From jaw-breakers to John Wayne: How Henry Fonda punching John Ford led to a classic movie
Tensions can often run so high on a movie set that even a pair of powerhouses more familiar than each other than most actor/director combinations can end up coming to blows, but there was at least a silver lining to emerge from Henry Fonda punching out John Ford.
John Wayne might be the eyepatch-wearing icon’s most famous creative muse, but he was a prolific partner of Fonda’s, too. Ford directed the latter in The Fugitive, Fort Apache, Drums Along the Mohawk, Young Mr. Lincoln, My Darling Clementine, and The Grapes of Wrath, but 1955’s Mister Roberts proved to be a bridge too far for the long-time friends.
Adapted from the 1946 novel of the same name, the naval drama had already enjoyed a lengthy run on Broadway with Fonda in the lead role, which won him a Tony Award for his troubles. The studio was reluctant to cast him in the feature based on both his age and diminishing star power, but it was Ford who convinced Warner Bros. that he was the man for the job.
Fonda’s Doug Roberts is a supply officer on a creaking cargo ship during World War II, who dreams of being reassigned to a combat zone to inject a little excitement into his existence. Finding himself thwarted at every turn by James Cagney’s captain, Roberts ends up leading a rebellion amongst the crew in an effort to prevent their tyrannical leader from becoming too drunk with power.
As was regularly the case during his career, though, Ford ended up instigating more than one conflict behind the scenes. There were tensions between the director and Cagney, who later admitted he “would have kicked his brains out” if things had continued on in that vein, with Ford being “so goddamned mean to everybody” that the actor ended up branding him as “a nasty old man”.
Based on their history, Fonda presumably thought himself immune from the filmmaker’s fury, but that wasn’t the case. Things became so heated between the two at one stage that an argument exploded into physical violence, with the former punching the latter squarely in the jaw. The studio was watching with keen interest, but a medical emergency happened at the most fortuitous moment for Mister Roberts.
With Ford being rushed to the hospital for gallbladder surgery, it was decided that he was no longer required to be in the picture, with Mervyn LeRoy drafted in as his replacement. The bond between Ford and Fonda may have been severed irrevocably, but being laid up during his recovery period led to an important period of self-reflection.
Physically weakened by not only his surgery but his penchant for cigarettes and alcohol, the behind-the-scenes politics and his own failing state had seen his enthusiasm for cinema dwindle. A recharging of the creative batteries was needed, so for his return behind the camera, Ford opted to return to the most familiar turf imaginable.
That came through his favoured ground of a Western with John Wayne in the lead role, and the first film he directed after the Mister Roberts debacle was The Searchers, which went down in the history books as one of the greatest movies ever made.