THEY WERE EXPENDABLE 309
find a viable narrative approach. In the meantime Jim McGuinness, the MGM
executive put in charge of the proj ect, sought John Ford to direct the picture but
had a hard time signing him. As head of the photographic unit for the Office of
Strategic Ser vices (OSS), Ford was busy filming documentaries for the U.S. Navy
in war zones and had no interest in returning home to shoot a Hollywood war
movie. He changed his mind, however, when he met John Bulkeley, now a U.S.
Navy commander, who had been reassigned to the Atlantic theater of operations
for the D- Day landings in June 1944. Ford joined Bulkeley on his PT boat as it
patrolled the invasion beachheads and developed a strong rapport with the
Medal of Honor winner. After spending time with Bulkeley, Ford fi nally commit-
ted to the They Were Expendable film proj ect in October 1944 on the condition
that Frank Wead be rehired to make the final revisions on the script. (Ford’s fee
was set at a rec ord $200,000 but he didn’t want the public thinking he was prof-
iting handsomely from commercial filmmaking during war time, so he used the
funds to buy land and build Field Photo Farm, a recreation center in San Fer-
nando Valley for the 180 veterans of his Field Photographic Unit.) Also in Octo-
ber, Sidney Franklin signed Robert Montgomery to play John Bulkeley (called
“Brickley” in the movie)— perfect casting because Montgomery had served as a
lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy on PT boats at Guadalcanal and on a
destroyer at Normandy. In January 1945 John Wayne was hired to play the sup-
porting role, Lt. ( J. G.) “Rusty” Ryan (loosely based on the real Lt. Robert Kelly),
and 20- year- old starlet Donna Reed was cast as Army nurse Lt. Sandy Davyss,
Wayne’s love interest.
Production
Filming on They Were Expendable ran almost four months (23 February to 18
May 1945). Though some studio work was done at Culver City, California, most of
the filming took place in Key Biscayne and the Florida Keys, substituting for the
Philippines. The production was an unusually large one, employing a cast of 140
actors and some 150 technicians. On 17 January 1945, a month before filming
started, workers started construction on sets that re- created Bataan and Corregi-
dor, work that continued throughout much of the shoot. MGM had always had the
full cooperation of the U.S. Navy, which supplied six real PT boats sent down from
a naval depot in Melville, Rhode Island. Although Ford respected Montgomery’s
naval experience, he was openly contemptuous of John Wayne for staying out of
the war on a 3- A ( family deferment) exemption to pursue his acting career. Ford
badgered Wayne continuously until Montgomery fi nally intervened on Wayne’s
behalf and got Ford to desist. On Monday, 14 May 1945, near the end of the shoot,
Ford slipped off a camera scaffold and broke his leg, whereupon Robert Montgom-
ery stepped in for the rest of the week and directed the one remaining sequence. He
did such a capable job that Ford couldn’t tell the difference between Montgomery’s
scenes and his own (Montgomery went on to direct four noirs and a war movie
between 1947 and 1960). John Wayne also learned directing technique from Ford
and would direct his own epic, The Alamo (1960), with Ford’s assistance. When
shooting wrapped, Ford returned to his Field Photographic Unit in Eu rope and