fascinated Christopher, not only because he was still boyishly attractive but because he appeared to be such a mixed-up and
potentially dangerous character. Christopher liked to imagine that Murphy had won all his decorations for bravery as the result of his fury and shame at being The Prettiest Boy in Texas. No doubt his buddies had kidded him about his baby face, and Murphy, being too small to lick them, had gone into action and killed every German within sight. But this, and the subsequent honors, hadn’t made him feel any better, apparently; for he was still amazingly aggressive.
Whenever he wasn’t actually in front of the camera, he kept playing practical jokes on his fellow actors. These jokes weren’t fun, they were full of hostility and the object of them, clearly, was to provoke their victims to fight. Since Murphy was The Star, and also smaller, the other actors were unwilling to tangle with him; but he usually managed to annoy them into doing so. When they did, Murphy
fought back in deadly earnest. His face was grim, and he looked capable of pulling a knife. Most people seemed a bit afraid of him.
Christopher got the impression that he was thoroughly unpopular.
John Huston was Murphy’s opposite––large, charming, popular,
relaxed. (He was also a far greater and deadlier monster than Murphy could ever be.) On this picture, Huston was so relaxed that he actually sat chatting with Christopher under a tree while his assistant director shot one of the battle scenes.
Everybody agreed that he was wonderful with the actors, espe-
cially the bit players. Christopher himself witnessed an impressive demonstration of his patience with one of them––I have probably got the circumstances of the script story wrong here, but this is what happened: The troops have just succeeded in driving the enemy from a position on a wooded hill. They are feeling very pleased with themselves, especially those of them who have been in action for the first time. And then a soldier comes out of the woods. He is dazed and shaken. They tell him that he just missed the battle. He answers that the real battle was on the other side of the hill. They are amazed and disappointed.
When Huston directed the first take of this scene, everything went well until the actor who played the soldier appeared. He blew up on his line. Huston told him not to worry, to take his time. They ¾ 1950 ¾
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shot the scene right through again. Again the actor blew up. He apologized profusely. Huston said never mind, they had the whole morning. He suggested a simplified version of the line. The actor assured Huston that he could do it. He was trembling and sweating.
He blew up for the third time. Huston remained imperturbable.
They did a fourth take. The actor managed to get the line out correctly, though in a strangled, unnatural voice. Huston put an arm around his shoulder and led him away, soothing him as though he were a frightened horse.
As an expert horseman, Huston had a specially close relationship with the stunt riders on the picture. They were extra eager to please him. Christopher was standing at Huston’s side, near to the camera, when one man had to mime being shot dead at full gallop. The
cameraman had drawn a smallish circle with a stick in the dirt, only a few yards away from where they were standing; this was where the stunt rider’s body was to hit the ground. It was a breathtaking performance. Christopher had to restrain himself with a conscious effort of will from instinctively jumping aside as the horse came thundering toward them. Then Huston gave the signal. The rider registered the impact of the imaginary bullet and rose in the stirrups, clutching himself; his well-trained horse swerved to avoid the camera. The rider crashed from the saddle and landed with stunning force––only just outside the circle. The next instant, he had jumped to his feet, breathless and apologetic: “Sorry, Mr. Huston––it won’t happen again––I slipped!”1
In addition to Audie Murphy, there was another famous war veteran acting in the picture: Bill Mauldin the cartoonist. Like Murphy, Mauldin was still boyishly cute, in a charming monkeyish way. Unlike Murphy––perhaps because he had never had to be a hero––he was relaxed and friendly. He spent most of his free time with his wife.
When he was looking for her, after a take, he wandered around exclaiming, in a theatrical southern accent, “Where’s ma bride?”
Christopher watched a big scene in which Murphy and Mauldin
were in the center of the front line during an attack. The whole area over which they were to advance was mined with small explosive charges wired for detonation. It was the assistant director’s job to see that these explosions occurred as near as possible to the actors without injuring them. (If you were right on top of an explosion 1 Someone, I forget who, recently told me at a party that stunt riders often make bad falls deliberately, because they are paid a prearranged amount for each fall, good or bad. Huston undoubtedly knew this. He probably tolerated such cheating good humoredly, unless the stuntman overdid it.
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you could get burned.) When the cameras started to turn, Murphy and Mauldin, with the caution of seasoned soldiers, advanced very slowly, keeping their distance from the mini-mines which were bursting ahead of them. The nearest extras on either side naturally followed their example. But, meanwhile, the extras out on the wings
––not near enough to the stars to realize what they were doing and aware only that they themselves were attacking under the eye of John Huston––rushed forward recklessly. So the front line became an in-curving crescent. This annoyed the assistant director. He yelled to the center to catch up. Murphy and Mauldin ignored him. The assistant director was obliged to detonate charges immediately behind the two of them, as near as he dared, to get them running.
(The memory of this absurd situation didn’t prevent Christopher from being moved deeply and shedding tears when he saw the
photographed and edited scene, long afterwards, on the screen.) Jim Agee, big, handsome, sentimentally alcoholic, terribly anxious to be liked, was around most of the time. He made a hero of Huston and eagerly, indeed desperately, tried to keep up with Huston in any activity or amusement which he proposed. It was said that Huston would be the death of Agee, who had a weak heart and a poor
constitution generally; Huston was always getting him to come riding or play tennis or sit up drinking half the night. Actually he didn’t die until 1955.
Also present at the filming during Christopher’s visits was Lillian Ross, a journalist on the staff of The New Yorker who had come out to California to cover the production of the picture. Christopher was already strongly prejudiced against her because of the profile of Hemingway she had written for her magazine, earlier that year.
Rereading it now (March 1974), I find it only mildly distasteful––it was an early specimen of a style of journalism to which I have since then become accustomed. Lillian Ross, in her preface to the profile when it was published in book form, says that, “I attempted to set down only what I had seen and heard, and not to comment on the facts or express any opinions or pass any judgements. . . . I liked Hemingway exactly as he was, and I’m content if my Profile caught him exactly as he was during those two days in New York.”[*] What Ross means by catching Hemingway exactly as he was is that she has attempted an absolutely faithful reproduction of Hemingway’s dialogue, gestures and physical appearance. But the written word is inadequate if you try to use it in this way––writing is impressionistic, subjective, conceptual––and the effect that Ross was trying for can
[* Portrait of Hemingway, 1961.]
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only be achieved with a movie camera. What I get from her profile now is boredom, irritation. Everything she tells about Hemingway is irrelevant. She never comes near him. But Christopher, reading it in 1950, felt that Hemingway was being sneered at and cheapened by a creature of the New York gutter.