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Cowboys, Creatures and Classics: The Story of Republic Pictures

About two hundred miles north of Hollywood is the small town of Lone Pine. Almost at the dawn of motion picture making, the Eastern Sierra hamlet became a popular outpost for location filming. It offered scenery ranging from Sierra peaks to sand dunes. The mountain scenery there could double for the Himalayas, and the desert landscape could double for Salt Lake Valley. Lone Pine has proven to be as versatile as some of the most gifted actors performing on screen.

Movie cowboys from Hopalong Cassidy to John Wayne and Gene Autry to Rex Allen chased innumerable bad guys in the hills around Lone Pine. The cry of “Hi-Yo, Silver, Away!” still echoes through the canyon where the masked marvel and his sidekick Tonto rode. The songs sung by Roy Rogers can still be heard in the hills on quiet nights, and the report from shotguns fired by hundreds of celluloid outlaws ricochet off the ancient rocks.

Films requiring a foreign country’s rocky, desert landscape have been shot at Lone Pine. Even films depicting lunar landscapes have been shot on location there. Lone Pine has served as a supporting player of sorts for more than fifty studios for more than ninety years.

The first movie production came to Lone Pine in 1914. It was a William S. Hart western, but the name of the project has been lost to time. Historical records note that the town’s elders recalled only that it involved “a lot of riding and shooting” and that practically every able-bodied male in the community was pressed into service as either a member of law-abiding vigilantes or as one of the bad men being chased by Hart.

The 1920 silent film The Roundup, starring Rosco “Fatty” Arbuckle and Wallace Berry, was the first commercial production shot at Lone Pine. Locals loaned horses, wagons, and talent to make the movie. Lone Pine evolved from being a mining community when it was founded in 1865 to being one of the most favored spots to shoot motion pictures. Owens Valley in which the community is situated is regarded as one of nature’s masterpieces. Surrounded by massive ranges, it is not only one of the most richly endowed scenic areas in the world but also one of the most compelling.

Most of the actual filming at Lone Pine was either done on the desert bed of the valley, which is rimmed on all sides by towering mountains, or in the hills. From Lone Pine itself can be seen seven peaks more than fourteen thousand feet high, with Mt. Whitney reaching 14,496 feet into the sky. Nearby Death Valley, on the other hand, is 287 feet below sea level. There is snow all year on the mountain tops, and Palisade Glacier, the most southerly glacier in the United States, is less than sixty miles away.

Republic Pictures’ president Herbert Yates was enamored with Lone Pine and suggested the setting to film John Wayne’s first feature for the studio, Westward Ho. Wayne plays a character named John Wyatt who, at a young age, saw his parents killed and his brother kidnapped. Wayne’s character is leading a wagon train west when he meets up with his brother now working for the people who murdered their mother and father. The movie received high marks, and one of the reasons cited is that it was filmed on location and not on the studio’s backlot.

An article in the September 6, 1935, edition of The Times Recorder noted:

A saga of the Old West filled with wagon trains, herds of cattle, marauding bandits, and singing vigilantes, Westward Ho has all the ingredients needed for a successful outdoor, action picture. The story deals with a group of “Singing Riders” led by a young Westerner who protects the slow moving covered wagons against the onslaught of vicious desperados. Romance has its full share of the plot of Westward Ho. John Wayne, as the leader of the “Singing Riders,” fights successfully against terrific odds, but succumbs to the charms of lovely Sheila Manners.The photography of Archie Stout and the direction of R. N. Bradbury are outstanding. So too is the landscape where the magnificent film was made. Long after the movie has ended theatergoers will want to seek this idyllic spot out and linger in its beauty.

 

 

 

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A pair of frantic, disheveled riders race side by side down a dusty, sun-scorched path. Suddenly they plunge into a wooded area. Branches slap at them, but neither dares slow his mount’s gait. They break through the other side, each still jockeying for lead position. The rider barely lagging behind now extends his arm out to grab the young man inches from him. The young man spurs his horse along faster and pulls away from the man trying to catch him. Ahead in the near distance, the crude path ends abruptly, giving way to a rocky cliff with a raging river far below. The two riders continue on fast, unaware of the danger. The young man is the first to leap off the precipice, his horse still under him. The rider behind him doesn’t hesitate but pushes his roan harder. The two fly off the cliff with great speed and plummet into the water.

