Dan Duryea by Mike Peros

Author:Mike Peros
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: 2017-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Still Smiling … and Yearning to Be More than a Villain

WHEN ONE THINKS OF THE CRUSTY YET AVUNCULAR SIDEKICK TO THE leading man—not to mention ostensible comic relief—the name “Dan Duryea” doesn’t immediately spring to mind. Nonetheless, he was cast alongside the stalwart, heroic Rock Hudson in the 1957 war drama Battle Hymn at Universal. The film was based on the life of Dean Hess, a Protestant minister turned World War II fighter pilot, who accidentally bombed an orphanage during that war. During the Korean War, he returned to active duty, providing food and shelter to hundreds of orphans, later airlifting them to an orphanage on Cheju Island. The veteran Douglas Sirk would direct, continuing his career resurgence with successful 1950s melodramas such as The Magnificent Obsession and All That Heaven Allows, and Sirk’s frequent star/collaborator Hudson was cast as the guilt-ridden Hess. Hess had been initially considered to play himself, but instead he was engaged as the film’s technical director; he also flew during some of the film’s combat scenes.

Since the role of the likable and fairly devoted sergeant is a character that one doesn’t normally associate with Duryea (the more likely Keenan Wynn had been considered), he was quick to tell the press how excited he was to land the part: “The cigar-smoking sergeant is the best role I’ve had in a long time, comic and sympathetic for a change … they say my movies don’t make money unless I’m a menace to society but I’ll bet on Battle Hymn being a box-office winner.” If you look at many of the quotes attributed to Duryea during this period, just about any role that offered a degree of compassion or complexity during this period encouraged him to deem the role “one of the best in a long time.” Yet Duryea could be very realistic about where he stood in the Hollywood pecking order. In an article with his byline, Duryea laments that “again and again since I’ve come to Hollywood, I’ve tried to break the pattern. I’d like to win the girl for a change. I’d like to play the sterling hero. I really would. But nothing—yet. The other day I ran into a director who always corners me at Hollywood parties with the damning question: ‘When are you going to do another picture like Scarlet Street?’”

Sometimes his screen persona would create some complications in his off-screen life. On location in Nogales, Arizona (doubling for Korea), for the filming of Battle Hymn, Duryea, having just phoned Helen longdistance, decided to put in an appearance at a cocktail party for the cast and crew. As Duryea later recounted: “There was a cute girl at the party. I had met her earlier, so I went over and talked with her for a while. In a moment, I felt eyes boring into my back and saw her boyfriend glaring at me. ‘Stay away from my girl!’ ‘Hey fella, you have me wrong, I’m only a heavy in the movies.’ He wasn’t convinced and quickly scuttled his girlfriend into a corner.

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