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Post by Rich Curilla on Sept 29, 2014 21:42:55 GMT -5
I have been proof-reading John Farkis' soon-to-be-published book on the making of John Wayne's THE ALAMO. After years of research and writing, John has gotten a publisher and is in the final preparation stages. The title is Not Thinkin'... Just Rememberin'... The Making of John Wayne's THE ALAMO and the book is very thorough. Having worked at Alamo Village for Happy and Virginia Shahan for more than 1/4 century, I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the production and its history, but John has definitely carried me to a new level of understanding. More as the publication date nears.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Sept 30, 2014 11:08:08 GMT -5
I have been proof-reading John Farkis' soon-to-be-published book on the making of John Wayne's THE ALAMO. After years of research and writing, John has gotten a publisher and is in the final preparation stages. The title is Not Thinkin'... Just Rememberin'... The Making of John Wayne's THE ALAMO and the book is very thorough. Having worked at Alamo Village for Happy and Virginia Shahan for more than 1/4 century, I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the production and its history, but John has definitely carried me to a new level of understanding. More as the publication date nears. Who's publishing, Rich? Any release date?
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Post by Rich Curilla on Oct 3, 2014 14:38:38 GMT -5
I'll have to check with John about the publisher. His clean-up is due November 30, and he hopes it will be out by Christmas, but we both think that is a bit optimistic, publishers being publishers.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Oct 3, 2014 14:50:37 GMT -5
What I find particularly fascinating about this book is that John has done something I would have thought impossible -- and flies in the face of book writing -- but it works great! Basically, it is about the long "development hell" period (as Hollywood calls it) of 14 years and then the pre-production, production and post-production of the movie and the marketing campaign. But it is loaded with very well researched and footnoted back-stories that you would think are superfluous and overkill. Other seemingly disconnected subjects like Wayne and Ford on other movies, Wayne's years at Republic with Herb Yates, Wayne's personal life at the time, his vendetta against Communism in Hollywood, his romances........ Each time, I'd start out saying, "What does this have to do with the movie?" Then -- within paragraphs -- I'd begin to see how it was all pointed in one direction: THE ALAMO. I finally grasped just how much a part of John Wayne this was, and for how long. In some ways, this has elevated my understanding of Wayne, the movie, Hollywood and U.S. history!!! It is sort of like the awesome Crockett treat you guys gave me with your Congress book. I went into that kicking and screaming, saying "Why would I want to read a whole book on the portion of Crockett's life that has never interested me. Well, I wasn't able to put it down and learned an incredible amount about Crockett that had to inform his attitude in Texas and at the Alamo. ; )
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paul
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Post by paul on Oct 4, 2014 10:35:07 GMT -5
I have heard or read somewhere that one of the best things about Mr. Farkis's book is that the publisher will print it intact and is not insisting that he cut anything. It's a long book, too, apparently. Is this true, Mr. Curilla?
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Post by Jim Boylston on Oct 4, 2014 13:52:38 GMT -5
It is sort of like the awesome Crockett treat you guys gave me with your Congress book. I went into that kicking and screaming, saying "Why would I want to read a whole book on the portion of Crockett's life that has never interested me. Well, I wasn't able to put it down and learned an incredible amount about Crockett that had to inform his attitude in Texas and at the Alamo. ; ) Thanks for the kind words, Rich. Crockett's political experiences, more than anything else, are responsible for his going to Texas. Sure, finances played a big part in that decision, but had Crockett been able to achieve his primary political goal of securing clear property titles for his constituents (and remember, Crockett himself was in much the same boat as his neighbors in this regard), there would have been little reason for him to leave Tennessee. Despite his protestations about a Van Buren presidency, I think he'd have been able to stomach that had he sorted out the Tennessee public lands mess. Jim
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Post by Rich Curilla on Oct 4, 2014 16:30:17 GMT -5
Despite his protestations about a Van Buren presidency, I think he'd have been able to stomach that had he sorted out the Tennessee public lands mess. Jim As in *anything's better than King Andrew I.*
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Post by Rich Curilla on Oct 4, 2014 16:43:19 GMT -5
I have heard or read somewhere that one of the best things about Mr. Farkis's book is that the publisher will print it intact and is not insisting that he cut anything. It's a long book, too, apparently. Is this true, Mr. Curilla? I was probably the source for that. It impressed me that John was able to nail this kind of a deal. He turned his back on others that wanted him to cut it to 1/4 the length. According to John, it is 700 pages plus 120 pages of photos. I'm not sure if he meant the double-spaced, typed pages that I have been proofing or the finished published pages, but hey, a small point. He has been positively "anal" about the research for years (his word) and talked to people you wouldn't even imagine. Ford was on the set for MOST of the production (as planned), not just "there on vacation" as he told Peter Bogdanovich and as Clothier said in an American Cinematographer Magazine interview. Happy Shahan's latter-day story of why he opened Alamo Village to the public was because, after the movie came out, people started cutting his fences to get in to see the sets, so he just hired a gate man and then charged admission to cover the salary. Then, when people were on the set, he found that they would get hungry, so he started a restaurant to solve that "people need." Then he hired gunfighters to entertain them while they were there..... Etc. Always meeting the needs of tourist -- serving the people. Well, that was indeed in him, but John unearthed a San Antonio radio interview with Happy from while the sets were still being built in which he boasted that, when Duke was finished filming, he was going to turn it into a world-class tourist attraction complete with restaurants, museums, gunfights, stagecoach rides, etc. etc. etc. Wonderful guy that Happy truly was (I worked for him for over 20 years), he still had the traditional J. Frank Dobie, Texan, philosophy that "There is no story I can't make better when I retell it."