The daring riders find their way to the surface. They’re dazed, but alive. The animals are alive as well, and they scramble to the water’s edge and hastily step out onto dry land.

After fighting the river’s strong current, both men manage to reach a sandy bank and drag themselves out of the water. They are exhausted and drenched. The young man struggles to stand up and, once he finds his footing, hurries off after his horse. The cowboy that was chasing him hasn’t any strength left. He lies flat on his back on the bank staring up at the cliff where he dropped, contemplating how he could have survived such a fall.

That particular stunt was executed by legendary rodeo champion turned stuntman Yakima Canutt for the film The Devil Horse starring Harry Carey. Canutt was one of the most well-known members of the group of dedicated men and women who were willing to risk their lives for little pay and no screen credit—the stunt person. When a script called for rough and tumble action such as a fistfight, car crash, or jumping off a seventy-two-foot cliff into a ravine without a net or soft landing pad, a stunt person was required.

Republic Pictures had a stable of daredevils who lived to perform death-defying feats that kept audiences on the edge of their seats. Yakima Canutt and the other stunt staff revolutionized the art and helped make Republic features and serials some of the most exciting and profitable works in the motion picture industry.

Canutt appeared in more than two hundred films during his on-screen career, but he didn’t start out wanting to be in the movies. He broke horses and for a while was content with the work. Canutt was born in Colfax, Washington, in 1895. He attended school until he was twelve, and then he went to work full-time on a ranch. He won his first world championship cowboy award in 1917. Canutt became one of the best-known saddle and bareback bronc riders on the rodeo circuit. He was often among the top money winners in what was then the roughest of all competitive sports.

In between rodeos, he managed to break horses for the French government’s use in World War I. He then dropped the rodeo circuit temporarily to enter the Navy and served aboard a minesweeper. In 1919, he regained his world championship crown, the second of the five total he earned.

Canutt headed for the movies in 1923. He did forty-eight silent westerns before talkies took over. He didn’t have a voice for talkies, so he made the leap to stunt work. He excelled in the field. He and John Wayne developed a way to stage on-screen fights to make them look more realistic. Prior to the development of the choreographed screen brawl, the good guy and the villain threw unrealistic punches at one another and wrestled and flailed around. A Canutt screen fight involved positioning of the camera at angles to the participants, rather than straight on, and the camera would often face one of the participants. That camera angle gave the perception of bone-crushing punches landing on the jaw.

Not only did Canutt perform amazing stunts for the numerous pictures he was in, but he also choreographed stunt sequences for many movies in which he wasn’t a part of the on-screen talent. Some of the movies Canutt choreographed stunt sequences for included Flying Tigers, Spy Smasher, and Jungle Girl.

Canutt became a second-unit director in addition to stuntman and stunt coordinator. In that capacity he directed breathtaking action sequences of some of Hollywood’s most spectacular films; Spartacus and Ben Hur were two of those films. He also directed a number of low-budget westerns.

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On December 7, 1941, radios buzzed with news that several hundred Japanese planes attacked a US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, killing more than twenty-four hundred Americans as well as damaging or destroying eight Navy battleships and more than one hundred planes. Though it would be some time before people learned the full scope of the damage, within days a once distant war in Europe and the Pacific became a central part of life in the United States, affecting politics, business, media, and entertainment.

Hollywood went to war along with the rest of the country. Prominent actors enlisted in the armed forces; actresses joined the Red Cross and volunteered their services to the USO. Notable motion pictures executives took part in the effort, too. Darryl Zanuck from 20th Century Fox got into the Army Signal Corp., and Jack Warner of Warner Brothers was assigned to the Army Air Corp. Studio heads unable to join the military fought the battle from behind their desks producing films about the scene overseas and the gallant men and women protecting our freedom. By the summer of 1942, more than 125 pictures had been completed, or were in the process of being shot, that reflected war and its various angles or dealt with men in the fighting forces. Those pictures depicted the sterner side of the national and international war scene in not only dramas, features, and short subjects but also in comedies, cartoons, and even musicals.

