As the clock strikes nine the waiters refill the golden chalices of the twenty-four guests with aged wine from the San Simeon cellar. After the dinner plates are removed a mammoth salad is placed in front of each of them, who by now are growing very accustomed to the fabulous surroundings in this remote castle high above the sea. It is apparent that their host is not going to join them for dinner, but they seem not to mind, as a serenade from a string quartet wafts from some unseen room into the stately Refectory.
Continuing the portrait of Duke Wayne, Jimmy Stewart again raises the memory of director John Ford, under whom they both worked. Evidently, one good director calls to mind another, for the train of thought quickly moves on to Howard Hawks, and then to John Huston, whose direction of Katharine Hepburn in ‘The African Queen’ and Gregory Peck in ‘Moby Dick’ provides more colorful anecdotes.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Howard Hawks was very tough in a silent way. He was very quiet and firm, so very few people took liberties with him. He was just icy cold, and austere, just as unemotional as anyone I have ever known. But he knew what other people’s emotions were, and he knew how to get them onto the screen, which is where it counted.
He was stiff and correct and highly methodical when we made
‘The Dawn Patrol’ in 1930. Richard Barthelmess was the star of that one, and I was simply the top featured player, with Neil Hamilton. It was later remade with Errol Flynn and David Niven, and in the later version they used the filmed sequences of the airborne parts from the one I was in, recutting it to make it seem different. All of the air battles and crashes were taken from the original, which Howard had directed. All the studios did that if they could, using footage from one film twenty years later in a completely different film, in order to save money. That was common practice for navy battles and westerns, with stampedes and wild chases.
But Howard was always very definite and proper, and there was very little about him that was impulsive.
Lauren Bacall
Of all those brilliant directors, though, I think John Huston was the best. He was a genius, and he directed
‘Key Largo.’ My first encounter with Huston had been much before that, though, since he and Bogey had been friends for many years. They were very close, ever since making, ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ which was John’s directing debut. I knew him socially, and then went on location to Mexico with them for ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ in 1948. He was great to actors, so working with him was a wonderful experience.
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