THE MAKING OF THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH
by Phillip I. Earl
Page 2
| A sandstorm added a touch of
realism the next day. King saw it coming and ordered a camera crew out in an
automobile to chase it across the desert. The Barbara Hotel, largest of the
false-front structures, blew down as the cameras of another crew rolled, as
did the laundry, the general store, the barber shop and most of the tents.
Barrels, tenting, clothing and everything else that was not nailed down blew
out across the desert. However, King was delighted with the footage and was
making plans to incorporate it into the final cut. A few minutes later, a cloudburst struck, drenching everyone to the bone and washing out the road to Gerlach, the company's main supply line. King told a newsman on the scene that production would be set back 10 days, but he was able to resume work three days later. 16 The first edition of the Barbara Worth Times appeared as a supplement to the Humboldt Star on the day of the storm. Edited by Colman and Miss Banky, the paper related the news that she had made a pet of a desert chipmunk which had wandered into camp. Another story told of the arrival of chef Anderson at 5 a.m. on June 19 and of the heroics of his crew in getting set up and preparing breakfast for several hundred hungry actors, carpenters and extras within two hours. 17 The heat was becoming unbearable by the second week of filming--l24 degrees recorded in the commissary tent one afternoon--and the Barbara Worth Times of July 1 carried the news that King had decided to begin filming no later than 5 a.m. The actors, cameramen and technicians would have to get up at 4 a.m. to meet that schedule, so King and the members of the governing body of the town issued an order imposing a 9 p.m. bedtime curfew. Four dissenting votes were registered at the meeting called on June 29 to consider the matter. However, the motion carried, and a night watchman was hired to enforce it. The musicians brought up from Hollywood to provide background music had begun to offer nightly concerts by that time. Many of the visitors and tourists who came out to watch the filming stayed for the nightly performances and camped out on the edge of town. Several actors were reported to be taking guitar lessons from the cowboys hired as extras. But Colman remained in his tent most evenings listening to records, and Miss Banky spent her free time next to her radio. In nearby Gerlach, George Mosher, manager of the town's baseball team, challenged the movie folks to a game on July 4. King had decided not to film that day, so a team was hurriedly put together which took the measure of the railroaders by a score of 8 to 7. Gerlach's constable, Henry Hughes, had become a popular figure with the California visitors, regaling them nightly with tales of the "wild West" and stories of men who had "died with their boots on." Director King was particularly interested in the nightly sessions, as were the screen writers who were gathering material for future projects by talking to cowboys, prospectors and other desert dwellers hired as extras.18 On June 21, Harry Chandler Jr., son of the publisher of
the Los Angeles Times, paid a visit to Barbara Worth. He and his father had
a financial interest in the production, he told a newsman, and he spoke
highly of the cooperation of Winnemucca and Gerlach businessmen. |
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| Director Henry King (left) and producer Samuel Goldwyn
inspecting stagecoach at the scene of the filming of The Winning of Barbara
Worth. Photo courtesy of the author. |
Filming a desert scene for The Winning of Barbara Worth in the summer of 1926. Photo courtesy of the author.
