Behind the Camera on THEY WERE EXPENDABLE (1945)

The filming location for They Were Expendable was Key Biscayne, Florida, with a lot of design and set work giving it a passable resemblance to the Philippines. The Navy supplied actual PT boats to the company and Navy officers would stop by occasionally to watch the filming. Robert Montgomery was able to draw on his activity as an actual PT commander (at Guadalcanal and Normandy), as could Jim Havens, one of the second unit directors and the film's explosives expert. Perhaps due to his cumulative experiences in the war, Ford poured a lot of himself into the filming. John Wayne said Ford "was awfully intense on that picture and working with more concentration than I had ever seen. I think he was really out to achieve something."

Ford was quick to show newcomers to his set who was in control. Robert Montgomery would later direct some fine films, but he received an amusing rebuke from Ford early in the shooting for They Were Expendable after suggesting a different way to compose a shot. Ford listened, then made the shot Montgomery's way. Asking if he thought it went well, Montgomery replied that the shot went fine. Ford asked, "Did you really like it?" and Montgomery replied that he did. Ford then opened the camera, yanked the film out, and handed it to his actor, saying, "Here - take it home with you."

John Wayne later recalled the re-creation of an intense chapter in Navy history, the evacuation of General MacArthur and his family from the Philippines. As Wayne related, "there were a number of top Navy brass at the location, and there were quite a few disparaging remarks like `This is where the old bastard ran out' and that sort of thing. But by God, when the scene started and the guy who was playing MacArthur walked out... you could see the look in their eyes change. Jack had created such a sense of awe that even among these Navy men there was a feeling of respect for this man."

Since Ford had surrounded himself with so many fellow Navy personnel during the filming, Wayne, being a civilian, felt out of place at times. In particular, he perceived a favoritism occurring on the set regarding his co-star. As he later said, "Bob Montgomery was [Ford's] pet on that picture. He could do no wrong. ...Jack picked on me all the way through it. He kept calling me a `clumsy bastard' and a `big oaf' and kept telling me that I `moved like an ox'."

Screenwriter and Ford pal Frank Wead was kept close at hand for any required rewrites, as Ford would delight in changing scenes or taking advantage of breaks. One day a fire broke out on nearby Key Biscayne, so Ford sent a second unit there to film it for the attack on Manila Bay. "Ford was always taking unexpected shots, like this one of Manila burning," Wayne later remembered. "He would use any situation that developed. If it was raining when the script did not call for rain, he shot it in the rain and changed the script. He had this blueprint, sure, but he was always looking to change it."

Near the end of filming, Ford broke his leg when he fell 20 feet off a scaffold. While Ford spent two weeks in traction in the hospital, Robert Montgomery directed the remaining scenes - mainly inserts for the battle sequences. When shooting wrapped, Ford returned to his Field Photographic Unit in Europe, just in time to cross the Rhine with Allied forces at war's end. Ford left the post-production and scoring of They Were Expendable to others. He later objected to some of the "heavy music" added, but the leisurely, assured pace of the editing is clearly in keeping with Ford's wishes.

By the time They Were Expendable was finished the Japanese had surrendered, so MGM pushed the release date back to December 1945. With the war over, the film opened to enthusiastic reviews but low turnout at the box office. As John Wayne later said, "People had seen eight million war stories by the time the picture came out, and they were tired of them."

by John Miller