Maria Cooper Janis rEcalls Life
on The set of Garden of Evil (1954)
It was rare that my mother and I would join my father on location but it was Christmas time and we wanted to be together as a family so there we were in Cuernavaca, Mexico while the shooting was taking place in the nearby countryside and at the foot of the mountains. It was very rugged territory around Uruapan with a mixture of jungles, black volcanic rock, and sinister looking black sand. The director was a longtime family friend, Henry Hathaway, who had in fact directed my father in 7 previous films.
For the most part, we were all based in Cuernavaca and it was wonderful to be around the Hathaways whom I called Uncle Henry and Aunt Skip. Henry was a passionate and exacting director and the frustrations of this location drove him crazy. I’ll never forget one complex scene in particular. The “good guys” are trapped in a ravine with cliffs rising high above them, over 1,000 feet, creating a narrow escape route for my father and his team. Of course, the Indians did not like their territory being invaded by the “white man” and were not friendly.
The great dramatic shot was supposed to have my father and friends trapped in this ravine with the canyon walls looming over them. Hundreds of Indians on horseback were supposed to appear at the rime of the mesa. A great shot if they were lined up like the Rockettes. They were supposed to appear all at the once silhouetted against the blue cloudless sky.
This was not the day of cellphones. The walkie-talkies we had were not working and Henry was obliged to yell all directions through a gigantic bullhorn. But I guess the wind was blowing the wrong direction because Henry’s instructions seemed to be of no avail. The Indians who were supposed to appear all at once at the rim of the plateau didn’t seem to hear him and with retake after retake, there were only clumps of Indians, not looking very threatening - no dramatic effect at all. Henry yelled and cursed, turned crimson in rage – I was afraid a heart attack was imminent.
My father’s costars were Susan Hayward and Richard Widmark and were fun to hang out with after a day’s shooting and I had the pleasure of being part of the group and dancing with Mr. Widmark. One of the other costars made a bit of a scene off camera with Miss Hayward. One morning he appeared on the set with 4 deep, red, long, fingernail gashes across his cheek. The part called for him to look rather beaten up so the makeup woman did not have to camouflage too much.
My father loved Mexico – its people, their food and the wildness of its natural environments – and relished every time a film could be shot on location in that country.