A Preposterous Powerhouse
The story goes that one evening, Raoul Walsh was driving along a remote Utah highway when his jeep suddenly collided with a jackrabbit, spraying Walsh’s face with glass and debilitating his right eye such that it had to be surgically removed. When recommended he install a glass replacement, Walsh refused, saying that he’d “have to take it out every time [he] got in a fight.” Instead, he decided to don a black eye-patch—a fitting addition to his intrepid swashbuckling persona.
Indeed, Walsh has been characterized as a macho action director, tough, daring, and resolute. Known also as a mythomaniac, his autobiography includes the dubious tales that he stole John Barrymore’s corpse from the morgue and left it on a chair in Errol Flynn’s living room, that on meeting Winston Churchill they extemporaneously addressed each other as “Walshie” and “Winnie,” and that he’d never heard of famous tenor Enrico Caruso until Caruso sang a duet with Walsh’s sister at their country home.
However, Walsh never had a sister; his family life in fact quickly evaporated at age 15 when his mother died and his draconian father demanded that he leave home. “I was quite unprepared for the sudden blow that left me motherless,” he later wrote in his autobiography. “The terrible thing was that she was gone and I was only half a person.” Leaving home marked the start of Walsh’s adventurous pre-filmmaking period: he held a diversity of jobs in Havana, Vera Cruz, and Texas, working as a cowhand, horse breaker, gravedigger, and surgeon’s assistant.
The diversity of his early occupations mirrors the diversity of genres in which he worked as a director. In half a century of work, he made 170 films for five different studios. His films span countries and centuries, and the range of genres in which he prolifically worked is unparalleled by his studio era contemporaries. Genres include adventure stories, film noir, war films, westerns, historical dramas, crime thrillers, and romantic dramas. In all his work, however, he injected his dismissal of high-class indulgence and languid sentimentality. Indeed, Jack Warner (of Warner Bros.) once said, “Raoul’s idea of a tender love scene is to burn down a whorehouse.” Walsh adamantly believed the three greatest virtues of film were “action, action, and then action.”
Tom Conley, professor of visual and environmental studies at Harvard University, elaborates on reviewers’ reactions to Walsh’s declaration. The reviewers “recalled Aristotle’s Poetics, [which argues] that action and not psychology is needed to move drama forward.” But paradoxically, “human action in [Walsh’s work] is in fact psychology.” Walsh cannot be reduced to Aristotle, and a retrospective entitled “Action! Action! Action!” is somewhat of a misnomer. As Conley told the HPR, it is “highly oversimplified to say all he wants is action.”
Boyish Bravado
In spite of the virile intensity and fast-moving action sequences in Walsh’s oeuvre, his characters have a surprising tenderness and childishness. Not only do his films feature more intimate close-ups than other studio-era work, but also the characters themselves have a level of vulnerable infantility that most film critics and reviewers overlook. On closer inspection, the characters’ childishness complicates the plot and accounts for many of the famously memorable moments in his work.
The Thief of Bagdad (1924) follows a beggar, played by Douglas Fairbanks, as he steals his way to becoming a prince. The film’s prologue reads, “happiness must be earned,” ostensibly introducing a morality film that emphasizes the virtues of hard work. However, the protagonist, “The Thief,” never works consistently or thoughtfully, but acts spontaneously and whimsically. His overarching impetuousness and mischievousness complicates his easy lifestyle when he is caught stealing, and drives the plot forward, for instance, when he chances upon and immediately falls in love with the princess.
Childishness is also central to the plot of White Heat (1949). It is most obviously manifest in the psychotic gangster Cody Jarett’s excessive attachment to his mother. Canadian student filmmaker Kevin Ballon notes the parallels there between the gangster’s and Walsh’s life, especially the “tragedy of Walsh’s teens” when his mother died. We agreed that when Jarett finds out his own mother has died, his expression of loss is one of the most bold, primal fits of suffering in the studio-film era. Jarett’s childishness also manifests in his perpetuation of life-threatening danger near the film’s conclusion. To illuminate what I mean by “childish perpetuation,” let me indulge in an example: after throwing a violent temper tantrum, my infant brother’s tears would eventually run dry. In an effort to continue crying, however, he would then bump into tables, doors, and other hard objects to hurt himself and allow him to resume his lamentations.
A similar perpetuation stimulates the psychotic gangster Cody Jarett’s iconic line, “made it Ma! Top of the world!” after being surrounded by police at the film’s conclusion. Moments before, Jarett and one of his cronies had found a temporary hiding spot underneath an explosive globe-shaped oil tank. Disliking the temporary lull in danger, however, Jarett ascends the oil tank, revealing himself to the police. The danger again subsides when his crony surrenders himself to the police; to again revitalize the life-threatening intensity, Jarett shoots his comrade, causing the police to open fire on Jarett who is shot and wounded. Jarett, however, determinedly re-catalyzes his suffering, shooting the oil tank to set himself on fire before his climactic final words.
