American Cinematographer - July 1990 - 40

"Wayne
continues. "He

was always on the set," Clothier
the first on the set in the morn¬

was

ing and the last

one to leave in the evening. I've
the set many times and John Wayne was
already there, in a chair by his motorcoach. He
devoted every minute of his time to the picture."
The epic scope of The Alamo presented
Clothier with enormous pictorial opportunities, but
come on

Wayne's insistence on realism presented technical
problems, as well. All of the sets were fully func¬
tional, three dimensional buildings with no wild
walls or ceilings. When Clothier began the film he
had access only to the older style Eastman Color
Negative, which required up to 300 foot candles of
light. Often his greatest challenge as a cinematogra¬
pher was in cramming his cameras and lights into
the cramped rooms. Some ceilings were no higher
than eight feet, presenting Clothier with the irritat¬
ing logistics of getting proper elevation of his lights
while leaving room for those annoying necessities,
the actors.
Even though a more sensitive Eastman
Color Negative became available midway through
Between shots.
Widmark eyes the

Texas

longhorn

Cast and crew arrived in Brackettville in the
last week of August, 1959 and Clothier immediately
set to work shooting test footage of the Alamo

replica and the San Antonio set. Filming officially
began on Wednesday morning, September 9. Before
the

camera

turned,

than 300 members of the

stood before the Alamo chapel,
bared and bowed as Father Peter Rogers
cast and

heads
of St.
Mary's Catholic Church, in San Antonio, prayed
that the film, "will not only be the world's outstand¬
ing production, but will also be a tribute to the spirit
crew

of the men who first built it, who lived in it, who
died in it."
Much of the cast was confirmed only at the
eleventh hour. After announcements of stars such
as William Ffolden, Charlton Heston, Robert

Mitchum, James Arness, Constance Towers and/or
Rock Hudson, Wayne finally settled on Laurence

Harvey as William Barret Travis, the commander of
the Alamo and Richard Widmark as the headstrong
James Bowie. The cast was rounded out with
members of John Ford's stock company and various
of Wayne's cronies. For a little box-office insurance
with the teens, Wayne cast singer Frankie Avalon as
Smitty, the youngest of the Alamo's defenders.
After a decade of dreams and plans, The
Alamo was underway. Wayne knew that there were
many who expected him to fall flat on his face but
everyone who worked on the film was impressed

The results

were

remarkable, and earned him

Academy Award nomination, but he remains laconic
on the subject.
"When you're a cameraman you're sup¬
posed to know those things," he says. "A lot of times
it becomes a chore. You had to scratch your head a
few times to figure out how you were going to do
something, but then you'd go ahead and do it."
Despite the trouble it caused him, Clothier
fully supported Wayne's decision to shoot nightfor-night. "That's the way you should do it. Mr.
Ford would say, 'I won't work at night.' It's a
complicated situation. You gotta get in back light,
you gotta light your people, you've got to balance
your light and you have to stop down two full stops
to make night out of it. It's not easy to do. With The
Alamo, I don't think we shot anything day-fornight."
Clothier's cinematography is at once breathtakingly beautiful and admirably simple. Clothier
and Wayne composed for the Todd-AO frame and
kept to a minimum any moving camera or other
technical tricks. There is no rear-screen work such
that which mars the otherwise spectacular How

The West Was Won (1962). Wayne
lend an air of realism to the film.

fought hard to

Which isn't to say that Wayne and Clothier
tricks when it could save them

knowledgeable and expert direction.
script backwards," says
Clothier. "He knew every line better than the actors
did. In the morning we'd have our breakfast to¬
gether and go out on location and discuss every shot

didn't

we're gonna shoot that day and figure out which we
should start with and when we should do such and

the rest. Then I sent them back and made horse

with his

"Duke knew that

such

production, allowing for lighting as low as 150 foot
candles, the frequent night shooting - over 30
scenes
tested the limits of Clothier's expertise.

shot for the

American

light.

Cinematographer

use camera

money. One spectacular shot shows hundreds
of Mexican soldiers on a hillside. "I made a glass
shot there," Clothier admits. "I brought all of the
some

troops in on one third of the screen and painted out
troops out of them. Then the artillery. It looks like
had a pretty good-sized army there, too. But we

July 1990

American Cinematographer - July 1990

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