Rooster Cogburn (and the lady) 1975

Think The African Queen out west and you've pretty much got this western summed up.

"Any deputy who shoots and kills 64 suspects in eight years is breaking the law not aiding and abetting it." Judge Parker.

"Now let's get this straight, Judge. Only sixty of them died and none was shot but in the line of duty or in the defence of my person." Deputy Marshall Rooster Cogburn.

That line of dialogue leads up to Cogburn's badge being revoked and when Rooster objects the judge tells him that he's gone to seed and that he drinks too much. Rooster then points out, "I ain't had a drink since breakfast." And proceeds to go back to the shack he calls home and drink himself stupid.

The west is changing and the modern world has no place for men like Rooster Cogburn however when an army troop are ambushed and killed Rooster is soon back on the job. Judge Parker has no option but to reinstate Cogburn to go after a gang led by Hawk (Richard Jordan), a one time associate of Cogburns.

Katherine Hepburn plays Eula Goodnight, a missionary whose father is shot down by Hawk's gang and her mission destroyed - that's one of the oddities in the movie - that Hepburn was sixty eight when she made this movie and the actor playing her father, Jon Lormer was actually only a year older at sixty nine. However when Wayne and Hepburn (who, by the way, were both 68) get together their chemistry means that we can overlook this small hitch.

Hepburn's character rides along with Cogburn in pursuit of Hawk's gang and , as with the character she played in The African Queen, is fond of spouting out passages from the Holy scripture at each and every opportunity. Rooster is not one for the Good Book but gradually he mellows towards Hepburn and the story becomes as much a tender love story as action movie.

The film was shot around Oregon and the Rogue River in Southern Oregon was used for several key scenes - the photography is wonderful and the film really comes into its own on a widescreen television - at the moment there is only a standard DVD version available but the transfer is pretty good and the scenery is clearly reproduced but one suspects a blu-ray hi-def print would look absolutely stunning. Hopefully with the new True Grit hitting cinema screens next week a new DVD issue will not be a long time coming, both in standard format and Blu-Ray.

That this was Wayne's penultimate movie and that his health was failing at the time makes the film all the more poignant and although I don't feel it's quite as good as True Grit, it is a worthy follow up. Wayne has an even better handle on the character of Cogburn that he did in the Oscar winning original.




Not his best maybe but it's another great movie by the greatest western star of them all and teamed up with Hepburn, another icon of Golden Age Hollywood, means that the film is essential viewing for anyone interested in classic cinema.

You won't see a better western in a lustrum - (in-joke there. Watch the movie and you'll understand.)

They sure don't make em like they used to.

God bless The Duke.

The Telegraph Trail

The Daily Telegraph newspaper starts today printing tokens that readers can send off to recive a John Wayne movie on DVD - there's a new film each day this week and follows on from this past  weekend when the newspaper gave away The Shootist on Saturday and The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance with the Sunday Telegraph.

Today's movie is Angel and the Badman.

The line up:
Tuesday - Winds of the Wasteland
Wed - Hell Town
Thurs-The Star Packer
Friday - The Desert Trail

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke

John Wayne passed away on  11th June 1979, a few short weeks after his 72nd birthday and the world lost maybe its greatest ever movie star. Whilst it is true Wayne could never achieve the venom of DeNiro or the laid back charm of Eastwood he did dominate the screen in every scene he appeared in - John Wayne, Number one - without a doubt!

And so the tribute closes with the inscription from the great man's headstone.


TOMORROW IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN LIFE
COMES INTO US AT MIDNIGHT, VERY CLEAN
IT'S PERFECT WHEN IT ARRIVES AND IT PUTS ITSELF IN OUR HANDS
IT HOPES WE'VE LEARNED SOMETHING FROM YESTERDAY

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Red River full Lux Theatre version with John Wayne

The Lux Radio theatre were famed for producing audio versions of leading movies, often using many of the original cast.

John Wayne and Walter Brennan both lent their voices to the Lux adaptation of Howard Hawks' Red River and you can download or listen to it HERE

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: The best and the worse

Wayne's list of film almost total 200 titles and for every classic there are at least three more total turkeys. The list below is merely a guide to the very best of these films. Lists, however, by their very nature are deeply personal and no doubt many will disagree with my choices.

TOP TEN ESSENTIAL WAYNE:
1- The Searchers - not only Wayne's best performance but the best western ever made.

2- Red River - an excellent trail drive western with Wayne giving an outstanding performance as the aged Tom Dunson - the actor was aged dramatically for the role.

3- She Wore a Yellow Ribbon - each of John Ford's so called cavalry trilogy are equally good but this one is in colour and Wayne is once again playing an old man.

4- The Quiet Man - this romantic comedy was something of a departure for Wayne but it has to be seen, if only for the fight scene towards the end of the movie. Wayne is excellent.

5-The Man who shot Liberty Vallance - This is basically James Stewart's picture but Wayne is excellent as second lead.

6-Rio Bravo - It was either this or El Dorado but I've always preferred this one.

7- True Grit - Wayne's Oscar winning performance is always wonderful to watch. This is also a great western for family viewing.

8-Stagecoach - even today this movie plays well and provided Wayne with his breakthrough.

9-The Shootist - Wayne's last film and a worthy swansong.

10- The Big Trail - This movie was a flop upon release but it really is a better picture than most people believe.


TOP FIVE WORTH WATCHING

Whilst these movies are not up to the quality of the Duke's finest films they are damn fine movies nonetheless.

1 - Chisum - mid period, western by numbers but it's all very enertaining. The climax is excellent.

2-Island in the Sky - A great adventure movie in which the Duke is the survivor of a plane crash

3-The Commencheros - Historically inaccurate, cliched but still entertaining enough viewing.

4- The Alamo - Directed by Wayne - over long and flawed but nonetheless a great example of pure movie making.

5-Rooster Cogburn - It's The African Queen out west but Wayne and Hepburn spark off each other.


TOP 5 BEST AVOIDED

1-The Conqueror - John Wayne as Gengis Khan - talk about miscasting.

2- Seven Sinners - Wayne and Dietrich are unable to save this one from monotony.

3- Donovan's Reef - Both Wayne and Lee Marvin are wasted.

4- Big Jim Mclain - Wayne seems asleep half the time

5- The Barbarian and the Geisha - if any film could do with being a lost title it is this one.

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke: J. D. Boggs

Johnny D. Boggs is a four time Spur Award winner and has also served as the President of the Western Writers of America - Booklist placed him among the best western writers working today. For the Archive's John Wayne weekend he has supplied the following piece which was originally written to celebrate the Duke's centennial year.