They Died with Their Boots On (1941) features a macho, adventuresome protagonist, yet one whose actions also indicate an underlying immaturity. The film introduces George Armstrong Custer as a charismatic rebel rejected by the military, and follows him as he is thrust into high military ranks. Personally, I expected a Henry V-like transformation: after rising to power, the young rebel would realize how his own imprudence and impudence. However, he remains as ostentatious and insubordinate as before, thinking only of his own immediate desires. Kevin Ballon here also notes the “many inconsistencies” of the protagonist, including his tendency to “act whimsically,” to “change sides and betray” his comrades. However, at the same time, the film “glorifies [Custer] … and [the spectator] is inclined to love him even in all his arrogant heroicism.”
The protagonist’s adolescence also culminates in a bizarre act of self-sacrifice at the film’s conclusion. Earlier, Custer had valiantly sworn to protect the Native Americans in their land. However, after being unfairly demoted and learning that a small troupe of inexperienced soldiers is going to attack the Native American’s land, Custer illogically contravenes his promise to the Native Americans, summoning his own group of dedicated soldiers and attacking the Natives himself. His illogical decision to rejoin the military to fight the Natives evidences his childishness in wanting to be part of that which does not want him, in acting thoughtlessly against his oath, and in rejecting his commitments to his soldiers and to the Natives.
Impossibilities of Objectivism
“My philosophy, in essence is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of life, with productive achievement as the noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute” —Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (1957).
Defined during Walsh’s filmmaking years, Ayn Rand’s objectivist philosophy values self-interested productive achievement as the noblest activity. Walsh’s films evidence the social and personal prerequisites of any successful egotistic activity, which is at the foundation of Rand’s philosophy.
In The Thief of Bagdad, the hero only ever seeks his own personal happiness, is kind to nobody, expects holy figures to forgive indignities when he needs their help, and, as he says himself, “takes what he wants.” His selfishness is fruitful: at the film’s conclusion, he has won and married the princess and blissfully flies away on a magic carpet with her into the horizon. Without effective policing powers to catch his wrongdoings or a community for him to support, The Thief’s egotistic lifestyle flourishes.
Like The Thief, Jarett is an apotheosis of egotism. He considers only his own immediate happiness, which he also obtains from perpetual thievery. However, his fate is sharply antithetical to The Thief’s, as he is driven to insanity and self-destruction. Perhaps this is due to his dedication to his gang and to the cohesive policing power. Indeed, it is when Jarett discovers that one his gang members is a disguised cop that he begins to psychologically crumble, as though his sanity were somewhat subordinate to the functionality and solidarity of his gang. Further, with an effective law enforcement system, the egotistic thievery lifestyle is incompatible with a blissful life: rather than happily surviving like The Thief, Jarett is doomed to either perpetually run and hide or to live incarcerated.
They Died with their Boots On introduces a conflicting element of humanity to the purely egotistic life. The protagonist is at the mercy of both egotistic urges to pursue his own happiness and humanistic ones to care for others. This duality leads to irrational, unwarranted sacrifice. Custer’s conflicting desires both to please himself and to serve his country lead him to an illogical path wherein he and his comrades sacrifice themselves in a battle against the Natives. Had he been motivated solely by egotistic desires, he would surely not have gone into battle, leading himself to certain death. Similarly, had he acted solely for the care of his comrades, he would also not have gone into battle, leading them all to death. What is it then, that catalyzes him to brazenly sacrifice himself and his countrymen? Perhaps it is in an attempt to satisfy both selfish and benevolent desires simultaneously; considering that duality, a logical course of action is the one Custer takes. Although he leads his men to death, he glorifies his own name and does save the small troupe of soldiers that would likely have perished had he not intervened.
In an extreme way, Walsh’s three films evidence how Rand’s philosophy is practically impossible, since defining the heroic activity is a supremely subjective act. Indeed, The Thief, Jarett, and Custer all define their actions as a noble way to perpetuate their own wealth and happiness. In spite of any pre-existing moral or social framework that might exist, they inevitably define nobility as that which benefits themselves. Thus, the films evidence how the egotistical individual’s definition of nobility not only may be personally unsuccessful depending on social and personal circumstances, but also may be entirely detrimental to society.
Of the 170 films Walsh made, he was never once nominated for an Academy Award. Perhaps the Academy could not see past Walsh’s macho persona or his work’s superficial bravado. However, his characters’ underlying immature adolescence and the multiplicity of genres, cultures, and time periods his films explored suggest something more: they acutely reflect the possibilities and challenges of a philosophy defined during his working years. Art that attempts to inculcate its audience with philosophy easily can deter a spectator from engaging with the work. Walsh, however, said he wanted action, and that is indeed what he generously gave and what is most like to immediately attract spectators to his work. But between the explosions and battle scenes, there is a great deal of room for thoughtfulness, too.
This review was inspired by, “Action! Action! Action! A Raoul Walsh Retrospective”, at Harvard Film Archives February 1 – March 10, 2013. Due to popular demand, the Harvard Film Archives will be extending the retrospective later this spring.
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