Hollywood was instrumental in shaping the resolve of the American public during the gloomy days of World War II. President Franklin Roosevelt used American’s love affair with the movies to keep the public firmly behind the war effort. He was instrumental in creating the Office of War Information. The Office of War Information created campaigns to enhance public understanding of the war at home and abroad; to coordinate government information activities; and to act as a liaison with the press, radio, and motion picture industry. The Office of War Information was heavily involved in regulating Hollywood studios as they churned out war films at breakneck speed. Films like Warner Brother’s Confession of a Nazi Spy and 20th Century Fox’s The Purple Heart helped galvanize the American public against two brutal enemies.

Republic Pictures also contributed to the awakening of the country’s citizenship as to whom the fight was against and why. Republic’s Flying Tigers, also known as Yank Over Singapore, was released on October 8, 1942. The movie was a tribute to the American Volunteer Group of pilots who battled the Japanese against overwhelming odds long before Pearl Harbor. According to the November 15, 1942, edition of the Hutchinson News, “Thrills abound in the picture which is a continuous series of stirring air duels between the outnumbered Americans and the Japanese.”

John Wayne has the principal role as leader of the American Volunteer Group. Anna Lee is a nurse in a hospital nearby. Paul Kelly, John Carroll, and Edmund MacDonald are pilots. The Hutchinson News noted that “some of the fight and injury scenes are strong medicine.”

 

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In the beginning, long before computer-generated imagery, there were the Lydecker brothers. Using detailed miniatures, scale model vehicles, creative lighting, and camera techniques, the special effects duo revolutionized the moviemaking business and made Republic Pictures a force to reckon with in the film industry. The Lydeckers followed in their father’s footsteps. Howard C. Lydecker worked specifically for actor Douglas Fairbanks and was an early practitioner in special effects, including the filming of miniatures and trick photography. Theodore was born in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1908. Howard, also known as “Babe,” was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1911.

Theodore and Howard were enamored with the film business and went to work developing their behind the camera artistry in the mid-1930s. Prior to being hired at Republic Studios, the pair worked for a succession of studios including Columbia, Fox, and Mascot. When Herbert Yates acquired Mascot in 1935, the Lydecker brothers were part of the package. The siblings worked under John Coyle learning all they could about force perspective and visual effects. When Coyle left Republic in 1938, Howard and Theodore assumed leadership of the special effects department.

According to a 1942 memo from studio head Herbert Yates, the brothers were responsible for nine optical effects areas: montages; inserts; some main titles; added shots; construction of all props for process shots; the gun room; matte and glass shots; special effects including fire, water, rain, snow, smoke, and underwater setups; and miniatures. It was in the creation of miniatures that the Lydeckers excelled.

Howard and Theodore worked together on conceptualizing the small scale sets. Theodore would then draft the plans for the building and oversee the construction. Howard’s job was to film the miniature models of towns, spaceships, buildings, trains, automobiles, stagecoaches, and whatever else a script might call for. In a short time, the Lydeckers earned the reputation as the kings of special effects. The approach they took when preparing for a sequence was simple: build large, photograph the subject matter from every possible angle, and always use natural light.

In addition to using detailed models and filming sequences with the miniatures against real location backdrops, Howard Lydecker shot the scenes in slow motion. He realized that during such shoots, film ran through the camera at a higher speed than normal (determined by the scale of the models) and when projected at normal speed, the slow-motion effect gave the end product the right appearance of mass and size. Utilizing all the techniques the Lydecker brothers developed and subsequently perfected, the visual effects on the movies Republic Pictures produced were superior to that of any other studio.

The majority of the time, the special effects geniuses had a small budget to work with and that forced them to be creative. In the case of the first Republic serial Darkest Africa, the Lydeckers were tasked with creating an army of batmen that would fly in and terrorize the heroes in the story. Other studios would have been content to build small models and dangle them on the end of a thread and shoot against jiggly rear-screen footage. Howard and Theodore built more than two dozen clay and rubber figurines, each 3.25 inches long with wing spans of six inches. They suspended the figurines on a rigger and rotated them above miniature sets representing the backdrop in the script. For close-ups of the life-sized batmen flying through the air, they sculptured a hollow shell body from papier-mâché. Sheaves were then placed in the reinforced heel and shoulder areas to allow the figurines to slide gracefully along a pair of stretched wires.