What’s an actor without writers?
    “Movies without great personal stories, don't mean anything,” John Wayne said in a 1971 interview.
    The same could be say about novels or short stories, the latter of which Wayne said “by their brevity can be turned into the best pictures.”
    John Wayne, the 1970 Levi Strauss Saddleman Award recipient from Western Writers of America, celebrates his centennial this year. Born Marion Robert Morrison on May 26, 1907, in Winterset, Iowa, he rose out of poverty to become an American icon, and almost 30 years since his death, remains hugely popular. Earlier this year, Time magazine ranked him as America’s No. 3 movie star.
    Wayne scored hits from original screenplays, but many of his films began as short stories and novels. Here’s a look at some of the writing that made him a star.
Stagecoach (1939)
    In 1937, Collier’s published Ernest Haycox’s short story “Stage to Lordsburg,” about a stagecoach of strangers, including a woman named Henriette who runs “a house in Lordsburg” and a vengeance-seeking man called Malpais Bill, traveling through Apache country.
    Saying it reminded him of 19th Century French writer Guy de Maupassant's short story “Boule de Suif,” director John Ford bought the film rights for $4,000 (Wayne would be paid $3,700). Dudley Nichols was hired to write the screenplay in which Henriette became Dallas (Claire Trevor) and Malpais Bill became the Ringo Kid (Wayne).
    Stagecoach, the first of several Ford films shot in Monument Valley, became a hit, earning two Academy Awards and making Wayne a star.
Red River (1948)
    Serialized in The Saturday Evening Post in 1946-47 as “Blazing Guns on the Chisholm Trail,” Borden Chase’s story about relentless Texas cattle baron Thomas Dunson (“A bull of a man. A brute of a man.”) and his foreman/foster son Mathew Garth caught the attention of director Howard Hawks, who wanted to make a Western.
    Hawks first went to Gary Cooper, but Cooper said Dunson was too mean for his screen image. Cary Grant also turned down the role of gunman Cherry Valance, saying the part was too small. Wayne, however, loved the part of Dunson, and Hawks landed newcomer Montgomery Cliff as Matt Garth and John Ireland as Cherry Valance. Chase turned his novel into a screenplay, with help from Charles Schnee, and Bantam released the novel as a paperback, under the new title, Red River, to tie in with the movie’s release. Hawks made one significant change in Chase’s story. In the novel, Dunson eventually dies from the bullet wound received by Valance, who is killed in the gunfight. The movie opted for a happier ending with Dunson and Valance surviving.
    Upon seeing Wayne’s performance, Ford said, ““I never knew the big son of a bitch could act.”
“Cavalry Trilogy” (1948-1950)

    In 1947, Ford noticed a number of short stories about the frontier cavalry appearing in The Saturday Evening Post. The stories were all written by James Warner Bellah, whom Ford had met in India during World War II.
    “Massacre” (February 22, 1947) became the basis of the first of Ford’s famed “Cavalry Trilogy,” with Frank S. Nugent handling screenwriting duties. Henry Fonda played martinet Owen Thursday while Wayne took the role of Captain Kirby York (Flint Cohill in Bellah’s story).
    For 1948 standards, Massacre would not do as a title, so a $100 prize was offered to the person who came up with a new name; Ford landed upon Fort Apache himself.
    In the next installment, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949), Nugent and Laurence Stallings adapted “War Party” (June 19, 1948) and “Big Hunt” (December 6, 1947). Wayne had a hand, too, actor Harry Carey Jr. remembers.
    “Every once in a while John Wayne, very tactfully, would make a suggestion to Ford without getting decapitated,” Carey recalls. “In Yellow Ribbon, it was Wayne that thought of ‘I’ll have a chaw if you don’t mind, sir.’ And Duke hands me the plug of tobacco and I take a ‘chaw.’ It’s when we’re watching the Indians torturing the bad guys that gave them rifles.”
    Wayne shined as aging Captain Nathan Brittles. Nugent and Stallings were nominated for a Writers Guild of America award, while Winton C. Hoch won the Oscar for cinematography.
    Rio Grande (1950) was based on “Mission With No Record” (September 27, 1947), which focused on Colonel D.L. Massarene (“Ruling the West and the regiment with it, with the iron hand of duty”). In James Kevin McGuinness’ screenplay, Massarene became Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke (Wayne), estranged from his wife (Maureen O’Hara) and commanding their son (Claude Jarman Jr.).
    Republic Pictures forced Ford, Wayne and O’Hara to make Rio Grande before the studio would green-light the movie Ford wanted to film, The Quiet Man (based on a story by Irish writer Maurice Walsh). Studio executives thought an Irish comedy would tank and wanted a Western to salvage the finances. Ironically, The Quiet Man was a commercial and critical success, winning Oscars for Ford and cinematography, and gave Wayne one of his most remembered roles.
Hondo (1953)

    On July 5, 1952, Collier’s published Louis L’Amour’s short story, “The Gift of Cochise.” Wayne bought the film rights for his Wayne-Fellows Productions, but L’Amour retained the rights to turn James Edward Grant’s screenplay into a novel. At first, Wayne planned on only producing the movie, but when actors Glenn Ford and Robert Mitchum bailed out, Wayne joined the cast.
    Grant changed the story significantly. Cochise became Vittoro. Angie Lowe’s daughter was deleted; her heroic husband, Ed, became a louse and a killer; while Ches Lane was reborn as Hondo Lane. Shot in 3-D and directed by John Farrow, Hondo earned an Oscar nomination for Geraldine Page, who played Angie. L’Amour had a hit, too, when Fawcett published Hondo with a blurb from Wayne, who called it the “best Western novel I have ever read.” L’Amour would also write the novelization of another Wayne movie, How the West Was Won (1962), from James R. Webb’s screenplay “suggested” by a Life magazine series.
The Searchers (1956)
    Alan LeMay’s The Searchers, serialized as “The Avenging Texans” in The Saturday Evening Post and published in book form by Harper & Brothers in 1954, received critical praise. “It’s stark, brutal, beautiful writing about a primitive era,” the Denver Post noted.