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| The editor of Motion
Picture Magazine also spent some time at Barbara Worth that summer. He was
somewhat unnerved by the vicious heat and the blinding sandstorms but
fascinated by the men who had been hired as extras. "At night they gave us a
real picture show and all the citizens were present," he wrote. "And such
citizens! Most of them were natives of the surrounding country, all
carefully selected by Henry King. It was a great sight to see them all
huddled together on the floor watching themselves on the screen. There were
mountaineers, cowboys, Indians, trappers and ranchers of every description
and all in all, the queerest looking specimens I have ever encountered. They
not only looked and acted their part they were the part." 19 On July 6, tragedy struck again when Walter Ordson, an assistant cook, accidentally set the commissary tent on fire while he was filling some gasoline lanterns. The flames spread to a large sleeping tent and two canvas shelters being used for the storage of supplies. Ordson sounded the fire alarm, organized a bucket brigade on the spot and managed to check the conflagration, but the commissary tent and the sleeping quarters were leveled. Abraham Lehr, commissary manager, managed to get the foodstuffs out, but the loss of the tents set the company back some $10,000. The fire, winds and floods hardly daunted King's enthusiasm, however, and the Barbara Worth Times of July 8 reported that he had recently sent a crew out to film another sandstorm sweeping across the Black Rock fives miles to the north.20 There was also the usual run of illnesses, accidents
and other untoward occurrences during the making of the film. Walter E. Tregaskis, a Denio cowboy who had been hired as an extra, came into Winnemucca on July 8 where he tried to purchase some narcotics at a local drugstore. When the pharmacist refused his request, he threatened to kill himself on the spot. A deputy sheriff, who happened to be in the store, took him into custody and hauled him off to the police station. But Tregaskis grabbed a length of pipe during the booking and tried to assault Police Chief N. .P. Moore. Other officers subdued him, but he tore up his cell a few minutes later. At a hearing the next morning, Judge L. O. Hawkins ordered that he be taken to the state mental hospital in Reno for further evaluation. A Winnemucca youth, Paul Koseris, fell from a porch on July 15. Dr. Eshman found no broken bones when he examined him a few minutes later. But he was taken with chills, fever and chest pains that night, so arrangements were made to rush him to Winnemucca on a scheduled freight train a few hours later. He was hospitalized for several days before being sent home and was able to be out and about within two weeks. Bill Patton, a stunt man injured in a fall on July 19, spent eight days at the Winnemucca hospital also.21 Miss Banky took a break from filming on July 6 to return to Hollywood for the opening of The Son of the Sheik at the Million Dollar Theatre on July 8, but work on the picture was proceeding on schedule. Lewis King was back in Winnemucca on July 12 seeking 30 women and 25 children for the next phase of the production, but he was unable to find the 75 men he needed to portray settlers. Later that afternoon, he wired Sam Frankovich of Reno's Frankovich Employment Agency telling him of his needs. Frankovich sent back word that he could provide the men, so King caught the train for Reno the next morning. Several hundred men were on hand at the Wine House on Commercial Row that evening, and King got the pick of the lot--big men, tanned and bewhiskered with scuffed boots, big hats and tattered shirts. They departed for Winnemucca in a special railroad passenger car the next afternoon and were taken out to Barbara Worth on the Western Pacific the next day.22 Henry King was meanwhile planning ahead and making preparations for moving the production to the sand dunes at Blue Mountain. Carpentry crews had been sent on ahead to begin construction of a second town, while wagons were being loaded with equipment not needed to complete the work at Barbara Worth. King placed Winnemucca Mayor Carleton E. Haviland, who had been picking up some extra money as a construction superintendent, in charge of the move. The first group of wagons and teamsters moved out for the new location on July 13. King also made arrangements to send a crew of performers and cameramen to Devil's Canyon, a remote location 60 miles south of Winnemucca, to film a "bandit ambush" sequence, and to Paradise Valley to shoot footage of developed farms and orchards and fields of alfalfa. He had also given some thought to the final scene--the marriage of Miss Banky and Ronald Colman--and had his brother contact Father Hugo A. Meisekothen at Winnemucca's St. Paul's Catholic Church about performing the mock ceremony. 23 Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times ventured out to the desert location just as filming there was winding up. In an article published on July 18, he described the Black Rock as "a desert quite unlike, different, than others," and commended Goldwyn for going to the trouble and expense to find one which had not been "sheiked to death." Schallert had also seen clips of the film at the DeMille Studio when he returned home. The sweeping distances across the alkali flats and the striking cloud effects particularly impressed him, adding depth and substance to a story line he considered "so commonplace." He also had nothing but praise for the fine performances of Colman and Banky, describing her as "surprisingly American," a comment on her Hungarian nativity. 24 On July 18, Nevada Governor James G. Scrugham and R. M. Oliver paid a visit to Barbara Worth. They had been in northern Humboldt County examining some opal properties and had decided to drive down the Black Rock and over to Winnemucca from the west rather than coming directly south from Denio. Director King conducted them around the set, and they observed the filming of some final scenes before departing late in the afternoon.25 Station agent Greybanc had previously ordered that several boxcars be left on the siding at Trego, and a crew was loading them with equipment, supplies and tenting on the day of Scrugham's visit. Lewis King had rented trucks in Winnemucca to haul the cargo out to the new location, and Miss Banky, Colman and other members of the cast were planning on a short break in town before going out again.
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