The Two Faces of John Ford
84 The two faces of John Ford The Informer (1935) , The Prisoner of Shark Island, (1936), Stagecoach, Young Mr Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk (all 1939), The Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home (both 1940), My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Wagon Master (1950), The Sun Shines Bright (1953), The Searchers (1956), The Horse Soldiers (1959), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) Ford will make one film which attacks the American equivalent of fascism – and then the next with a near-fascist message. He’ll make an open-eyed, truthful film one year, and, the next year, one awash with sentimentality and mendacity. For sentimentality and mendacity, The Informer is hard to beat. The problem is, that it’s also a riveting film to watch – in part because of the excellence of its photography (by Joseph H. August, later to photograph The Devil and Daniel Webster ), in part because of the barefaced audacity of its mendacious sentiments. In part, also, because of the way our jaws drop in wonder at the question, just how bad does a performance have to be before it’s deemed unworthy of an Oscar? Victor McLaglen is so clumsy as the film’s halfwit protagonist, he makes Lon Chaney jr.’s turn as Lenny in Of Mice and Men look like a Rembrandt. As with other cases of miscasting, the foolish argument seems to be that having the actor adrift gives a good idea of the character’s disorientation. 1 Betraying his best friend to the Black and Tans for £20, so that his prostitute girlfriend can buy a ticket to America (and happiness), McLaglen has spent £11 of it on booze and unsolicited charity before he knows what’s hit him.
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