    Screenwriting duties went to Ford favorite Nugent, altering LeMay’s story -- Amos Edwards became Ethan Edwards, who, unlike Amos, survives the final assault -- while retaining the novel’s dark mood.
    “People were more deadly serious with that show,” Carey says. “Duke was into that role so much that even off the screen he seemed to carry the part of Ethan with him.”
    The Searchers proved only modestly successful in 1956, but has grown to be revered as, arguably, Ford’s best movie and Wayne’s greatest performance.
    “Wayne said it’s the best thing the old man (Ford) ever did,” Carey says, “and he was a pretty good judge of pictures.”
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
    Dorothy M. Johnson already had a Spur Award (for her story “Lost Sister,” 1956) and had seen her novella The Hanging Tree turned into a pretty good movie with Gary Cooper before Ford and Wayne teamed up to make their last Western together.
    Ford hired Bellah, assisted by Willis Goldbeck, to adapt Johnson’s short story, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” which had first appeared in Cosmopolitan in July 1949.
    The movie won a Western Heritage Wrangler Award from what is now the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and singer Gene Pitney scored a hit with the song, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” Written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, the song never made it onto the soundtrack, the same music used in Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). As Pitney said, “Go figure that out.”
The War Wagon (1967)
    Clair Huffaker had adapted many of his novels into movies, including Seven Ways from Sundown, Flaming Star and Posse from Hell, and was a well-respected Western writer who, the Los Angeles Times said, “drives his story home with a passion.” Huffaker had worked with Wayne on The Comancheros (1961), an enjoyable romp based on Paul I. Wellman’s novel, so Wayne asked him to adapt Badman.
    Badman started out in Ranch Romances as “Holdup at Stony Flat” before Huffaker expanded it into a 1957 novel. A heist story, lean and leathery like much of Huffaker’s fiction, Badman told the story of two brothers, Jack Tawlin and his double-crossing brother Jess, but the movie opted for tongue-in-cheek action and an oddball cast (Howard Keel as an Indian?). Instead of brothers, The War Wagon cast Wayne as Taw Jackson and Kirk Douglas as a gunfighter called Lomax.
    The War Wagon earned a Wrangler, and Wayne hired Huffaker to write the screenplay for his 1968 movie Hellfighters, of which co-star Katharine Ross said, “It’s the biggest piece of crap I’ve ever done.”
    No one, however, would call Wayne’s next movie a piece of crap.
True Grit (1969)
    First appearing in three parts in The Saturday Evening Post, True Grit by Charles Portis was published as a novel by Simon and Schuster in 1968.
    Told in first person by Mattie Ross, the novel chronicled a 14-year-old girl’s attempt to “avenge her father’s blood” by persuading one-eyed, ill-tempered, hard-drinking deputy U.S. marshal Rooster Cogburn to track down her father’s killer in Indian Territory. Mattie tells the story looking back on the events about a half-century earlier.
    Wayne loved the role of Cogburn, and loved the script by Marguerite Roberts, a bit of a surprise considering that Wayne had been one of Hollywood’s leading supporters of the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities in the 1950s, and Roberts had been blacklisted after declining to answer questions about her affiliations with the Communist Party.
    Yet Roberts loved Westerns, with screenwriting credits that included 5 Card Stud, Ambush, Honky Tonk and The Sea of Grass. “I was weaned on stories about gunfighters and their doings,” she said.
    The rest of the cast wasn’t so easy to fill. Mia Farrow and Tuesday Weld turned down the role of Mattie, and Wayne wanted Karen Carpenter to play Mattie, but the part went to Kim Darby. Elvis Presley was considered for the part of Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, but Glen Campbell signed on.
    Roberts stayed faithful to Portis’ novel, lifting much of the dialogue although deleting scenes detailing Mattie as a spinster and Cogburn’s 1903 death. Also, in the film version, Mattie keeps her arm and LaBoeuf dies.
    On April 7, 1970, Wayne took home his only Academy Award, beating out Midnight Cowboy stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, and Richard Burton (Anne of the Thousand Days) and Peter O’Toole (Goodbye, Mr. Chips).
    Roberts, who won a Wrangler and was nominated for a Writers Guild award but not an Oscar, followed True Grit by adapting Portis’ Norwood. She wrote two other screenplays, Red Sky at Morning from Richard Bradford’s great novel and Shoot Out from Will James’ The Lone Cowboy, before retiring in 1971.   
    On June 11, 1979, exactly 10 years after True Grit opened, John Wayne died of stomach cancer, making his last role even more poignant.
The Shootist (1976)
    Few writers could ever match the gift and range of Glendon Swarthout, a poet, playwright and novelist whose titles ranged from Bless the Beasts & Children and Where The Boys Are to The Cadillac Cowboys and They Came to Cordura.
    In 1975, Doubleday published The Shootist, a novel about a gunfighter dying of cancer in turn-of-the-century El Paso that won the Spur Award. 2007 Owen Wister Award recipient John Jakes probably describes the novel best in A Century of Great Western Stories: “The Shootist is one of the most important Western novels ever published. It completely destroys, then carefully rebuilds, the myth of the Western gunfighter ....”
    The script by Miles Hood Swarthout, Glendon’s son, and Scott Hale made one major change from the novel. Instead of Gillom Rogers being a punk who gives dying gunman John Bernard Books the coup de grace after a saloon shootout, Gillom (Ron Howard) throws away his gun in disgust after killing the bartender who backshoots the shootist. Books gives Gillom a nod of approval, then dies.
    Not that the screenwriters had any say in the matter.
    

Wayne had come under fire for The Cowboys (1972) in which the “boys” in the picture exact revenge on the killers of Wayne’s character. Turning kids into murderers didn’t go over well with some viewers. Wayne wasn’t going through that again, so Gillom Rogers was softened. Wayne also had his favorite horse, Ole Dollor, worked into the script, and the setting was moved to Carson City, Nevada.
    It all worked. Although only a modest success when released, the National Board of Review named The Shootist one of the Top 10 Films of the Year and the screenwriters were nominated for a Writers Guild Award.
    “If, God forbid, John Wayne should choose to end his incredible career right now,” Arthur Knight wrote in a The Hollywood Reporter review, “after more than 45 years in film, I can’t think of any more perfect picture to fade out on than ... The Shootist.”
    Jakes agrees, calling the novel “the perfect vehicle for John Wayne’s last movie.”

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke: Dave Lewis

Part six of Dave Lewis's look at the Duke's formative years.

We noted last time that John Wayne nearly lost out on the deal to remake old Ken Maynard westerns for Warner Brothers when they heard rumors of his drinking and womanizing. When Wayne heard this, he reportedly stormed into the Warner offices and said, “I know who told you I was drunk. I know who told you I chase broads. The man who told you that is a dirty liar. And you tell Harry Cohn if he says that about me once more in this town, I am going to knock his teeth so far back into his throat he will have to eat his meals with his neck.” Sounds like dialogue written for McLintock. Anyway, Wayne got the gig, receiving $1500 for each of six pictures. And he married socialite Josephine Saentz, whom he’d been dating for almost seven years.

The Big Stampede (1932) was a remake of the 1927 film Land Beyond the Law. Wayne’s co-stars for this one were Noah Beery and five thousand head of stampeding cattle. Wayne plays a deputy personally appointed by Territorial Governor Lew Wallace to bring the cattle-rustling killer of a New Mexico lawman to justice. He hangs around town pretending to be a drunk until recruiting a Mexican bandit and his vaqueros to help him catch Noah Beery. Refusing to go down without a fight, Beery stampedes the cattle and it’s up to the two Dukes (Wayne and his devil horse) to save the day.

