Episode 1 - Go West, Young Man
John Ford was born in Maine as Sean Aloysius O’Feeney… or so he says. His birth records say differently, and it would not be the last time he changes his name. As a child, he visits Ireland and falls in love with his heritage, and later fights at the University of Maine when confronted with an Irish slur. He rediscovers his long-lost older brother Francis while watching the “flickers” and follows him to Hollywood. He gets work as his brother’s stunt double then he fibs his way into directing features, eventually making his name on a pair of famous silent Westerns that still astonish today. As Hollywood transitions to talkies, Ford befriends the man who would become his friend, his muse, and his enabler, a young football player named John Wayne.
00:00 - Introduction: Decoding John Ford
07:00 - Irish in Maine
12:07 - Older brother Francis
19:24 - Arriving in Hollywood
28:44 - Stepping behind the camera
31:31 - The Iron Horse
37:54 - Three Bad Men
41:51 - Enter John Wayne
He made John Wayne cry.
He placed a real baby in front of galloping horses.
He was a commander at D-Day, a union leader, and a tyrant.
Meet John Ford, the curmudgeon with an eyepatch who just happened to be the greatest filmmaker of the 20th century. Ford was a bully and a drunk who ruled Hollywood for five decades, making dozens of seminal movies - though he was incredibly hard to pin down. His behavior swung wildly from loyalty to cruelty, without notice. He won more Oscars than any director in history, but never showed up to accept an award. And he rewrote American history, painting the country with images so beautiful that people wished they were real. John Ford defined the attitudes of his time, ideas about masculinity and heroism that we're still grappling with today. This season on The Plot Thickens, TCM brings you Decoding John Ford, a seven-part podcast about cinema's most mysterious auteur.
Part of that mystery is his classified - and missing - WWII film. In 1944, the U.S. military recruited Ford for the assignment of his career: to cover the largest invasion in history. He went to Normandy Beach to film D-Day and created an on-the-ground film detailing the invasion, but the film goes missing. Host Ben Mankiewicz travels to Europe to trace the mystery of whether the D-Day movie exists.
The Plot Thickens is the official podcast from Turner Classic Movies (TCM) about movies and the people who make them. Season one premiered in May 2020, diving into the life and work of Oscar®-nominated director, writer, and actor Peter Bogdanovich. Season two, “The Devil’s Candy,” launched in June 2021 and chronicled the tumultuous production of the 1990 film The Bonfire of the Vanities. Season three uncovered fresh insights into the life and times of the iconic Lucille Ball and debuted in October 2021. Season four explored the life and work of trailblazing actor Pam Grier in fall 2022.
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Go West, Young Man: Decoding John Ford | The Plot Thickens (S5 E1) | TCM
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