The Garner Files: A Memoir (35 page)

A big-budget movie about an important issue, it was the first “serious” film I’d ever done. The highlight for me was working with Marlon. (See
pages 46
–48.)

Darby’s Rangers
(Warner Bros., 1958) C-121 min. D: William Wellman. Etchika Choureau, Jack Warden, Stuart Whitman, David Janssen.

I was originally cast as a young captain, but Chuck Heston dropped out and I was under contract, so the studio bumped me up to the role of Major William O. Darby, commander of the 1st Ranger Battalion in World War II.

“Wild Bill” Wellman (
Wings, The Public Enemy, The Ox-Bow Incident
) didn’t take any guff. He had a short fuse and always gave better than he got. He’d been in the Lafayette Escadrille in World War I and ran his set like a military outfit. (Wellman, Raoul Walsh, and John Ford were considered the tough directors. If you could work with them, you could work with anyone.)

I don’t think Wellman wanted to make the picture in the first place: he was doing it as a trade-off so he could do a personal film about his war experiences. I don’t think he wanted me in the part, either, and I don’t blame him: I was too young for it and he deserved a bigger star. But we got along fine because we respected each other.

Cash McCall
(Warner Bros., 1959) C-102 min. D: Joseph Pevney. Natalie Wood, Nina Foch, Dean Jagger, E. G. Marshall.

Not much of a movie, but I liked Natalie. She was a sweet girl, and we had a good working relationship even though her husband, Robert Wagner, would come down to the set and watch us do love scenes and tell her how to act. I don’t think she knew it herself then, but I thought Natalie was a lost soul.

Up Periscope
(Warner Bros., 1959) C-111 min. D: Gordon Douglas. Edmond O’Brien, Andra Martin, Alan Hale.

Up Your Periscope for the FBI
or
Lieutenant Merriweather at Sea.
Another piece of crap that Warner Bros. stuck me in while I was under contract.

The Children’s Hour
(United Artists, 1961) 107 min. D: William Wyler. Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, Miriam Hopkins, Fay Bainter.

My first experience working with a great director. (See
pages 69
–71.)

Boys’ Night Out
(MGM, 1962) C-115 min. D: Michael Gordon. Kim Novak, Tony Randall, Howard Duff, Janet Blair, Patti Paige, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Howard Morris.

A little farce about midlife crisis. Kim was beautiful and she had a wonderful quality that audiences liked, but she didn’t know how to act. I think she was insecure, because she was always running off the set to fix her face. She was more interested in her makeup than the script.

Move Over, Darling
(20th Century-Fox, 1963) C-103 min. D: Michael Gordon. Doris Day, Polly Bergen, Chuck Connors, Thelma Ritter, Don Knotts, John Astin.

The best part of this remake of the 1940 screwball comedy
My Favorite Wife
is Doris Day. I’d been slated to make it as
Something’s Got to Give
with Marilyn Monroe, but I did
The Great Escape
instead, so Dean Martin took my part. Twentieth fired Marilyn for chronic tardiness and stopped production, retitled it
Move Over, Darling,
and made it with me and Doris.

Doris didn’t
play
sexy, she didn’t
act
sexy, she
was
sexy. And then she could take a sexy scene and make you laugh. Which is better in the bedroom than a lot of things. And Doris was a joy to work with.
Everything she did seemed effortless. She’s so sweet and so professional—she made everyone around her look good.

The Wheeler Dealers
(MGM, 1963) C-106 min. D: Arthur Hiller. Lee Remick, Jim Backus, Phil Harris, Chill Wills, Louis Nye.

A broad comedy in which my character is a lot like Bret Maverick: a Texas con man, only this time in New York City. I guess audiences liked it, because for years people came up to me and quoted lines from it.

The Great Escape
(United Artists, 1963) C-168 min. D: John Sturges. Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Donald Pleasence, James Donald.

A classic from a great action-adventure director. (See
pages 71
–83.)

The Thrill of It All
(Universal, 1963) C-108 min. D: Norman Jewison. Doris Day, Arlene Francis, Reginald Owen, ZaSu Pitts.

Better than it should have been, again because of Doris.

In one scene, I drive a convertible into a swimming pool and the car begins to sink. I started floating up and out of the seat, so I had to grip the steering wheel, hold myself under water,
and act at the same time
! Now you know why we make the big bucks.

The Americanization of Emily
(MGM, 1964) BW-117 min. D: Arthur Hiller. Julie Andrews, Melvyn Douglas, James Co-burn, Joyce Grenfell, Edward Binns.