In reviewing The Big Stampede, the Motion Picture Herald said, “John Wayne’s drawl and deliberate style of movement are fitted to effect a likeable picture, made-to-order for theaters that draw upon folk from and near the so-called open spaces.”

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke: The Bish

Paul Bishop, or Bish as he's known to friends, is a long serving officer with the LAPD. He's also a writer of note and keeps an entertaining blog HERE. - 

His police career has over twenty years experience in the investigation of Special Assaults (sex crimes). For the past eight years, his various Special Assaults Units have consistently produced the highest number of detective initiated arrests and highest crime clearance rate in the city. Paul has twice been honored as Detective of the Year. As a writer, Paul's byline has appeared in numerous national publications, and his short stories have been published in many anthologies. His previous novels include Shroud of Vengeance, Citadel Run, Sand Against the Tide, and Chapel of the Ravens. Chalk Whispers is the fourth novel in his Fey Croaker series, which includes Kill Me Again, Twice Dead, and Tequila Mockingbird. He has written feature film scripts and numerous episodic scripts for television.

So who better to look at the Duke's cop movies than our very own law enforcer?

THE DIRTY DUKE!

The Dirty Duke sounds more like a London pub than a possible John Wayne film role, but it could have happened . . . John Wayne as Dirty Harry?  Somehow, I don’t quite see it, and apparently neither could Wayne as he turned down the role.  However, after seeing the sensation Clint Eastwood caused as the title character, the Duke tried to rectify his misjudgment by making two tough cop films in a row – neither of which was a perfect fit.

First up was 1974’s McQ.  Wayne’s co-stars included Eddie Albert, Diana Muldaur, and Al Lettieri as the drug king Manny Santiago.

Shot in Seattle (the original setting for Dirty Harry before San Francisco stepped in), McQ further emulated it’s cinematic predecessors with a spectacular car chase reminiscent of Bullitt – only with Wayne in a green 1973 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am.  Steve McQueen would have been proud.

In the vein of, “Make my day,” Wayne’s one memorable line from the film comes after McQ’s car is crunched between two large trucks claiming, "I'm up to my butt in gas."  Somehow, it didn’t have the same cultural impact.

As Lieutenant Lon McQ (don’t ask), Wayne starts out on a Maltese Falcon note investigating the murder of his longtime friend and partner, Sgt. Stan Boyle. While the Seattle police brass think, Boyle was killed by counter-culture radicals, McQ targets crime kingpin Manny Santiago.  This difference of opinion leads to major flack from McQ’s superior, Captain Ed Kosterman (Eddie Albert).

So, what’s a tough cop to do?  Why resign, of course, and investigate privately, uncovering police corruption and collusion with drug czar Santiago along the way.  An actual unexpected twist is thrown in at this point with the confiscated drugs turning out to be nothing but sugar.

Ramping up the action, an attempt to assassinate McQ (because of his interference) brings on the car chase, the spectacular car wreck, more twisted discoveries of motive and corruption – including some nasty facts about McQ’s slain buddy – all bringing us to the climatic, cinematic, finale chase along a beach.

Through Wayne’s iconic presence, McQ tries to rises above standard police thriller status.  However, the aging and overweight Wayne – trying to move from cowboy to maverick detective – eventually does the film in.  By the denouncement, the man who has stood for all that is patriotic, can’t bring off the cynical turn of phrase to make his disgust with the venal institution of the police department a living entity.  In the end, we know we are watching Wayne – not McQ – struggle with an uncomfortable career direction.

Despite his appearance of being awkward in the maverick cop role, Wayne followed McQ with Brannigan.  Directed by Douglas Hickox, the British action film features Wayne as the title character – a touch Chicago detective sent to London to extradite American mobster Ben Larkin (John Vernon) – little more than a resetting of Eastwood’s Coogan’s Bluff.

Big Jim Brannigan takes on London – Chicago style!

In London, Brannigan is assisted by a local officer, Jennifer. However, before Brannigan can collect Larkin, the mobster is kidnapped, leaving Brannigan to spend the rest of the film running around London like a dog chasing his tail.  All of this bluster is, of course, accompanied by many fish-out-of water scenes as Big Jim Brannigan struggles with tiny tea cups and the restrained style of British policing.  Like a good episode of Dempsey & Makepeace, the Duke shows ‘em how it’s done American style.

With a contract out on his life, Brannigan brushes up hard against Scotland Yard’s Commander Swann (Richard Attenborough), who in his own way is not above getting his hands dirty – but is determined to keep up the running bit about not letting Brannigan carrying his big-ass American handgun.

The film’s action scenes are excellent, relatively cutting edge for their time, including a spectacular car chase through Battersea's Shaftesbury Estate, Wandsworth, and Central London, culminating in Brannigan jumping a yellow Ford Capri coupe across the half raised Tower Bridge.

The plotting in Brannigan is so overly complicated – involving double and triple reverses, a questionable kidnapping, and an assassin who keeps turning up like a wild card – the best thing to remember is everybody is after Brannigan, but they ain't gonna get him unless he goes down swinging. 

Instead of cracks about being up to his butt in gas, Wayne delivers a much better line in Brannigan when he captures a British hoodlum and asks,  "Now, would you like to apply for England's free dental program or will you answer my questions?"

Brannigan is much slicker than McQ, and Wayne comes out much better, but still not up to the level of his westerns.  Therein, however, is the crunch – at the time Wayne chose to star in McQ and Brannigan, the western was being eclipsed off the big screen and the choice was to change genres or stop working.

After his turns as a tough cop, Wayne would only make two more films – Rooster Cogburn and The Shootist.  It would have been nice if the sports jackets, fast cars, and very large handguns of McQ and Brannigan could have been exchanged for ten gallon hats, fast horses, and Winchesters.  The plots could have stayed the same, and both the viewers and Wayne would have been much happier with him up to his butt in horse manure.

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke: Dave Lewis

Dave Lewis is back again with the fifth part of his look at the early days of the Duke - hard to imagine Wayne was every a virtual unknown, which makes this series of articles particularly fascinating. And so over to Dave -

After his escape from (or sacking by) Harry Cohn at Columbia, John Wayne landed a supporting role in boxing film for Paramount, then made another 12-chapter serial, The Hurricane Express, for Mascot. Wayne was under a non-exclusive contract which at the time paid $150 a week whether he worked or not. Since these serials normally took less than a month to film, it was a good deal, especially since the average American took home about $21 a week.

Wayne's agent then hooked him up with Warner Brothers. The studio wanted to remake several of their Ken Maynard silent westerns into sound films. The Maynard movies had been relatively high-budget, with great action sequences and lots of extras. Maynard had been a fine stunt man, with a signature trick of dropping under a galloping horse, hiding until his enemies thought him gone, then swinging up the other side into the saddle. Warners planned to build the remakes around these impressive action scenes, filling in with close-ups and dialogue scenes. Since Maynard was then under contract to another studio (and getting a little paunchy besides), Warners needed someone new.