 

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Republic Pictures was arguably the most important and influential studio in the history of the B movie. During the Golden Age of Hollywood, the studio flourished, and the low-budget commercial movies produced in mass made Republic a profitable concern. Herbert Yates enjoyed the financial reward for the B pictures his studio produced but lacked the respect studio heads like MGM’s David O’Selznick or Fox’s Darryl Zanuck had. It took a considerable amount of talent and innovation to make a B movie, and Yates employed an exceptional team of cinematographers, stuntmen and stuntwomen, and special effects artists to achieve the finished product. Despite the skill and invention needed to create the product, such films were generally considered inferior. Yates wanted to experience the admiration other film companies such as Paramount Pictures and United Artists received. It drove him to increase Republic’s feature film investments.

In the late 1930s, Yates decided to raise the status of the company. He wanted a better product coming out of the studio. He wanted to make an “A” picture. Yates needed a large budget, bankable stars, and a quality script to realize his vision. He believed he could begin gaining the respectability he longed for by developing a project entitled Man of Conquest. He poured considerable resources into the project. Man of Conquest, the fictionalized action biopic of Sam Houston, was Republic’s first A film.

Directed by George Nichols Jr. and starring Richard Dix and Joan Fontaine, the estimated budget for the movie was one million dollars. Man of Conquest was inspired by Marquis James’ Pulitzer Prize–winning book The Raven. New York film critics announced that Man of Conquest was a “thrilling drama skillfully splashed across a broad canvas.” The April 28, 1939, article found in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle praised the direction of the film noting that it “never loses track of its hero or allows its social message to become bigger than its story.” William Boehnel, film reviewer for the New York World Telegram, wrote that Man of Conquest was a “rousing, spectacular blend of Americanism and adventure which not only sounds the clarion call of freedom and democracy in high, resounding notes but related its message of liberty and the right of men to govern himself in a vigorous, colorful, thrilling manner.”

Herbert Yates was pleased Man of Conquest had done so well. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Art Direction, Best Sound Recording, and Best Original Score. The nominations were proof that Republic Pictures had what it took to develop a project to rival the bigger studios. Industry leaders acknowledged Yates’ effort, and he pledged to produce additional, bigger budget films. Those bigger films were to be done on a limited basis.

Yates was proud of the studio’s reputation for being a dominant force in serials. Not only was Republic good at it, but they also made a substantial amount of money, and financial success was even more important to Yates than respectability as an A movie studio.

Yates wanted to continue building the sales organization as well as creating bigger budget films. He believed a healthy balance of both would elevate the status of the company. In early 1939, he hired James Grainger, the former head of distribution for Fox and Universal Studios. Grainger immediately embarked on a series of meetings with theatrical distributors and exhibitors throughout the nation. He authorized the purchase of franchise distributors and established Republic’s own theatrical distribution system. Grainger was exceptional at his job. Within a year, he increased the number of exhibitors (theaters) to more than nine thousand. The number of theaters showing Republic Studios’ motion pictures grew even higher with each high-budget film and big-name cast member released. By the end of 1939, a mere four years after Herbert Yates founded the company, Republic was showing a profit of $4,742,175. Industry papers such as Variety and the Hollywood Reporter predicted the studio would “wind up a top flight major.”

 

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A dark figure weaves through a forest of imposing, leafless trees toward a weathered cabin in a clearing. An eerie mist blankets the ground, and a lone wolf howls in the distance. Inside the cabin, two men dressed in business suits and fedoras discuss plans to steal a counter atomic bomb device called the Cyclotrode. Their conversation is interrupted when the door of the structure is flung open and a madman wearing a skull mask and crimson robe enters. This is the Crimson Ghost, and the men deliberating over the robbery work for him. The Crimson Ghost is determined to get his hands on the Cyclotrode. The Cyclotrode cannot only stop nuclear missiles, but it can also cripple transportation and communications. The Crimson Ghost wants the invention for his own nefarious plans, including selling the device to foreign powers.

Two people know of the Crimson Ghost’s dangerous ambitions, and they are criminologist Duncan Richards and Diana Farnsworth, secretary for the professor who created the Cyclotrode. The duo is determined to stop the villain and his henchmen from taking the contraption and destroying lives.

