaustively captures Ford's humanity, inhumanity and incomparable, consummate cinematic skill. Ford's career began in the Silent Era and ended in that of the New Hollywood. "A genius between `Action' and `Cut.' Other times, an interesting human being [to say the least]. Tortured--wild and crazy. But when he said `Action' something magical happened," said Michael Wayne of Ford. At the end of PRINT, I felt like I knew Ford. I didn't necessarily like him -- but I grasped him both inside and out. Eyman grasps all of Ford's pictures and offers candid assessments of them -- as well as their backstories (i.e., how they were created, what their sets were like, etc.). PRINT is not just biography at its finest. It's a major and important book about cinema itself. And on both counts (as bio and as treatise on film) it succeeds. Brilliantly. Print it!
July 26, 2024
An excellent biography of film director John Ford by Scott Eyman, who has written brilliantly of Hollywood’s greats. Absorbing in its detail of Ford’s craftsmanship, artistry and greatness as a director and his cruel goading of everyone who worked with him whether star or extra.
The reader sees Ford as husband and parent, lifelong friend to many but a man who should cut off his warmth if he felt he was slighted.
Throughout the book, the genius behind the camera and the man within the genius is wonderfully opened to the reader.
Anyone who loves Hollywood’s golden years and the men and women who made it great will love this book.
The reader sees Ford as husband and parent, lifelong friend to many but a man who should cut off his warmth if he felt he was slighted.
Throughout the book, the genius behind the camera and the man within the genius is wonderfully opened to the reader.
Anyone who loves Hollywood’s golden years and the men and women who made it great will love this book.
September 22, 2017
A confession: I'm no great fan of westerns or of John Wayne, though one of my two favorite westerns in Stagecoach (High Noon is the other). This admission aside, I love this book and as a fan of Turner Classic often return to it for reference and enjoyment. Ford was a great-perhaps the greatest director-in Hollywood history. And his career and times were about more than westerns, and embraced an America at war with enemies abroad and within. These times are reflected in these pages. A great book about a great artist.
January 2, 2019
More of an encapsulation of Ford's work than the man himself. I found the often oddly placed, squirmy snippets of his blow-ups/binge drinking offputting without further depth.
We get fairly detailed information on each picture with sudden blurbs of ... and then, he did this, or said that, or treated so-and-so poorly, or kindly. Like a skim of oil on the surface, there wasn't a decent mix.
Either show all his spots, or white them out. He's gone and passed caring now; actually, I think he'd be fine with the entire "picture," spots and all.
We get fairly detailed information on each picture with sudden blurbs of ... and then, he did this, or said that, or treated so-and-so poorly, or kindly. Like a skim of oil on the surface, there wasn't a decent mix.
Either show all his spots, or white them out. He's gone and passed caring now; actually, I think he'd be fine with the entire "picture," spots and all.
June 8, 2024
Magnificent bio
Eyman is one of my favorite film historians, and he is ìn top form here, giving readers a thoroughly researched, totally engrossing and beautifully written biography of a complex gifted film maker. Ford could be difficult and even downright abusive, but Eyman takes us past the rough exterior and into the life and mind of a man responsible for so many great Hollywood classics. As always this author's prose is informative and a constant pleasure to read. To anyone interested in Ford or his films, this book is a must read.
Eyman is one of my favorite film historians, and he is ìn top form here, giving readers a thoroughly researched, totally engrossing and beautifully written biography of a complex gifted film maker. Ford could be difficult and even downright abusive, but Eyman takes us past the rough exterior and into the life and mind of a man responsible for so many great Hollywood classics. As always this author's prose is informative and a constant pleasure to read. To anyone interested in Ford or his films, this book is a must read.
July 1, 2025
Complicated Man
I probably would not have liked John Ford if I met him. He seems like a bossy, cruel man and I doubt if I would have ever got past his crusty exterior. Still I don't have to like the man to admire his art. He directed a lot of epic pictures I enjoy. This is a very entertaining biography. Very detailed and informative. I enjoyed the end photo section immensely. Recommended Read
I probably would not have liked John Ford if I met him. He seems like a bossy, cruel man and I doubt if I would have ever got past his crusty exterior. Still I don't have to like the man to admire his art. He directed a lot of epic pictures I enjoy. This is a very entertaining biography. Very detailed and informative. I enjoyed the end photo section immensely. Recommended Read
January 23, 2019
After years of trying to find a good Ford bio, I was glad to find this one by the author of the also-very-good John Wayne: The Life and Legend. Worth your time, if you're interested in Ford.