The studio liked Wayne for the part, but he almost didn’t get the job because of his reputation as a drinker and skirt-chaser. Still, they signed him up and dressed him in outfits matching those Maynard had worn in the originals. They also teamed him with Duke, a double for Maynard’s famous horse Tarzan. The first picture filmed was Haunted Gold, with spooky elements, so they decided to start the series with the second film produced, the more traditional Ride Him, Cowboy.

Ride Him, Cowboy (released in the UK as The Hawk) was a recycled version of Maynard’s 1926 film The Unknown Cavalier, based on a novel by Kenneth Perkins. The devil-horse Duke has been accused of murder, and Wayne saves him by proving he can be ridden. As Wayne sets out to catch the real killer (The Hawk), he’s framed as a murdering barn-burner and almost lynched.
 

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke: Ronald Reagan

courtesy of Readers Digest - October 1979

We called him DUKE, and he was every bit the giant off screen he was on. Everything about him-his stature, his style, his convictions-conveyed enduring strength, and no one who observed his struggle in those final days could doubt that strength was real. Yet there was more. To my wife, Nancy, "Duke Wayne was the most gentle, tender person I ever knew."

In 1960, as president of the Screen Actors' Guild, I was deeply embroiled in a bitter labor dispute between the Guild and the motion picture industry. When we called a strike, the film industry unleashed a series of stinging personal attacks on me - criticism my wife found difficult to take.

At 7:30 one morning the phone rang and Nancy heard Duke's booming voice: "I've been readin' what these damn columnists are saying about Ron. He can take care of himself, but I've been worrying about how all this is affecting you." Virtually every morning until the strike was settled several weeks later, he phoned her. When a mass meeting was called to discuss settlement terms, he left a dinner party so that he could escort Nancy and sit at her side. It was, she said, like being next to a force bigger than life.

Countless others were also touched by his strength. Although it would take the critics 40 years to recognize what John Wayne was, the movie going public knew all along. In this country and around the world, Duke was the most popular box-office star of all time. For an incredible 25 years he was rated at or around the top in box-office appeal. His films grossed $700 million-a record no performer in Hollywood has come close to matching. Yet John Wayne was more than an actor; he was a force around which films were made. As Elizabeth Taylor Warner stated last May when testifying in favor of the special gold medal Congress struck for him: "He gave the whole world the image of what an American should be."


Stagecoach to Stardom

He was born Marion Michael Morrison in Winterset, Iowa. When Marion was six, the family moved to California. There he picked up the nickname Duke - after his Airedale. He rose at 4 a.m. to deliver newspapers, and after school and football practice he made deliveries for local stores. He was an A student, president of the Latin Society, head of his senior class and an all-state guard on a championship football team.

Duke had hoped to attend the U.S. Naval Academy and was named as an alternate selection to Annapolis, but the first choice took the appointment. Instead, he accepted a full scholarship to play football at the University of Southern California. There coach Howard Jones, who often found summer jobs in the movie industry for his players, got Duke work in the summer of 1926 as an assistant prop man on the set of a movie directed by John Ford.

One day, Ford, a notorious taskmaster with a rough-and-ready sense of humor, spotted the tall USC guard on his set and asked Duke to bend over and demonstrate his ball stance. With a deft kick, knocked Duke's arms from his body and the young athlete on his face. Picking himself Duke said in that voice which then commanded attention, "Let's try that once again." This time Duke sent Ford flying. Ford erupted in laughter, and the two began a personal and professional friendship which would last a lifetime.

From his job in props, Duke worked his way into roles on the screen. During the Depression he played in grade-B westerns until John Ford finally convinced United Artists to give him the role of the Ringo Kid in his classic film Stagecoach. John Wayne was on the road to stardom. He quickly established his versatility in a variety of major roles: a young seaman in Eugene O'Neill's - The Long Voyage Home, a tragic captain in Reap the Wild Wind, a rodeo rider in the comedy - A Lady Takes a Chance.

When war broke out, John Wayne tried to enlist but was rejected because of an old football injury to his shoulder, his age (34), and his status as a married father of four. He flew to Washington to plead that he be allowed to join the Navy but was turned down. So he poured himself into the war effort by making inspirational war films - among them The Fighting Seabees, Back to Bataan and They Were Expendable. To those back home and others around the world he became a symbol of the determined American fighting man.

Duke could not be kept from the front lines. In 1944 he spent three months touring forward positions in the Pacific theater. Appropriately, it was a wartime film, Sands of Iwo Jima which turned him into a superstar. Years after the war, when Emperor Hirohito of Japan visited the United States, he sought out John Wayne, paying tribute to the one who represented our nation's success in combat.
As one of the true innovators of the film industry, Duke tossed aside the model of the white-suited cowboy/good guy, creating instead a tougher, deeper-dimensioned western hero. He discovered Monument Valley, the film setting in the Arizona - Utah desert where a host of movie classics were filmed. He perfected the choreographic techniques and stuntman tricks which brought realism to screen fighting. At the same time he decried blood and gore in films. He would say. "It's filth and bad taste."
"I Sure As Hell Did!"
In the 1940s, Duke was one of the few stars with the courage to expose the determined bid by a band of communists to take control of the film industry. Through a series of violent strikes and systematic blacklisting, these people were at times dangerously close to reaching their goal. With theatrical employee's union leader Brewer, playwright Morrie and others, he formed the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals to challenge this insidious campaign. Subsequent Congressional investigations in I947 clearly proved both the communist plot and the importance of what Duke and his friends did.

In that period, during my first term as president of the Actors' Guild, I was confronted with an attempt by many of these same leftists to assume leadership of the union. At a mass meeting I watched rather helplessly as they filibustered, waiting for our majority to leave so they could gain control. Somewhere in the crowd I heard a call for adjournment, and I seized on this as a means to end the attempted takeover. But the other side demanded I identify the one who moved for adjournment.

I looked over the audience, realizing that there were few willing to be publicly identified as opponents of the far left. Then I saw Duke and said, "Why I believe John Wayne made the motion." I heard his strong voice reply, "I sure as hell did!" The meeting and the radicals' campaign was over.

Later, when such personalities as actor Larry Parks came forward to admit their Communist Party backgrounds, there were those who wanted to see them punished. Not Duke. "It takes courage to admit you're wrong," he said, and he publicly battled attempts to ostracize those who had come clean.

Duke also had the last word over those who warned that his battle against communism in Hollywood would ruin his career. Many times he would proudly boast, "I was 32nd in the box-office polls when I accepted the presidency of the Alliance. When I left office eight years later, somehow the folks who buy tickets had made me number one.

Duke went to Vietnam in the early days of the war. He scorned VIP treatment, insisting that he visit the troops in the field. Once he even had his helicopter land in the midst of a battle. When he returned, he vowed to make a film about the heroism of Special Forces soldiers.

