Johnny Dark Movie Book

31 In both instances, let me say, the people of Toledo proved exceptionally friendly and helpful. The hitch - hiking goes back to the days before I broke into films, when I was with a stock company which, somehow managed to reach as far west as Chicago. There the moribund troupe collapsed. Me along with it. I didn ’ t have very much money. Only enough for doughnuts and coffee, if I managed it right. So I began thinking of some way out. And I remembered an aunt who lived in Cleveland. That ’ s when I put my thumb to work – hailing cars. That thumb deserves an Oscar. It took me a long ways. Of course, there were dry spells, times when it seemed no one would give me a lift. But I remember that when I hit Toledo and was looking for someone to carry me on the next leg of the journey, the very first car that passed saw my signal and stopped to pick me up. Turned out that the driver was a native of Toledo, and he said he just couldn ’ t understand why anyone would want to leave the town for any place else.He wasn ’ t even going to Cleveland, he said. But as it turned out he made a special detour just to get me to my destination. Also bought me my meals along the way. I figured that if he was representative of the rest of the folks in Toledo, than it was, indeed, a fine community. Returning to Toledo, for the opening scenes of “ Johnny Dark, ” which is a racing car story, was another experience I ’ ll treasure the rest of my life. First let me confess that I ’ m a car buff – a guy who ’ s never happier than when he ’ s around automobiles. So when I heard that we were actually going to work inside of a car plant – brother, that was for me. The first day out at the Willys plant I think our director, George Sherman, must have felt he didn ’ t have an actor on his hands, but a plain, garden - variety rubbernecker. I couldn ’ t keep my mind on the picture, not with all the activity going on at the plant. Like everyone else, I ’ d always wanted to look in on an auto plant, and this was my big opportunity. Made me feel really important, standing on the assembly line and pretending that I actually knew something about putting a car together. Even after I ’ ve seen it with my own eyes, the whole business of fabricating a car and turning one out just about every sixty seconds seems completely incredible – a machine age achievement that just couldn ’ t be true. When Raymond R. Raush, the big wheel out at Wills, came down on the set one afternoon to watch us work, I was delighted to learn that even he, after many years in the business, was just as saucer - eyed about the assembly line as I was – that he likes to spend at least a few minutes of each day watching the men actually rigging the cars.