What I Couldn’t Tell Tag Gallagher
Victor McLaglan in John Ford’s THE INFORMER christens John Ford expert Tag Gallagher.
On a related note, please head over to The Forgotten. Because it’s Thursday.
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shadowplay 
June 14, 2013 at 1:44 pm
The Informer is kind of underrated today after being fairly overrated for a while. Fuller’s SHOCK CORRIDOR was shot on the same sets as Ford’s film, which pleased Fuller enormously since it was a favorite of his.
Ford remorselessly hassled MacLagen throughout the film and for the climactic scene of the trial, made sure he was drunk and then did the scene. His famous taunt on the set was, “D’ya known, McLaglen, that Fox are paying you $1200 a week to do things that I could get any child off the street to do better?”. In the film, MacLagen’s character is pursued by God, on the set, he was pursued by Ford.
June 14, 2013 at 4:59 pm
He seems to have harassed Wayne in a similar manner.
I’ve decided that Ford was definitely gay, if Maureen O’Hara’s account is believed (and I don’t think she’d lie). The star (probably Tyrone Power) she saw in a clinch with Ford could have been absolutely ruined if it had gotten out, the studio’s morality clause could have been invoked, both could have gone to jail. It COULDN’T be a joke. And if it were a joke, what’s the point, if you never actually turn around and say “Fooled you!”
June 14, 2013 at 5:12 pm
Ford definitely had feelings of some kind towards Woody Strode. Maybe he was, what’s the word, bi-curious. However, Tag Gallagher confirms that he had strong feelings towards Maureen O’Hara, who he once launched into a jilted lover’s tirade towards a French interview.
Henry Brandon, Scar in The Searchers, proudly noted of Ford that he was “the only man who could make John Wayne cry.”
June 14, 2013 at 5:33 pm
Just watched Mary of Scotland, which is the only Ford I can think of with sissy characters in it. Will post something on Sunday.
June 14, 2013 at 6:58 pm
Your comments on Ford’s Irish-Americanism are on the money from my perspective. He’s a filmmaker I like a lot but any time Ireland pops up in his work he seems ham-fisted. I get why many Irish-Americans like The Quiet Man, for instance, but I’ve never understood why some Irish people continue to worship at that particular shrine. Of course, that in turn makes me wonder what, say, Southerners thought of Judge Priest — never mind what Native Americans think of the Westerns.
June 14, 2013 at 9:29 pm
In a way, the sympathetic Cheyenne Autumn might be more embarrassing than the likes of Stagecoach, because the casting of non-Indians in larger roles becomes more damaging. The Searchers, because it concentrates on white men’s prejudice, is easier to take.
June 15, 2013 at 5:31 am
Well this article makes a good case for CHEYENNE AUTUMN, which I think is a flawed masterpiece.
http://www.fipresci.org/undercurrent/issue_0509/cheyenne.htm
As for what Native Americans thought of Ford, the Navajo of Monument Valley, Utah, respected Ford whose productions there aided their economy. Jim Jarmusch raised the valid question of what Comanche and Cheyenne tribes thought of Navajo playing them, but then I doubt Texans are that thrilled that Monument Valley outfits their entire state in THE SEARCHERS, or for that matter a super-long trail in Cheyenne Autumn. Ford’s favorite western was WAGONMASTER, the only movie where the Navajos played themselves and the only one set in Utah.
June 15, 2013 at 10:11 am
Oh, Cheyenne Autumn has plenty going for it, even if its liberal goodwill has dated a little.
The author of The Searchers certainly didn’t care for Utah standing in for Texas. But authenticity was never a big priority for Ford… something to do with printing the legend, I believe?
June 15, 2013 at 12:14 pm
Well, Ford always Prints the truth, as Bogdanovich pointed out. As is clear in Fort Apache and Liberty Valance. What he does is show you how the truth is buried over, and forgotten. And that’s true even in Cheyenne Autumn, which is a kind of deconstruction of the Western, especially the interlude with Jimmy Stewart. Portraying Wyatt Earp accurately as a pimp and corrupt lawman rather than the version you see in My Darling Clementine. The liberal goodwill in Cheyenne Autumn jives against a strong ironic spirit there and it’s a film that’s fairly inventive, there aren’t main characters or central epic story going in it, almost a series of digressions.
June 16, 2013 at 3:51 am
Tag has insisted to me he finds Wings of Eagles a gay texted film. I think it’s definitely homosocial, if not homoerotic, but I have to admit the spectacle of John Curtis bringing Spig red roses when Spig is recovering from his paralysis in hospital is pretty stirring. And there’s always the not small joy of so much sweaty male flesh on display in films like Men Without Women.
I am certain Ford felt homosexual urges and was fundamentally a (repressed) homosexual man, but I have the awful sense he never felt free to act on this. Even during his benders.
June 16, 2013 at 9:03 am
So kissing Tyrone was as far as it went? One hopes not. Ty had a reputation for availability, so I hope he gave Ford at least a night of passion.