The public jammed theaters to see the resulting film, The Green Berets. The critics, however, delivered some of the harshest reviews ever given a motion picture. The New Yorker bitterly condemned the man who made the film. The New York Times called it "unspeakable ... rotten ... stupid." Yet John Wayne was undaunted. "That little clique back there in the East has taken great personal satisfaction reviewing my politics instead of my pictures," he often said. "But one day those doctrinaire liberals will wake up to find the pendulum has swung the other way.
Foul-Weather Friend
I never once saw Duke display hatred toward those who scorned him. Oh, he could use some pretty salty language, but he would not tolerate pettiness and hate. He was human all right: he drank enough whiskey to float a PT boat, though he never drank on the job. His work habits were legendary in Hollywood - he was virtually always the first to arrive on the set and the last to leave.

His torturous schedule plus the great personal pleasure he derived from hunting and deep-sea fishing or drinking and card-playing with his friends may have cost him a couple of marriages; but you had only to see his seven children and 21 grandchildren to realize that Duke found time to be a good father. He often said, "I have tried to live my life so that my family would love me and my friends respect me. The others can do whatever the hell they please."

To him, a handshake was a binding contract. When he was in the hospital for the last time and sold his yacht, The Wild Goose, for an amount far below its market value, he learned the engines needed minor repairs. He ordered those engines overhauled at a cost to him of $40,000 because he had told the new owner the boat was in good shape.

Duke's generosity and loyalty stood out in a city rarely known for either. When a friend needed work, that person went on his payroll. When a friend needed help, Duke's wallet was open. He also was loyal to his fans. One writer tells of the night he and Duke were in Dallas for the premiere of Chisum. Returning late to his hotel, Duke found a message from a woman who said her little girl lay critically ill in a local hospital. The woman wrote, "It would mean so much to her if you could pay her just a brief visit." At 3 o'clock in the morning he took off for the hospital where he visited the astonished child and every other patient on the hospital floor who happened to be awake.

I saw his loyalty in action many times. I remember that when Duke and Jimmy Stewart were on their way to my second inauguration as governor of California they encountered a crowd of demonstrators under the banner of the Vietcong flag. Jimmy had just lost a son in Vietnam. Duke excused himself for a moment and walked into the crowd. In a moment there was no Vietcong flag.
Final Curtain
Like any good John Wayne film, Duke's career had a gratifying ending. In the 1970s a new era of critics began to recognize the unique quality of his acting. The turning point had been the film True Grit. When the Academy gave him an Oscar for best actor of 1969, many said it was based on the accomplishments of his entire career. Others said it was Hollywood's way of admitting that it had been wrong to deny him Academy Awards for a host of previous films. There is truth, I think, to both these views.

Yet who can forget the climax of the film? The grizzled old marshal confronts the four outlaws and calls out: "I mean to kill you or see you hanged at Judge Parker's convenience. Which will it be?" "Bold talk for a one-eyed fat man," their leader sneers. Then Duke cries, "Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!" and, reins in his teeth, charges at them firing with both guns. Four villains did not live to menace another day.

"Foolishness?" wrote Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mike Royko, describing the thrill this scene gave him. "Maybe. But I hope we never become so programmed that nobody has the damn-the-risk spirit."

Fifteen years ago when Duke lost a lung in his first bout with cancer, studio press agents tried to conceal the nature of his illness. When Duke discovered this, he went before the public and showed us that a man can fight this dread disease. He went on to raise millions of dollars for private cancer research. Typically, he snorted: "We've got too much at stake to give government a monopoly in the fight against cancer."

Earlier this year, when doctors told Duke there was no hope, he urged them to use his body for experimental medical research, to further the search for a cure. He refused painkillers so he could be alert as he spent his last days with his children. When John Wayne died on June 11, a Tokyo newspaper ran the headline,
"Mr. America passes on."

"There's right and there's wrong," Duke said in The Alamo. "You gotta do one or the other. You do the one and you're living. You do the other and you may be walking around but in reality you're dead."
Duke Wayne symbolized just this, the force of the American will to do what is right in the world. He could have left no greater legacy.

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke: The Tainted Archive

There's no letting up - still to come in the John Wayne tribute weekend - the best and worse of John Wayne, there's more from Dave Lewis and Johnny D Boggs, past president of the Western Writers of America stops by. And if that's not enough  LAPD's finest, The Bish also pops in to give us his view on the Duke's cop movies.

And who but The Tainted Archive can boast Ronnie Reagan as a guest blogger??

And more...much more.

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke: Dave Lewis

Part four of Dave Lewis's look at the early Duke.

Two Fisted Law (1932) was based on a William Colt MacDonald story. In this one McCoy is a rancher who gets cheated out his ranch and prospects for silver until he can settle accounts with the villains (one of whom is crooked sheriff Walter Brennan). Wayne plays one of McCoy’s ranch hands (that's him on the lobby card above, looking wistfully on as McCoy gets the girl). The most interesting thing about Wayne’s role is that he plays a character named Duke. In Wayne’s next western it’s the horse who’s called Duke. How the name came back to Wayne is another story.

Most discussions of this film (and Texas Cyclone) tell us that Wayne disliked Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn. But they don’t say why. The book The Young Duke by Howard Kazanjian and Chriss Enss offers an explanation. Cohn had signed Wayne to an exclusive five-picture contract, apparently intending to use him as the lead. One of the films was a romantic comedy called Men Are Like That with silent star Lara La Plante (The film is better known as Arizona). Unfortunately for Wayne, Cohn was in love with Miss La Plante. When rumors flew that Wayne was having an affair with his co-star, Cohn called him on the carpet. Wayne was in love with another woman (a young socialite) and denied the affair, but Cohn didn’t believe him. Cohn got his revenge by sticking Wayne with small supporting roles (including those in Texas Cyclone and Two Fisted Law) for the remainder of the contract.

According to The Young Duke, Wayne’s final film for Cohn was The Drop Kick, playing a college football player who sells out his team (an insult to Wayne’s legacy as a USC football star). Great story, if true, but I can’t verify it. The Drop Kick was actually produced by Fox and released back in 1927, with Wayne as an unbilled extra. His only football drama for Columbia was Maker of Men, and I’ve found no other description of Wayne’s role.

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Simply the greatest western of them all

The Outsider

Quite simply the greatest western of them all, so said film critic, Barry Norman and I agree with him fully. Every great actor has a performance by which everything else is judged and for Wayne The Searchers is that movie - Think of any defining performance, DeNiro in the Taxi Driver, Brando in On The Waterfront, Orson Welles in Citizen Kane and Wayne's turn in The Searchers is equal to any of them.

John Wayne gave a peerless turn as Ethan Edwards and John Ford directed a movie that stands head and shoulders above any other western. It was a perfection of the genre and a film that it is doubtful will ever be bettered.

