Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (review)

Book Reviews | Regular Feature Book Reviews Scott Eyman. Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford. Simon & Schuster, 1999. 656 pages; $40.00. Daunting Chore John Ford is generally considered to be among the greatest Hollywood directors in history. This widely held belief has led to a voluminous amount of books, seemingly all of them ultimately laudatory, devoted to Ford's films. Among these texts, Tag Gallagher's John Ford: The Man and His Films (1986) is my personal favorite, although there are many others worth reading . But the flaw in Gallagher's book is characteristic ofthe flaw in most works on Ford; even when they purport to be about his films and his life, they invariably end up being much more about his motion pictures, which, with a filmmaker as prolific and influential as Ford, is understandable. Although Gallagher's study of the titles is rich, a clear picture of Ford the man never comes into focus, despite anecdotes about Ford's life laced throughout the text. Indeed, I am not the only one who has noticed the absence of available satisfying biographical detail about Ford. In the third edition of A Biographical Dictionary ofFilm (1994) David Thompson, one of the few notable critics who is decidedly not a Ford fan, writes "On the strength ofthat one film [The Searchers, apparently the only Ford film Thompson likes] I would love to read a thorough life ofFord." With the recent publication of Scott Eyman's Print the Legend: The Life and Times ofJohn Ford, Thompson's wish has come true. Fortunately, Eyman is up to the task. What separates Eyman's book from others on Ford is that it really is first and foremost a biography; in fact, in many ways Print the Legend is best suited for those who are already familiar with Ford's work. When recounting the production of individual films, Eyman focuses his attention on what went on behind the cameras as opposed to in front ofthem. For example, in his discussion ofthe making ofStagecoach (1939), Eyman spends far more time discussing Ford's relationship with his players, particularly JohnWayne and the Stuntman Yakima Canutt, than he does examining the film's oft-credited revitalization oftheWestern genre. This is not to say Eyman offers no opinions about the films, for he frequently and eloquently does, but more important is the fact that he couches his analysis predominately in light of how Ford's movies effected his life rather than how they influenced Hollywood filmmaking. Furthermore, Eyman treats Ford's life before and after his directorial career with as much energy as he does Ford's time as a filmmaker. One of the epigraphs of Print the Legend is the maxim that states "Half of an Irishman's lies are true." In the case of John Ford such a claim may be something of an exaggeration; if half the stories about Ford are true then no other director has ever led as interesting and varied a life as John Ford. Further complicating matters forbiographers is thatperhaps no one loved a good John Ford story as much as John Ford. As Eyman writes, "If all the stories about John Ford weren't absolutely true, it's because a lot of them were spread by him. He loved to tell stories ; whether they were true or false didn't really matter" (17). And therein lies the great triumph ofEyman's work: he has done a finejob separating the chafffrom the reliable as concerns John Ford's legend. This is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in his excellent recounting of Ford's famous run-in with Cecil B. DeMiIIe at a 1950 Directors Guild meeting. Whereas other versions quickly retell the details that led to Ford's ultimately saying something along the lines of, "My name's John Ford, and I make Westerns ... but I don't like you CB. And I don't like whatyou're doing here tonight. Now let's give Joe [Mankiewicz] a vote of confidence—and all go home and get some sleep," Eyman takes over ten pages to set the scene, masterfully elucidating the deadly seriousness of the milieu in which Ford...