Throughout the twelve-part serial named after the blackguard the Crimson Ghost, the duo matched wits and fists with the miscreant and his aides in an attempt to keep the Cyclotrode from being used for mass destruction. Duncan and Diana were threatened with death by explosion, poison gas, deadly slave collars, and death rays. Each of the episodes in the serial ended with a cliffhanger: a car plummeting over a cliff, a fire started leaving the heroes only moments to save the day, if at all, or a train bearing down on innocent parties.

The Crimson Ghost was just one of several “cliffhanger” serials produced by Republic Pictures that enticed audiences to return to the theater again and again to see if the heroes of the story won out or if the bad guy succeeded in thwarting attempts to put a stop to his diabolical intensions to obliterate mankind.

Republic’s stock and trade were cliffhanger serials—science fiction, mysteries, and the ever popular horror genre. Nat Levine, founder of Mascot Pictures and later a much-maligned executive working for Herbert Yates, is credited with the production of a cliffhanger. Writer, journalist, and film historian Ephraim Katz defines a cliffhanger as an adventure serial consisting of several episodes, each of which ends on a suspenseful note to hold the audience in expectation of the next.

Levine made a number of silent-film chapter plays that brought return business to the movie houses. One of the first was Isle of Sunken Gold. Produced in 1927, the adventure picture was about a sea captain who had half a map leading to a treasure buried on an island in the South Sea. The ruler of the island, a beautiful princess, had the other half of the map, and the two joined forces to battle a gang of pirates and a group of islanders who didn’t want anyone to get the treasure.

At Republic, Levine continued to create cliffhangers that excited and confounded moviegoers.

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Silence, intense and oppressive, gripped the moonlit expanse of the plains. The slight mist that rose from the ground gave vague and uncertain outlines to the rocks that studded the terrain like stolid sentinels. There was no breeze—no sound or motion of any sort to mar the perfect stillness. No sound, that is, except the steady clump of hoofs as a solitary rider moved through the night.

The rider was Gene Autry. He sat easily in the saddle, but the muscles of his tall body were tensed and his eyes warily alert. He couldn’t shake off an eerie feeling of impending trouble. Neither could he account for his anxiety.

Gene’s horse, a dark sorrel named Champion, seemed to share his rider’s disquiet. Champion trotted smoothly and swiftly through the night, but his ears were twin points and his nostrils quivered.

“What’s gotten into us, Champion?” Gene asked in a low voice as he leaned forward to pat the horse’s neck. “We’re as nervous as a couple of colts. Everything certainly looks peaceful. There’s not a living critter in sight anywhere.”

It was the first time Gene had ever felt the uneasiness. He had traveled countless miles in the dark of night with only Champion and the stars for companions. Because he had spent half his life in the saddle, complete solitude and trackless country were nothing new to him.

Gene had been a cowboy for as long as he could remember. He loved the wild, free life of the plains. He had tamed broncs, hazed cattle, ridden point on trail drives, bulldogged the toughest of steers, and won a dozen rodeo championships.

He knew the mountains and plains in all kinds of weather. He was familiar with every detail of the country through which he traveled. He could identify the call of every creature of the West, and he knew the name of every tree and shrub. He was completely at home in the moonlit silence of the night.

There was no explanation for the feeling of depression that had fallen over him like a shroud. He hadn’t felt that way at sunset. What was there about the darkness of this particular night that disturbed him?

Gene was heading for country where oil had recently been discovered. A week before, he had run into an old prospector just in from the oil fields. As he listened to the old man’s stories of the excitement of prospecting for oil, the suspense of drilling down through the sun-baked earth, and the thrill of watching the stream of “black gold” gush upward toward the sky, Gene decided to take a look at this new world of derricks and machines and grim-faced men.

Now, as he rode toward the oil fields, Gene Autry was on the way to greater excitement and adventure than he had ever known.

He started to whistle, but the tune quickly died away.

“Hang it all,” he muttered. “I can’t shake this mood. I guess I’ve been in the saddle too long. It’s about time to pitch camp and turn in.”

Ahead loomed a clump of trees, silhouetted as a patch of black against the sky. Though it was early evening, the rider decided to camp somewhere among those trees. As Champion brought him near the wooded area, Gene heard the sound of running water. Champion’s ears cocked forward at the rippling sound and Gene grinned in the darkness.

