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63 6 GaryCooper Will you marry me? I want to stay with you. We’ll take a house in some small town, and I’ll keep it for you. Don’t laugh, I can. I’ll cook, I’ll wash your clothes, I’ll scrub the floors.” —Dominique, The Fountainhead (1949) The filming of The Fountainhead began with the quarry scene, shot on location in Knowles, California, between Fresno and Yosemite National Park, in the state’s largest and oldest quarry. Director King Vidor rode out to Knowles with Patricia and Cooper in a studio limousine, and the three had dinner together. “They went for each other right away,” Vidor said of his two stars.1 Patricia and Cooper stayed at the California Hotel during the three-day location shoot, and Patricia recalls being aware of the dynamics of her and Gary’s relationship from the beginning. She knew they shared a physical attraction. The first scenes for the picture were shot in Knowles on July 12. The script called for Patricia’s character, Dominique, to ride up to her father’s stone quarry on horseback. Patricia didn’t ride, and a stunt double, Audrey Scott, was hired for those scenes. However, just before shooting began, Scott pulled out because she felt that she could make more money at an upcoming horse show. So Patricia learned to ride. “The studio arranged lessons for me and I went faithfully,” she recalled. “By the time we shot the first scene of the film, I could at least sit on the animal.”2 She told columnist Howard C. Heyn, “I’m a taxicab girl. This Los Angeles traffic has me licked. I’m afraid to drive in it. But horses are worse. I wouldn’t cry if I never saw another horse.”3 The quarry scene caused a bit of controversy because of its obvious sexFacing page: Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper in The Fountainhead, 1949. Patricia’s favorite picture of the two of them together. From the author’s collection. Shearer฀book.indb฀฀฀63 3/16/2006฀฀฀12:14:39฀PM 64 Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life ual overtones. Cooper, at forty-six, was still extremely attractive and fit. Surprisingly , the censors did not edit the Freudian symbolism of Dominique’s encounter with Roark. The phallic imagery is unmistakable. Roark is seen in hard hat and snugly fitting pants, his shirt sleeves rolled up, sweat dripping down his keenly intelligent brow and drenching his clothing, holding his throbbing drill hammer at near crotch-position, relentlessly thrusting it into the tight hole in the unyielding rock. Dominique is consumed by the eroticism of the image. Filmed with Patricia’s character looking down upon Cooper’s, the meaning of the scene is obvious: she is dominant. At night, she is in agony as she visualizes that scene over and over in her head, and she returns day after day to watch him. Roark eventually mocks Dominique’s behavior . As he walks along a dusty road, Dominique gallops up on horseback and slashes him across his face with her riding crop. Problems with the film began as soon as the company returned to Los Angeles to resume shooting on the Warners lot. Between July 16 and 20, the two most important scenes between Cooper and Neal—the night scene in Dominique’s bedroom and the love scene later in the picture at Roark’s apartment after the Enright party—were shot. In the first scene, Roark realizes that Dominique desires him. He comes to her bedroom during a balmy night. “A sinister, phallic shadow above his head underscores his sado-erotic intentions,” wrote Merrill Schleier in his 2002 essay on The Fountainhead.4 Dominique is dressed in a revealing Chantilly lace negligee, Roark in his work clothes, his sleeves rolled up. Cooper is commanding and physically exciting. Without dialogue, he grabs Dominique and she wrestles violently with him. He throws her to the floor; she rises and attacks him, pounding his chest in a sexually charged struggle. This is followed by a long embrace and passionate kiss. Dominique breaks away, rushes to her balcony, stumbles and falls, Roark behind her. The camera moves in on him standing over her, a victorious smile forming on his face as the scene fades. The censors found Dominique a little too sexually compliant, stating, “The action in Scene 66 is completely unacceptable. As presently written, this scene seems to suggest a sex affair. Moreover, this sex a...

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