The film even managed to improve on it's source novel - Alan LeMay's The Searchers - by adding a prologue to the story in which we see Ethan ride into the Edwards homestead. Right from the start Ethan has an air of mystery about him and Wayne gives a fully nuanced turn and he is backed up by a perfect supporting cast which included Ward Bone, Jeffrey Hunter and Natalie Wood. To my mind Wayne has never been better - he plays Ethan Edwards with vigour and brings his tortured soul to the forefront; he is both darkness and light at the same time. It is clear that Ethan Edwards has been damaged by his war experiences and even when surrounded by family, as in the opening scenes of the movie, he is still very much alone. When he stands it is as if there is a force field around him that no-one can penetrate - though it is clear that someone once penetrated it and got close to him, but that someone is his own brother's wife and so Ethan Edwards must walk a lonely road. Is it in fact his niece he is searching for or is it his own daughter? And when he clutches the girl tenderly at the end of the picture is it because she reminds him of his own forbidden love or is she a direct result of that love? In the source novel the missing girl is clearly Edwards' niece but the film is  much more ambiguous.

Years in the saddle, years in searching

Many Wayne fans argue between this movie and Red River as to which is the best Wayne performance, but whilst Red River is an absolute classic with a stand-out turn from Wayne, The Searchers is in a class of its own. Stick the film on and look into Wayne's eyes when he screams the line at Brad and Martin after he confesses to finding Lucy's body and then I dare you to say, that he always played the same character.

It also helps that the film is spread out on such an epic scale with the Vistavision landscapes being nothing short of  breathtaking. The lighter moments are also perfectly balanced and slot seamlessly into what is in effect a dark dark movie. This is pure western noir with Wayne giving us an anti-hero of real substance.

There's real hatred in those eyes

You know I'm not sure exactly how many times I've seen this movie, but I can speak the dialogue line for line with the actors on the screen - I watch it at least twice a year and always enjoy it. And the more I watch it, the more I am amazed by its sheer brilliance. That Wayne never got a Best Actor Oscar for this movie is a perfect example of how the Academy are often blind to genre movies and that fact that they overlooked this classic - Best Actor that year went to Yul Brynner and Best Director went to Michael Anderson for the plodding Around the World in 80 Days - made a travesty of the entire system.

The Searchers is now widely regarded as the greatest western of the 1950s, ( arguably the genre's greatest decade). The tale of a loner searching for a missing daughter/neice has been remade scores of times (most recently in Mel Gibson's Edge of Darkness). But John Ford's darkly profound study of obsession, racism and heroic solitude was shamefully shrugged off when it first appeared. Though Ford was Hollywood's most honoured auteur, with four Oscars as Best Director, he got nothing when he made his masterpiece. The Academy also ignored the towering performance of John Wayne as the scarred Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards, who either, depending on the viewer's viewpoint,  exorcises his demons or surrenders to them in violent revenge. Wayne would finally get an Oscar for his assured but much less complex performance as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. 

 

But reward his most powerful role?

 

That'll be the day.

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke: Dave Lewis

Here Dave Lewis gives us the third part of his look at the Duke's early years.

Texas Cyclone (1932) was hardly John Wayne’s finest hour. But at least he didn’t have to play a corpse as in The Deceiver, or spend much of the movie in jail as in The Range Feud (both 1931). In the months since The Range Feud he’d had another small part in a football drama, appeared in two short subjects and starred as a carnival stunt pilot in the 12-chapter serial The Shadow of the Eagle. Now here he was back in a minor role in a B-Western, backing up Col. Tim McCoy. After snagging second billing behind Buck Jones in The Range Feud, he’s knocked down to fourth, and instead of playing the hero’s stepbrother, he’s merely one of several pals from Texas

As the posters proclaim, Texas Cyclone belonged solely to McCoy. On the 1-sheet McCoy’s face is as big as King Kong’s, and on the 3-sheet he towers over the landscape like Paul Bunyan. John Wayne is just a name in the fine print. Wayne finally got his revenge in a foreign DVD release, where he’s the star.

As the story opens, McCoy wanders into a town where everyone seems to know him, mistaking him for a man five-years dead. Even the dead guy’s wife is fooled. The widow, of course, is losing her cattle to rustlers, so Tim calls in Wayne and his other Texas pards to help. Violence ensues, and there’s a big twist at the end to make everyone warm inside. Walter Brennan is on hand as the sheriff. Wayne reportedly didn’t like Tim McCoy, but I like him just fine. He always has a twinkle in his eye, and the way he shoots a pistol--by pointing the gun barrel straight up, then snapping his wrist forward as he fires--just has to make the bullets go faster.

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke: Celia Hayes

Writer and memoirist, dreamer and adventurer, storyteller and gardener,   mother and military veteran,  Celia Hayes lives in San Antonio, Texas.  Here for the John Wayne Tribute weekend she asks, where have all the cowboys gone? Find Celia's corner of the Wild West Web HERE

There are boys enough in the movies now, all dressed up in costume and mincing around, waving the prop weapons in a manner meant to be intimidating. Generally they look a bit nervous doing so. They have light boyish voices, narrow defoliated chests, delicate chins adorned with a wisp of beard, and sometimes they come across as clever, even charming company for the leading lady or as the wily sidekick to the first name on the bill, but as hard as they try to project mature and solid masculinity they remain boys, all dressed up in costume pretending to be men. Even when they try for a bit of presence, they still project a faintly apologetic air. Imagine Peter Pan in camo BDUs, desert-boots, full battle-rattle and rucksack. It’s a far cry from picturing John Wayne in the same get-up. Where have all the cowboys gone?

You could not really describe John Wayne as movie-star handsome; neither could you honestly say that Robert Mitchum, Humphrey Bogart, Steve McQueen, Charlton Heston or William Holden were movie-star handsome. They had something more – magnetic physical presence. They owned a room, just by walking into it. They had lived-in faces, especially as they got older, rough-hewn, weathered and individual faces, broad shoulders, strong and capable hands, and total confidence in themselves – even when the plot necessitated a bit of self-doubt. They had growly, gravelly voices, and sometimes didn’t talk much at all. They even had enough strength and confidence to be tender – at least, when not everyone was looking. They and their like – of whom John Wayne was the epitome – were capable enough that even an equally strong and capable woman could breathe a sigh of relief when they walked in. Because, no matter how bad it was, they could cope, and they wouldn’t see her as a threat – and afterwards, they would be perfect gentlemen, either pitching woo or walking away, whatever the situation called for. With the current crop, one always has the lingering fear that in a rough spot, the strong and capable woman would be carrying them, metaphorically if not literally. This would never happen with John Wayne.