“That’s all you need to hear, eh, Champion? I can let the reins fall and you’ll head for that stream,” he said to the sorrel

Cool leaves of low branches brushed Gene’s face and the broad brim of his hat. Then Champion stopped abruptly, his strong muscles quivering. Gene glanced sharply ahead and gasped in surprise as his eyes met those of another man on a level with his own. The moonlight, slanting through an opening of the trees, fell full upon the other man’s face. For a moment, Gene Autry could only stare in disbelief. Then he realized the man in front of him was dead, suspended from the branches overhead by a noose about his neck. His feet dangled several inches off the ground.

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Herbert Yates, a tall, compact man in his mid-fifties, stood staring out the window of his magnificent office at Republic Pictures in Studio City, California, surveying the domain spread before him. A scene from a western film was being rehearsed in the middle distance. The usual, turbulent activity surrounded it: extras, makeup women, cameramen, grips, assistants, set designers, etc. Yates lit a cigar the size of a baby’s leg and held it tightly in his teeth. He took a long puff and blew the smoke out the corner of his mouth and checked the pockets of his charcoal gray, Brooks Brothers suit for the additional cigars he had tucked away. He patted them reassuringly, then rolled the fat stogie from one side of his mouth to the other.

Yates had acquired his taste for cigars while working as a salesman at the American Tobacco Company. Paired with a stiff bow tie, a receding hairline, and a dour expression, the cigar added a layer of seriousness to his persona. As head of a burgeoning, motion picture studio, he felt the look was necessary. He wanted to appear menacing. More often than not, his business approach was “never underestimate the power of good, old-fashioned intimidation.”

Herbert Yates founded Republic Pictures in 1935, but his history working in the movie industry began twenty years prior to the creation of the studio. Yates’ introduction to cinema came by way of a film-processing business called Hedwig Laboratories. He learned all about developing celluloid and relationships with some of the most profitable filmmaking executives in the field. He parlayed his knowledge into his own processing venture called Consolidated Film Industries. In a short time, Consolidated Film Industries became the leading laboratory in southern California. They processed negatives and made prints for the majority of movies produced by studios such as First National Pictures, Warner Bros., and Fox Film Corporation. Consolidated Film Industries proved to be extremely profitable for Yates, and he sought other areas of the industry of which to be a part. He acquired record companies and financed ventures for director Mack Sennett and comedic actor Fatty Arbuckle.

Within eight weeks of advancing funds to Sennett and Arbuckle, Yates received a 100 percent return on his investment. The speed in which his funds were replenished intrigued him. Yates saw the profit to be made in producing motion pictures, and it whetted his appetite for further opportunities.

 

 

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Not so many generations ago boys and girls of all ages flocked to movie houses across the country to watch gallant heroes in white hats outwit sinister bankers or corrupt government officials. They shrieked as lovely damsels in distress dangled precariously on a branch high above a yawning chasm. They cheered when the good guy rescued the frightened female and applauded when the villain in the black hat was hauled off to the hoosegow. Only a handful of Hollywood movie companies in the post-depression era produced such films and among those only one dominated the business – Republic Pictures.

Some of Hollywood’s most notable stars and best known characters of the 30s, 40s, and 50s rose to prominence at Republic Pictures. For nearly twenty-five years the studio produced Saturday afternoon serials starring such characters as Rocket Man, Dick Tracy, The Lone Ranger, Zorro, Captain Marvel and countless “cowboy operas” or singing cowboy pictures starring such well known figures as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. The studio helped launch the career of the legendary John Wayne, who made thirty-three films for the company, including such notable efforts as Sands of Iwo Jima, The Quiet Man, and the Fighting Seabees.

Under Republic Picture’s majestic banner of an eagle perched high atop a mountain peak, low budget, action films such as Spy Smasher and the Perils of Nyoka were made. Big budget motion pictures such as Macbeth and Man of Conquest were also produced by the company recognized as one of history’s most prolific studios. More than 1,100 movies were made by Republic Pictures during the twenty-four years the studio was in existence.

 

 

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Cowboys, Creatures and Classics: The Story of Republic Pictures