Admittedly, Mike Gemmell said military school is monotonous — unless John Wayne is there.

Gemmell remembers clearly the fall of 1959 when his headmaster at Jefferson College announced John Wayne would be shooting scenes of the film “Horse Soldiers” at the school.

And from there, it was a flurry of excitement for the then 15-year-old Gemmell.

“Back then, (John Wayne) was a god,” Gemmell said. “He walked on water.”

From the moment Wayne stepped out of his car at Jefferson College, Gemmell said Wayne was captivating.

“He was very charismatic. He’s just as you see him in movies — gracious, funny,” Gemmell said.

And not unwilling to interact with the lowly cadets who had a small spot in the film, he said.

“He would come out and watch us rehearse. He didn’t have to,” Gemmell said. “He mixed with the cadets.”

Jim Barnett, director of the historic properties division at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, said the scene that took place at the college was based on a true event during the Civil War.

“It involved the Virginia Military Institute where military students did participate in fighting,” Barnett said. “They used their artistic license to transpose that over here to Mississippi.”

Gemmell said Wayne was part of the Yankee army, which was acting out orders to attack Confederate lines through rear action forays.

“The only defense is the military school for boys,” Gemmell said.

So in the movie, the headmaster of the military school is urged to send its young students out to stop the Yankees.

And that’s where the Jefferson College students came in.

Gemmell said two weeks before the scenes were shot by Director John Ford, he sent out Jack Pennick, a pre-Civil War expert.

Pennick was charged with teaching the boys a new way of military marching and formations to match the period.

Also, the boy’s uniforms didn’t conform to the times, so one of the college’s housemothers and English teachers and women from the garden clubs banded together to hand sew new period costumes.

“There were 100 boys and everyone was hand fitted,” Gemmell said.

The two weeks dwindled down and led into the next six days of filming.

“The next thing I knew, the crews started coming to the campus,” Gemmell said. “John Ford was patrolling the place like he was king. And he was.”

One of the scenes shot in the movie was of the boys marching in front of the headmaster’s house, heading out to battle, but what Gemmell remembers best is the attack scene.

“They bused us out to a big field heading toward Brookhaven,” he said.

The boys were formed into two lines and told to march, kneel and shoot — that it was just a rehearsal.

Across the field, Wayne and the other “Yankee army men” were camped out.

Gemmell said the boys did as they were told, but were then ordered to “charge and get them Yankees.”

The boys took off running toward Wayne, shouting war cries with excitement.

Gemmell said Wayne and the Yankees retreated, but as Wayne rode off on his horse, he momentarily paused and waved his hat at the boys.

Gemmell recalls, with a laugh, a telegram that Wayne sent right before the boys were dismissed for Christmas several months later.

The telegram reads, “I send seasons greetings, gentlemen, to the only men that ever made me run, John Wayne.”

“Isn’t that great?” Gemmell said.

Months later, Gemmell finally watched “Horse Soldiers” and is able to pick himself out in the attack scene, because while he was running, he jumped over a log to pursue the charge.

Gemmell said filming was exciting, but that’s not all.

“First of all, there was no school,” he said. “And the catering was amazing.”

The boys ate pizza and steaks during filming.

“The novelty of being fed by a Hollywood caterer, it was exciting,” he said.

Also, seeing the inner workings of the movie industry was fascinating, too, from lighting and props to costumes.

“And plus, we got to look at beautiful girls,”

Gemmell said, which was a thrill for the teenage boys.

He said one time the leading lady, Constance Towers, made the mistake of agreeing to take a photo with several of the students.

“She got a lot of pinches,” he said.

Gemmell said the six days of shooting were unforgettable.

“I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time, and it’s something I’ll cherish forever,” he said.

And it’s memory he’s revisited time and time again, sometimes learning new things.

He said one of the actors in the film, William Holden, was unpleasant.

“He was sorry,” he said of the actor who was uncommunicative, grouchy and who kept himself isolated.

Gemmell, at the time, just thought he was a jerk, he said.

It wasn’t until six months ago that Gemmell found out why.

After watching “Horse Soldiers” on the Turner Classic Movie channel, the announcer at the end explained that Holden wasn’t feeling himself during the movie.

“The reason was is he was told he could no longer drink,” Gemmell said. “William Holden was apparently a heavy drinker. That’s what made him irritable and grouchy.”

Gemmell said anytime he wants to reminisce about his six years at Jefferson College, all he has to do is pick up the movie.

“I recognize all my chums,” he said. “It brings back fond memories of those guys.”

Across the city, and almost 30 years later, another film brought in another familiar face — Patrick Swayze.

Scenes were filmed at Stanton Hall for Swayze’s television mini-series “North and South.”

Mattie Jo Ratcliffe, co-chair of Stanton Hall’s governing board, said only the interior of Stanton Hall was used and, to make it historically accurate, producers changed some parts of it.

The show was based in Charleston in the 1840s and Stanton Hall is a Mississippi home built in the late 1850s so it was inevitable things had to change, Ratcliffe said.

“I remember the back door of Stanton Hall, they had to construct a door that looked more like Charleston,” she said.

The front library in Stanton Hall was used as Swayze’s office in the TV show, and the production company used all different furniture, moving Stanton Hall’s furniture out.

As a member of the home’s governing board, it was Ratcliffe’s job to make sure nothing was damaged during filming.

“We told them they could not put holes in the plaster, and somehow or other, they put in a punkah,” she said.

A punkah is an old-fashioned ceiling fan that hung over the dining room table and was manually operated.

“They had to have on in there but without putting any holes in the wall. We watched carefully,” Ratcliffe said to make sure they kept their promise.

She said it was surprising when they were able to hang a punkah without nailing it in.

“Hollywood can do anything,” she said.

Local residents would gather around to see a bit of action, but Ratcliffe said since production took place inside, the only time actors could be seen was around the dressing rooms and food tables.

“People would sort of gather and hang around the dressing rooms,” she said.

And visitors to the area after the fact were curious about the actors who traversed the halls of Stanton Hall.

“So many visitors and tourists would say, ‘We just want to know where Patrick Swayze slept,’” she said.