My First Westerns di Joe Hamman Part 4 of 4

Round Up

#11

Spring 1978

One morning, the directors Messieurs JOURGEOU and VANDAL, called me in their office and asked me, to my great surprise, if I would like to return to the United States, to make Westerns. I accepted with enthusiasm. Everything was prepared accordingly, and I had to go to Tucson, a small town in Arizona, where there was already an cameraman and the director was Maurice TOURNEUR, a representative of the French firm.

At the beginning of August, 1914, I was shooting at St. Male, a NICK CARTER a boarding scene on the supposed yacht to take him to America, in pursuit of an international thief. The threats of World War I for which each one of us was affected for an optimism of command, had not slowed the actual filming.

But, the descending situation became more critical, a telegram from the director enjoined us to return to Paris as soon as possible. Goodbye beautiful projects. Two weeks later, I was on the battlefields of the Marne.

When I returned, it was no longer a matter of making Westerns, which the Americans pushed to perfection. Nevertheless, I took up my cinematographic activities in 1920, with the role of OURRIAS, the Guardian de Camargue of "MIREILLE", the poem of Frederic MISTRAL, of which Artheme DERVAES had shot a film. So I will stop at this date, to stay within the framework of this article, while recalling that from 1921 to 1955, I made fifty silent and talking films, as an actor, director, director of production and technical adviser.

What's left of my Westerns? There’s nothing more to know. Have they been destroyed, forgotten in some room? Is it a bad thing? I do not believe; is not it better to stay in They are Legend?

THE END