It was largely a labor of love! It must have been or I don't see how everybody could have stuck it out through some of the experiences that fell to our lot in making The Covered Wagon.
Of course I mean by that, that everyone was so heart and soul in every other way vitally interested that they never dreamed of kicking in the face of almost unendurable conditions at times. And right here I want to pay tribute to a lot of people who were the gamest, the most loyal, that any man would want to be surrounded by.
Well, I'll try to sketch roughly some of the hard problems we had to contend with and which rendered the making of this picture different than any I ever before attempted and, I imagine, than anything anyone else ever attempted.
To achieve absolute realism new locations had to be found. The necessity of using buffalo, having wide reaches of country, almost unpeopled; of getting away from anything that smacked of the motion picture, so to speak, made this imperative.
So Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake was our first objective. There a herd of wild buffalo roves at will. In a great open space we built a camera stand like the prow of a ship with 8 x 8 timbers. Then the punchers herded the buffalo over the mountain and down past this stand. It took three days to get the bison to do this. They are contrary and insisted in splitting up in all directions. But at last the feat was accomplished. During these scenes several 'stunts' had to be performed- such as jumping from a horse to the back of a buffalo in wild flight. And this was done!
We lived- there were only men on this trip- in a former cowshed built in the days of Brigham Young.
It was now a tool house. Cots were placed there and facing a bitter wind from the Lake which we tried vainly to exclude with canvas, we attempted to sleep. Mostly we turned and twisted and had nightmares. But we got through it all right and returned to Salt Lake after almost losing the equipment when a squall struck the lake and the none-too secure boats almost capsized. We had chartered every craft on the Lake, as it was.
From here we traveled to Milford, Utah, where the rest of the company met us and then motored to camp, eighty-five miles away across two ranges of mountains and a couple of deserts.
"Motored!" That sounds so comfortable! Imagine the worst kind of a mountain trip; then the worst kind of a desert trip, with a few dry lakes and almost bridgeless arroyos thrown in for good measure and you get an idea what this little jaunt meant.
And we kept the road packed with autos all the time! One old chap who had a lonely ranch en route said he was thinking of moving because it was getting so "cramped."
Eight trucks a day carried supplies to the two or three thousand people in camp. Indians were transported with bag and baggage. Hundreds of head of stock; all kinds of foodstuffs, lumber-anything and everything, to say nothing of fifty carloads of equipment from the Lasky (west coast) Studio.
Came winds, blizzards, floods, heat, alkali dust- we had to work through it all. A great dam broke and the camp was all but inundated. We never stopped working. A heavy snow broke down tents and even the principal actors turned to and helped get 'em up again- that's what I mean by gameness and loyalty.
The trails, the road to Milford, were choked with snow. They broke a way through with loose horses and a steam roller.
Food ran low- nobody kicked while waiting for the new supply to arrive. The only grumbling was when inclement weather made it absolutely impossible to work.
All the wagons had to be made, rented or purchased- and the wagon train of prairie schooners was three miles in length.
Fort Bridger had to be built- a tremendous set; they even bought barns and houses and wrecked them to get lumber for this work.
The river fording was one of the hardest problems, and I admit I was happy when it had been done. The timbering of the wagon beds so that they would float was a tremendous job; then the cable arrangements to prevent possible loss of life if the wagons should get tangled and pulled under- it was a man's job, all right- and the men who worked on it proved they were he-men, every one of them.
The women were game, and the children- there were plenty of both in the big settler army. Exposure didn't seem to bring much sickness after all- there were no fatal illnesses- for which I am devoutly thankful.
It was in every way pioneering in picture work- we blazed new trails all the time. It was no one man job. Credit is due everyone concerned. And it was an experience that will never be forgotten never.
James Cruze, "Making The Covered Wagon," Film Yearbook 1924, pages 19, 21.
© 1997, David Pierce, on editing and revisions (if any)
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