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Post by Rich Curilla on Oct 5, 2014 23:06:45 GMT -5
O.K., I got the low-down from John on the book and publisher.
The current page count (before final revisions and corrections) will be 625 to 650 final book pages. I was in error on the photos. The current plan is 120 photos, not pages of photos. Makes more sense. And they will be unique since he has been gathering and sifting for years -- has thousands of photos from the making of the movie. The publisher is Bear Manor Media, which specializes in TV and cinema.
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paul
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Post by paul on Oct 6, 2014 18:03:54 GMT -5
Wow! That will be a book-and-a-half, and take quite some time to read. Has Mr. Farkis been writing this book for a long time? I've heard he wrote an earlier book.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Oct 7, 2014 0:33:27 GMT -5
John came to us at Alamo Village in 2004 and asked if he could access some of our files. He wanted to write an article on "construction techniques for John Wayne's The Alamo" which he would then peddle to some trade magazine. He got so hooked on the whole history of how Shahan lured Wayne to Brackettville and built the place, that he spent many months writing what would finally be an 83-page, self-published book called Alamo Village: How a Texas Cattleman Brought Hollywood to the Old West. It sold like hotcakes in our gift shop and was also on sale at the Alamo Gift Shop and the Imax theater. It is out of print.
He was hooked. He started to work on the current book shortly after that. I have really enjoyed helping him dig for information, but the many many hours of conversations we had are nothing compared to the positively anal (his word) digging he did elsewhere. He interviewed folks I thought were dead -- and some now are. He cajoled the Wayne family for information. He searched for and found John Ford's airline passages to and from Brackettville -- Ford was there for nearly all of the movie, not just two weeks as he (and cinematographer Clothier) later said. I could go on forever, but you will need to conserve energy for the book. LOL.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Nov 13, 2014 22:17:32 GMT -5
John's finished copy has been sent to the publisher. There will still be some shuffling back and forth, so a Christmas publication date appears totally unrealistic at this point. John believes it will be available by February-March just in time for HHD. Hope so. I've already reinforced my end-table.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Nov 27, 2014 11:18:40 GMT -5
What I find particularly fascinating about this book is that John has done something I would have thought impossible -- and flies in the face of book writing -- but it works great! Basically, it is about the long "development hell" period (as Hollywood calls it) of 14 years and then the pre-production, production and post-production of the movie and the marketing campaign. But it is loaded with very well researched and footnoted back-stories that you would think are superfluous and overkill. Other seemingly disconnected subjects like Wayne and Ford on other movies, Wayne's years at Republic with Herb Yates, Wayne's personal life at the time, his vendetta against Communism in Hollywood, his romances........ Each time, I'd start out saying, "What does this have to do with the movie?" Then -- within paragraphs -- I'd begin to see how it was all pointed in one direction: THE ALAMO. I finally grasped just how much a part of John Wayne this was, and for how long. In some ways, this has elevated my understanding of Wayne, the movie, Hollywood and U.S. history!!! It is sort of like the awesome Crockett treat you guys gave me with your Congress book. I went into that kicking and screaming, saying "Why would I want to read a whole book on the portion of Crockett's life that has never interested me. Well, I wasn't able to put it down and learned an incredible amount about Crockett that had to inform his attitude in Texas and at the Alamo. ; ) Thanks Rich. It is not possible to understand a person's motivations without full context; the full backstory, so to speak. I agree with Jim; Crockett's decision to go to Texas was driven by how his political career played out. If he had gotten his land measure through, as his son later did, his political future would have been bright and he might have held his seat in Congress indefinitely. That is why the Jackson forces made certain that his land bill would never pass and, in the end, even come to the House floor for debate. Their objective was to ensure that Crockett had no achievements to run on, and they used these legislative techniques to stop him, as well as heavy spending to defeat him, which worked. Sound familiar? As it was, he had reached a political dead end and was looking for a new start and fresh opportunities. Texas seemed to provide just what he needed.
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Post by loucapitano on Dec 7, 2014 13:36:54 GMT -5
I haven't been on this site for awhile, so I'm thrilled that the John Farkas book "...just remembering." is nearly ready for print. I do hope it's on paper and not just electronically. I'm very old fashioned that way. It sounds like his next book could be the making of this book. Rich's summaries and backgrounds of how he assembled the book sound awesome. By the way, last weekend I sat with my 5 year old grandson while he watched "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier." Like most of us, he loved the Indian Wars, was bored with Congress and delighted in the Alamo. I never told him that was how Davy died, so he was a little surprised and sad. Thank heaven my DVD also included Crocket and the Keelboat Races and the River Pirates. Now it's all he talks about. Another believer. Lou from Long Island
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Post by Rich Curilla on Dec 8, 2014 0:21:41 GMT -5
Lou, John's book is indeed a "real book." He was afraid that the only way he could get it published was as an e-book, but then he found Bear Manor Publishing in California and they liked it so much that they agreed to do the whole thing. Me too, I hate to read anything long on the internet even.
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