‘Unattainable’ Kirk Douglas ‘went berserk’ on set of Rock Hudson’s The Last Sunset
Having labored with previously blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo on Spartacus to nice success, Kirk Douglas employed the scribe to adapt Howard Rigsby’s 1957 novel Sundown at Crazy Horse.
The 1961 film title The Last Sunset would see the Hollywood star play fugitive Brendan O’Malley, who crosses the Mexican border and seeks refuge on the farm of his former lover Belle, performed by Dorothy Malone.
Meanwhile, US Marshall Dana Stripling, portrayed by Rock Hudson, arrives out of his jurisdiction to regulate O’Malley.
Kirk employed Robert Aldrich to direct the film, however the filmmaker doesn’t look again fondly on the expertise in any respect.
Years later, the director mentioned of taking pictures The Last Sunset: “That was a toughie. I found it extremely difficult personally to do the film. But in this business, you have to stay alive. You have to take subjects like this to make money to eat, to buy more properties and float another project.”
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The primary catalyst for his feud with Kirk was after the star found Aldrich had various writers staying with him on the Mexico set engaged on different initiatives.
Aldrich mentioned how the actor was upset that he wasn’t as targeted on The Last Sunset as he wished him to be. The director claimed: “He went berserk, he simply went loopy.” As a result, he sent the writers away to Mexico City.
The filmmaker found it particularly frustrating that Trumbo had written the script, but then left to go and work on Otto Preminger’s Exodus. And by the time he returned “it was too late to save it.”
He said: “Kirk was impossible. He knew the screenplay wasn’t right. The whole thing started badly, went on badly, ended badly.” However, Aldrich didn’t blame Trumbo for leaving to work on Exodus, saying he was “2000 per cent right” to do so.
Considering the Communist screenwriter was coming off the Hollywood blacklist after greater than a decade, he wanted to re-establish his profession.
Despite his points with Kirk Aldrich was impressed together with his co-star, saying: “Rock Hudson of all people emerged from it more creditably than anyone.
“Most people don’t consider him a very accomplished actor but I found him terribly hardworking and dedicated and very serious… if everybody on that picture, from producer to writer to other actors, had approached it with the same dedication it would have been a lot better.”