The Araner: Decoding John Ford | The Plot Thickens (S5 E2)

Episode 2 – The Araner

Ford buys a yacht, named after the Aran Islands off Ireland, where he cavorts, drinks and vacations. But he also keeps an eye on the looming threat in Europe, and uses his new vessel to enlist in the Naval Reserve. He rises through Hollywood and turns his friends into stars, including John Wayne – though he’s increasingly abusive towards them on the set. As the ‘30s dissolve into the ‘40s, Ford directs a remarkable string of movies, winning back-to-back Oscars (though he doesn’t show up to the ceremonies). Then war breaks out, and he’s shipped overseas to cover the front.

00:00 – Not-A-Yacht
06:54 – The Informer
11:26 – Stagecoach
17:40 – Making John Wayne a Star
23:09 – Big Man on Set
28:08 – John and Francis
31:54 – The Grapes of Wrath
42:54 – Snubbing the Oscars
47:05 – Recruited for War

He made John Wayne cry.
He placed a real baby in front of galloping horses.
He was a commander at D-Day, a union leader, and a tyrant.

Meet John Ford, the curmudgeon with an eye patch who just happened to be the greatest filmmaker of the 20th century. Ford was a bully and a drunk who ruled Hollywood for five decades, making dozens of seminal movies – though he was incredibly hard to pin down. His behavior swung wildly from loyalty to cruelty, without notice. He won more Oscars than any director in history, but never showed up to accept an award. And he rewrote American history, painting the country with images so beautiful that people wished they were real. John Ford defined the attitudes of his time, ideas about masculinity and heroism that we’re still grappling with today. This season on The Plot Thickens, TCM brings you Decoding John Ford, a seven-part podcast about cinema’s most mysterious auteur.

Part of that mystery is his classified – and missing – WWII film. In 1944, the U.S. military recruited Ford for the assignment of his career: to cover the largest invasion in history. He went to Normandy Beach to film D-Day and created an on-the-ground film detailing the invasion, but the film goes missing. Host Ben Mankiewicz travels to Europe to trace the mystery of whether the D-Day movie exists.

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