Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood's Legendary Director (Screen Classics)

529 Pages·2011·5.06 MB·English

by  Marilyn Ann Moss

RAOUL WALSH
Screen Classics
Screen Classics is a series of critical biographies, fi lm histories, and
analytical studies focusing on neglected fi lmmakers and important screen
artists and subjects, from the era of silent cinema to the golden age of
Hollywood to the international generation of today. Books in the Screen
Classics series are intended for scholars and general readers alike. The
contributing authors are established fi gures in their respective fi elds.
This series also serves the purpose of advancing scholarship on fi lm
personalities and themes with ties to Kentucky.
Series Editor
Patrick McGilligan
Books in the Series
Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film
Ruth Barton
Von Sternberg
John Baxter
The Marxist and the Movies: A Biography of Paul Jarrico
Larry Ceplair
Warren Oates: A Wild Life
Susan Compo
Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel
Nick Dawson
Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder
Gene D. Phillips
Arthur Penn: American Director
Nat Segaloff
Claude Rains: An Actor’s Voice
David J. Skal with Jessica Rains
Buzz: The Life and Art of Busby Berkeley
Jeffrey Spivak
RAOUL WALSH
THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF
HOLLYWOOD’S LEGENDARY
DIRECTOR
Marilyn Ann Moss
The University Press of Kentucky
Copyright © 2011 by The University Press of Kentucky
Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,
serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre
College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,
The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College,
Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University,
Morehead State University, Murray State University,
Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University,
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,
and Western Kentucky University.
All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moss, Marilyn Ann.
Raoul Walsh : the true adventures of Hollywood’s legendary director / Marilyn
Ann Moss.
p. cm. — (Screen classics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8131-3393-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-0-8131-3394-2 (ebook)
1. Walsh, Raoul, 1887–1980. 2. Motion picture producers and directors—
United States—Biography. I. Title.
PN1998.3.W35M58 2011
791.4302’32092—dc22
[B]
2011008580
This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting
the requirements of the American National Standard
for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
Member of the Association of
American University Presses
For my father, Louis Moss,
gone far too soon.
In the best fi lms of Raoul Walsh, you can see the way he can
put people into action . . . where they don’t act but move and
express, indirectly, subconsciously, their experience of life.
What makes something happen?
The placement of the camera.
The angle.
The lens.
The distance of the camera from the scene.
The physical execution.
—Pierre Rissient
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Prologue: A Wild Ride 1
1. Becoming Raoul Walsh 6
2. Griffi th and Beyond: The Apprenticeship Years 25
3. Leaning Forward at Fox 46
4. The Dagger, the Sword, and the Gun 74
5. Pre-Code Walsh: The Big Camera 98
6. Salt of the Earth 131
7. Beshert: The Early Warner Bros. Years 160
8. Out of the Night: At Home at Warner Bros. 180
9. One Thousand and One Nights with Errol Flynn 210
10. In Love and War 236
11. Oedipus Wrecked: The Late 1940s at Warner Bros. 263
12. By Land and by Sea 295
13. Reverie 327
14. His Kind of Women 351
15. The Adventure Is Larger Than the Man 370
Epilogue: Walsh’s American Scene 400
Filmography 405
Notes 447
Selected Bibliography 465
Index 471
Illustrations follow page 242

Acknowledgments
American cinema’s original iconoclast, Raoul Walsh gave the movies
some of their greatest action fi lms as well as some of their most beau-
tifully etched heroes and heroines caught either on their way up to a
romance or on the downside of a doomed adventure. Walsh knew cin-
ematic archetypes like the back of his hand: he had helped create them.
He gave them fi ctional frames that were singularly his—the streets of
teeming, sorrowful cities and the large western vistas in which a lone
rider travels, casting his shadow against the side of a great mountain
range. He took moviegoers onto the prairies, into the hubbub of New
York’s Bowery, and out onto the billowing seas, all the while helping
transform the Hollywood studio yarn into a breathless art form. With
a career that spanned over half a century, from the era of one- and two-
reel silents to the tumultuous 1960s, Walsh belongs to that generation
of fi lmmakers who learned to make movies on a dime in a fl edgling
industry at the start of the twentieth century and who invented a Hol-
lywood picture that made storytelling bigger than life itself.
But, when he wasn’t near a movie camera, Walsh wanted to escape
into the narratives he put on the screen—and into stories of himself he
chose to present to the public. For that reason, he was a challenge, un-
consciously daring this biographer to understand him in the complex
way he deserved. Getting to know the deeply evasive and enigmatic
Raoul Walsh took some doing, and, toward this end, I found the help
of many who knew him, worked with him, talked with him, or simply
admired him. I am indebted to the circle of scholars, fi lm afi cionados,
and colleagues, both Walsh’s and my own, who gathered around to offer
their experiences with Walsh and with his movies, all of which added
much-needed breadth and depth to this biography. Walsh’s life and ca-
reer were so extensive and complex, his artistry so layered, that I was
ix