December 11, 2020
Fascinating person who made fascinating films. The biography is uneven but shows the work in being well-researched.
December 20, 2022
Menos mitomaníaco que McBride, más centrado en el cineasta. Imprescindible. TFM.
August 29, 2023
An incredible balance of research, analysis, and anecdotes.
Read
November 11, 2023“The search for a place we can never find”
“Connecting the past and present in an eternal ribbon of remembrance”
“Connecting the past and present in an eternal ribbon of remembrance”
July 19, 2026
Scott Eyman turns his attention to the legendary Hollywood director John Ford, who started in silent films and would go down as the director with the most Academy Awards (for director), who founded the Director’s Guild of America, and who is widely thought of for his stunning visuals in Western films, though he did more than Westerns.
Ford was a host of contradictions, a bully who was easily wounded and a loyal friend who would cut off friends or family completely. So to write a book about his life comes with a set of challenges, one of which was that Ford regularly exaggerated or full stop lied about his life. Eyman conducted an incredible number of interviews to get a full picture of this man that never showed the same face to any two people. My problem with the book is that the detail can get somewhat overwhelming. And that’s a me problem—because there will be those for whom every word, every cent accounted for is gold. A couple of other things—there are some awkward transitions, and my biggest pet peeve—Ulysses S Grant is not Ulysses Simpson Grant. He was Hiram Ulysses Grant, who would become Ulysses S Grant by mistake, but the S stood for nothing. And that is also a me problem.
Ford was a host of contradictions, a bully who was easily wounded and a loyal friend who would cut off friends or family completely. So to write a book about his life comes with a set of challenges, one of which was that Ford regularly exaggerated or full stop lied about his life. Eyman conducted an incredible number of interviews to get a full picture of this man that never showed the same face to any two people. My problem with the book is that the detail can get somewhat overwhelming. And that’s a me problem—because there will be those for whom every word, every cent accounted for is gold. A couple of other things—there are some awkward transitions, and my biggest pet peeve—Ulysses S Grant is not Ulysses Simpson Grant. He was Hiram Ulysses Grant, who would become Ulysses S Grant by mistake, but the S stood for nothing. And that is also a me problem.
Want to Read
October 13, 2021Author Scott Eyman will be doing a book signing at the Columbus Moving Picture Show in Columbus, Ohio in May 2022.
June 11, 2014
All you ever wanted to know about this legendary film director. And More! Exhaustively researched, too much so actually, as it delves into John Ford's very poor hygiene and bathroom habits, but you also learn the poetic Irish soul behind this famous director's often mean exterior, especially nasty to his closest companions, like Duke Wayne. If you like and respect the Western film genre, which Ford had so much to do with making popular world-wide, this long biography is essential reading to learn about Jack Ford's important contributions to America's Western mythology. You still love many of his movies, but you'll never see John Ford in that same golden sunrise of early Westerns again. Fascinating, detailed background information for Hollywood film and Western buffs!
September 4, 2016
Although this is a wonderful biography of the great film director, Eyman allows his admiration for Ford's films to sometimes cloud his judgment. The research is meticulous and the author has clearly been assiduous in seeking out actors and surviving film crew colleagues in talking about Ford. But the biography doesn't quite reach the highest standard of some of the other works about Ford, such as Lindsay Anderson's "About John Ford" and "Searching For John Ford" by Joseph McBride.
February 5, 2013
An excellent bio of Ford, America's finest film director. He had quite a life: he went back to Ireland to fight in the Black & Tan conflict, almost ran off with Katherine Hepburn, and discovered John Wayne! He was very hard around the edges, but a true pioneer from the silent era who stands beside D.W. Griffith.
July 29, 2008
Tremendous stuff - Ford was one of the greatest film directors and this is a warts'n'all look at his life and times. Best bit? That the great black actor Woody Strode was "a useful club with which to beat John Wayne. 'Here comes the REAL footballer'" Ford would say.
April 15, 2014
First-rate biography of a man who spent his life making some of our best motion pictures while hiding his own sensitivity and insecurity under the meanest of exteriors.
June 30, 2014
Great, insightful biography on the great American director, making me appreciate him and his oeuvre even more, despite him making largely Westerns.
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