Robert Mitchum was originally cast as Lauren Bacall's co-star in Blood Alley (1955), an action film from John Wayne's production company, Batjac. Mitchum was to have played the anti-Communist hero, an American merchant marine captain who is freed from a prison in China and takes a boatload of villagers on a 300-mile freedom trek to Hong Kong. Bacall provides the love interest as a doctor's daughter who comes along for the ride after her father has been stoned to death by the Communists. As filming began, a conflict quickly escalated between Mitchum and director William A. Wellman Ð even though the pair had worked successfully before and Wellman had guided Mitchum through his star-making role in The Story of G.I. Joe (1945). According to film historian Lawrence J. Quirk, tension reached boiling point on the set of in Blood Alley when Mitchum played "one practical joke too many on the crew" and Wellman saw to it that he was removed from the film.

After considering Gregory Peck and Bacall's husband, Humphrey Bogart, as Mitchum's replacement, the Duke himself stepped in - a pattern established in such other Wayne-produced movies as Hondo (1953), in which he replaced Glenn Ford; and The High and the Mighty (1954), in which he took on a role intended for Spencer Tracy. Wayne also directed some scenes of in Blood Alley when Wellman became temporarily ill. Bacall got on well with Wayne, whom she recalled as "to my surprise warm, likable and helpful." Wayne, in turn, enjoyed working with Bacall so much that 11 years later he requested her as his leading lady in his final film, The Shootist (1976). Bacall also approved of Wellman's direction of in Blood Alley, terming it "salty and terrific." Among Wellman's accomplishments in the film was making the "Formosa straits" journey look completely authentic even though it was filmed at San Rafael, CA.

Bacall related in her autobiography that gossip columnist Hedda Hopper had, for some reason, campaigned to keep Wayne from hiring her for in Blood Alley. Bacall had given Hopper the cold shoulder after that until a party where Clifton Webb corralled the two of them and insisted that they make up. Bacall, who had been drinking martinis, told Hopper she'd been "a bitch to try and keep me from working." Hopper agreed and suggested that, to even the score, Bacall should give her a good kick. "Whereupon she turned around and I kicked her in the ass - most unladlylike but very martini-like," Bacall wrote. "Whereupon everyone laughed loudly and a truce was declared."

Director: William A. Wellman, John Wayne (uncredited)
Producer: John Wayne
Screenplay: based on the novel by Aaron Sidney Fleischman
Cinematography: William H. Clothier
Editor: Fred MacDowell
Music: Roy Webb
Cast: John Wayne (Capt. Tom Wilder), Lauren Bacall (Cathy Grainger), Paul Fix (Mr. Tao), Joy Kim (Susu), Berry Kroeger (Old Feng), Mike Mazurki (Big Han).
C-116m. Letterboxed.

by Roger Fristoe