Finishing the big Wyatt Earp In Hollywood opus this morning. Since I'm dealing with the movie outlaws in the last outlaw town (Hollywood), one tidbit I am trying to shoehorn in somewhere is the Jack Warner comment to John Wayne, after The Duke's Batjac Production Co. ran into financial difficulties: "You really ought to bring Batjac back to Warner Bros, Duke. You should be here, where you can be f---- by friends." If you want to understand Hollywood, that says it all.
John Wayne in "West of The Divide," (1934)
"Wayne got into a beef with [Jack] Warner about the costs of a picture Wayne had made; Warner's hung us on that one too. Warner's promptly threw away the rest of the pictures. . .we got a good screwing, because of the way Warner's released the picture."
—William Clothier, who photographed a Batjac production of "Good-bye My Lady" which cost $900,000 and had world rentals of $677,000, and with Warner's creative book keeping the film showed even more of a loss. Both quotes and the above information are from the excellent book "John Wayne: The Life & Legend" by Scott Eyman. I highly recommend it.
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