Season 5 Trailer: Decoding John Ford

The Plot Thickens

TCM Podcasts

Tv & Film, Film History

4.8 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 18 April 2024

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Meet John Ford, the curmudgeon with an eyepatch 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. Join host Ben Mankiewicz for a new season of The Plot Thickens, starting June 6. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're odd. Oh, double D. Oh, double D. Odd. In 1973, an aging movie star went to Palm Springs to visit a dying Hollywood director.
0:13.2	God, how long have we known each other?
0:16.2	40 years.
0:18.2	The actress was Catherine Hepper.
0:20.2	The director, John Ford. There were rumors they'd once had an affair.
0:25.0	You're very devious.
0:27.0	So if people were scared, I think they were very scared of you.
0:31.0	Good.
0:33.0	John Ford directed more than a hundred movies.
0:36.0	He's famous for his Western.
0:38.0	Movies like Stagecoach, The Searchers,
0:41.0	and Classic Drama's like The Grapes of Wrath.
0:44.0	Catherine Hepburn though is right.
0:46.4	John Ford was odd.
0:48.9	He constantly chewed on a handkerchief.
0:52.6	When you see my hacky...
0:54.0	He hated being interviewed.
0:55.8	You're not tapering this.
0:57.0	Yeah, I am.
0:58.0	Oh, shit.
0:59.0	And on set, it was both a genius and a tyrant.
1:03.0	We blew him up one time.
	...

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