Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood

66. The Story of Dr. Wassell

66 Th~ Story of Dr. Wass~U A Paramount Picture. A Cecil B. DeMille Production. Produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Screenplay by Alan LeMay and Charles Bennett, based on the story ofCommander Corydon M. Wassell, U.s.N., (MC [Medical CorpsJ), as related by him and fifteen ofthe wounded sailors involved, and also upon the story byjames Hilton (additional, uncredited writing byjeanie Macpherson). Associate producer: Sidney Biddell. Assistant director: Eddie Salven. Second assistant director: Oscar Rudolph. Unit manager: Frank Caffey. Assistant unit manager: Ted Leonard. Dialogue supervisor: Edwin Maxwell. Dialogue director : Arthur Pierson. Second-unit director: Arthur Rosson. Art direction: Hans Dreier and Roland Anderson. Music: Victor Young. Photography (in Technicolor): Victor Milner, A.S.c. and William Snyder, A.S.c. Film editor: Anne Bauchens Picture started: july 6, 1943. Picture closed: October 7, 1943. Second unit opened: April 5, 1943. Second unit closed: August 12, 1943. Length: 12,239 feet (fifteen reels). Cost: $2,744,991.71. Released: April 26, 1944 (Little Rock, Arkansas, premiere). Gross rentals: $6,222,192.33 (gross receipts: $4,209,968.54). Net profit: $205,639.04 (to March 31, 1951) Cast: Gary Cooper (Corydon M. Wassell), Laraine Day (Madeline), Signe Hasso (Bettina), Dennis O'Keefe (Hopkins), Carol Thurston (Tremartini), Carl Esmond (Lt. Dirk van Daal), Paul Kelly (Murdock), Elliott Reid (Anderson ), Stanley Ridges (Commander Bill Goggins), Renny McEvoy Uohnny), Oliver Thorndike (Alabam), Philip Ahn (Ping), and Barbara Britton (Ruth) Paramount trade ads announcing the studio's product for the 19411942 season promised "3 big DeMille Productions in 2 years-In addition to Reap the Wild Wind Mr. DeMille has promised to deliver for Paramount two other equally important pictures between now and the close of the '41-'42 Season." One of the two promised pictures was Rurales (sometimes called The Flame), a film with a Mexican theme that was to be shot in black and white. Although Arthur Rosson actually shot some second-unit location footage, the picture was shelved in favor of a Technicolorproduction ofErnest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. But John Hay Whitney and the federal government persuaded DeMille to tum the project over to Paramount, where it was eventually directed by 323 324 / C~cil B. D~Mill~'s Hollywood Sam Wood, and to return to Rurales as a "good neighbor" picture-part of the campaign to keep the Latin American neighbors of the United States from siding with the Axis. But DeMille again changed his plans when he heard one ofFranklin D. Roosevelt's radio chats on April 28, 1942. The president told listeners about the heroic exploits of navy surgeon Dr. Corydon Wassell who, in defiance oforders to leave them behind, led a group of wounded men to safety before the island of Java was completely overrun by the Japanese. Excited about the picture possibilities of the Wassell story, DeMille rousted Paramount studio head Y. Frank Freeman from home and dinner and together they drafted a telegram to President Roosevelt's secretary, Stephen Early, requesting permission to make what they hoped would be "a magnificent inspirational motion picture." "If you could suggest method of obtaining proper approval," Freeman and DeMille assured Early that they "would pay liberally for rights to this story. Disposition of such payments could be worked out in reference to distribution to Armed Forces Relief Agencies and Dr. Wassell."! Preliminary details were worked out, and a somewhat bewildered Corydon Wassell found himself whisked from Australia with no knowledge ofwhy he was being ordered Stateside until he met Cecil B. DeMille in Hollywood. Born in Arkansas on July 4, 1884, Corydon Wassell completed one year of high school before becoming a plumber. In 1904 he decided to quit working with his hands and start working with his brain. Bitten by his sister's rabies-infected dog, Wassell was sent to Baltimore to receive the Pasteur treatment, and after his experience there he decided to become a doctor. Wassell studied with his aunt to pass his needed high school equivalency test, and after graduating from medical school he entered private practice in Arkansas. He later went to China with his first wife to work with the Episcopal Missions. She died in 1926 as the result of a freak accident, slipping on wet pavement, hitting her head, and falling into a pool of water. Wassell was forced to leave China in 1927 during an uprising by Chiang Kai-shek and the Cantonese. He later returned to the Far East and was stationed in...