THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE - Trivia and Other Fun Stuff

The Red Badge of Courage was a box-office flop, failing to recover its $1.6 million investment.

Huston's preparations for the film were complicated by three major life events: his father Walter died; he took his fourth wife, Ricki Soma; and Soma delivered his second child (the first to survive), Walter Anthony Huston, later known as Tony (e would play a small role in his father's The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) and write the screenplay for his The Dead, 1987).

Huston started out directing the film on horseback, something he'd always dreamed of doing. He eventually had to abandon his dream when it proved too hard on the horse.

Huston appears in a crowd scene as one of the experienced Union soldiers jeering the Youth and other raw recruits.

Filming the battle scenes required 80,000 rounds of ammunition at a cost of $110 per thousand.

For the river-crossing scene, Douglas Dick (Lieutenant) wore a silver-sheathed sword Huston's great grandfather had carried in the Civil War. Unfortunately, Dick played around with the sword a bit too much. At one point he tried to stick it in the ground and ended up putting it through his foot. Huston worked his injury into the film.

During location filming, Murphy dated Sharon Quiggle, a student at Chico State College who worked as a window dresser in the town's leading department store. He even brought her up to Los Angeles with her family for a visit. Their relationship cooled off after she returned to Chico, where she eventually married another man.

John Dierkes (Tall Soldier), who had barely acted before, developed an oversized ego during filming and started demanding a private dressing room like the ones Murphy and Mauldin had. To shut him up, Huston put his name on one of the portable toilets set up on location.

During production Huston and Reinhardt played poker. At first Huston, who was a master at bluffing, had Reinhardt in debt to him. Then Mauldin took pity on Reinhardt and gave him a book on how to play poker. By the time the production was finished, Huston owed Reinhardt about $15,000.

When Royal Dano filmed his character's death scene, Huston was so impressed he told reporters Dano was the only actor he'd worked with who was as easy to direct as his father, Walter Huston. Later, when told his death scene had been cut because audiences had laughed at war hero Audie Murphy running away from a dying man, Dano commented, "They removed the turning point of the story. It was like removing the baby and leaving the afterbirth.".

Famous Quotes from THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE

"How do you know you won't run when the time comes?" -- Audie Murphy as Henry Fleming to Bill Mauldin as the Loud Soldier.

"He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage." -- James Whitmore's narration, explaining the title.

"Always seems like more of you is getting killed than there are." -- Andy Devine as the Fat Soldier.

"Just turn your affairs over to the Lord, and go on and do your duty. Then if you get killed, it's his concern. Anyway, dying's only dying. Supposing you don't hear the birds sing tomorrow, or see the sun go down. It's going to happen anyway. And, you know, son, that thought gave me peace of mind." -- Devine.

"I got holes in my pants, holes in my shoes, but there ain't no holes in me other than the ones God intended." -- Arthur Hunnicutt as Bill Porter, on his good fortune in battle.

"By diddy, here we are! Everybody fightin'! Blood and dee-struction!" -- Hunnicutt.

"Lordy, what a fight! And I got shot!" -- John Dierkes as the Tall Soldier, rambling on in shock after the big battle.

"I ain't never seen no fella do like that afore. He were a dandy, weren't he?" -- Royal Dano as the Tattered Man, commenting on Dierkes' death.

"So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath his soul changed. He had been to touch the Great Death and found that, after all, it was but the Great Death. Scars faded as flowers and the youth saw that the world was a world for him. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle and the sultry nightmare was in the past. He turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks, an existence of soft and eternal peace." -- Whitmore, delivering the film's final narration.

Compiled by Frank Miller