Directed by John Ford
Screenplay by Frank Nugent and Patrick Ford
Starring Ben Johnson, Ward Bond, Harey Carey Jr.
Ben Johnson was not a star of the sort we’re used to, which is one who actually leads movies. If Johnson was a star at all, it was in the sense of showing up for a few days work in a small role to give a film like Will Penny that flavor of verisimilitude it thrives on. Which means he was the very example of a supporting player.
There’s a story about Ben John in Peter Biskind’s book, Easy Riders, Ragin Bulls, about how when Peter Bogdonavich was casting The Last Picture Show, he really wanted Ben Johnson to play Sam The Lion in that film. Johnson, though, turned off by the language in the script, and the amount of dialog he’d have. Bogdonavich persisted, though, and went to John Ford and asked him to appeal to his frequent actor, Ben Johnson. Ford did, asking Johnson something to the effect of, “Are you just going to play Duke’s [John Wayne’s] sidekick all your life?” Johnson took the part and won an Oscar for it, the irony of which is it still wasn’t for a starring role – the Oscar was for Best Supporting Actor. If anything, Johnson moved from being John Wayne’s sidekick to Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Daniels’ sidekick.[1] Continue reading →