He was just one of many leading men from the 1930s on, but for three generations and more of moviegoers, John Wayne established the standard. Although he could wear a suit and tie, he did not look particularly comfortable in it; better in an open-collared shirt and bandana, Levi jeans, boots, a working-man’s clothes with the sleeves rolled up, or battledress utilities – and a weapon to hand that one would be absolutely confident that he would use, if necessary. He would not be particularly eager to use it – but he would, when pressed to a certain limit. That was John Wayne in his element, no matter what the title of the movie or the situation called for by the plot. Sometimes a loner, quite often not being able to get or keep the girl – but always a gentleman, almost always unfailingly polite to every woman, no matter if she were respectable or not, or even in the case of Maureen O’Hara, estranged by reason of plot device. The kind of understated tension in heroes of the old-movie – that capacity for violence leashed and kept under iron control is strangely endearing, and even reassuring, or at least it used to be. No matter what happened, one was certain that he would protect those he loved, felt loyalty towards or pity for, or even  . . .  just because it was the right thing to do. Damn, do I miss John Wayne and his kind, after watching so many movies lately, starring the pretty, beardless boys!

The only solution I could come up with was to create a handful of characters in the John Wayne tradition, and write about them, in my own books: strong, capable, un-self pitying men, and the women who come to stand shoulder to shoulder with them.

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke: Wayne McDonald

A new web site for John Wayne collectables has a variety of items for the John Wayne fan.

This new web site has several John Wayne and John Wayne movie themed items, ranging from a figure of him as one of his western characters, to items for daily use such as coffee mugs and beer steins, to wearable items such as caps and T-shirts with slogans.

The site also has background information about John Wayne, covering his rise from a film actor to that of a military and American idol.  In the middle of his career, he was able to select the roles he wanted to maintain and grow his off-screen image.  As his stature as an idol grew, he was able to maintain control of his image, including having sections of scripts rewritten to be congruent with that image.

The site also has descriptions of military equipment that have the John Wayne name associated to them, sometimes as a tribute to the equipment’s strengths, sometimes to the equipment’s weaknesses.

There is also a section describing various public locations named in memory of John Wayne, including airports, parks, public schools, trails, and more. 

Wayne McDonald is a former Chrysler employee, current real estate investor, and a member of the local Internet Marketing Club.  He is using what he is learning at the local Internet Marketing Club to build sites for himself and others.  He is continuing to construct and market an online vitamin store, a real estate site for himself and fellow investors, and new Internet marketing affiliate sites.

You can find the site HERE

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke: Dave Lewis

Dave Lewis gives us the second part of his look at the early years of the Duke -

Following his appearance in The Big Trail, John Wayne had parts in four non-westerns, playing a college student, an architect, an army lieutenant in love with his commanding officer’s wife, and a corpse. His next western was The Range Feud (1931), a Buck Jones picture. You’ll notice he got second billing, nosing out Buck’s horse Silver.

Buck plays Sheriff Buck Gordon (funny how often his characters were named Buck). He’s forced to arrest his stepbrother Clint Turner (John Wayne) for murder, then scramble to save him from hanging. Clint, you see, is accused of killing his girlfriend’s father, who is himself accused of rustling. Clint had plenty of motive, because the young lovers were from feuding families and forbidden to see each other. Romeo and Juliet on the range. Wayne and Jones remained friends until Buck’s death in 1942.

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND - Commie bashing

'I ran over to the students and I was just so angry and I said, "You stupid bastards! You stupid fucking arseholes! Blame Johnson if you like. Blame Kennedy. Blame Eisenhower or Trueman or fucking Roosevelt. But don't you blame that kid. Don't you dare blame any of those kids. They served. Jesus that kid lost an arm. I mean what the hell is happening to this country?"'

John Wayne talking about the time he accosted a couple of Vietnam protesters who had been jeering at a young Marine who had lost his arm in battle.

Wayne in Vietnam with the troops

Wayne was furious with the opposition to a war that he saw as necessary, and he felt he had to make a film that showed why America had to be in Vietnam - not a popular view but then Wayne, like all great men, would never waver from his own convictions. The actor visited Vietnam in 1965 and did a tour to boost the morale of the troops. One day the Duke came up against a bullet that had his name on it.

'I almost walked into a sniper's bullet that had my name on it. I heard the wind of the bullet whistle past my ear and I dove for cover, realising I had had a narrow escape.' John Wayne talking to Michael Munn in 1974.



When Wayne returned from Vietnam he was more than ever eager to make his Vietnam movie. He was filming The War Wagon at the time and as soon as the western wrapped he threw all his energies into The Green Berets - a pro-Vietnam movie that has been slated by critics and was ignored by the powerful counter culture. Nevertheless the movie showed the American soldiers serving in the unpopular war and when the critics tore it apart, they were not so much reviewing the movie but Wayne's politics - shame, on them.

The Green Berets may not have the best characterisation in the world and it may even be old fashioned, structured like the old World War II films in which the Nazis and Japs were depicted as evil personified, but it's a rousing adventure movie. It may have had far too much flag waving but the one thing about Wayne is that he would never criticise his country - not a bad measure of a man, when all is said and done.

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke: A C Lyles

JOHN WAYNE TRIBUTE WEEKEND: Hanging with the Duke: Ron Scheer

Ron Scheer's website, Buddies in the Saddle is essential reading on the Wild West Web. The site contains a lot of information on the early B-westerns and here he tells us of his love for those early Wayne B's and one film in particular.

I enjoy watching John Wayne’s B-westerns from the 1930s when he was not a “star” and far from being an icon. He threw himself into these low-budget action pictures with such energy and enthusiasm. They are best when there’s not a lot of dialogue but plenty of riding, chasing, fights, and shooting. The stunts, when they are daring and original, are often worth everything else in the film put together.

Sagebrush Trail (1933) is a good example. The plot could have come straight from a pulp magazine – and maybe did. Wayne plays an escaped convict who’s been doing time for a murder he didn’t commit. He’s come out West to find the actual killer. Hoping to get some leads on the guy’s whereabouts, he gets involved with a gang of train robbers who have a hideout in a cave in an isolated canyon.

The film also stars Lane Chandler, who was to have a long career as a character actor in Hollywood. The script allows the two men to meet and become friends, then to compete for the affections of the same shop girl. In typical B-westerns, cowboy pardners are foils of each other, and the good looking one gets the girl. These two guys are similar in appearance and character. In that way, it’s sort of an early buddy film. Wayne still gets the girl, but not until his brave buddy has died from gunshot wounds in his arms.

Also in the cast is the incredible Yakima Canutt, who was a champion rodeo rider and stuntman in Wayne's early movies. He also plays the leader of the gang. After a serious injury in the 1940s, Canutt went on to become a celebrated stunt coordinator, responsible for the chariot race sequence in Ben-Hur.

A highlight of the film is an unusual underwater scene in which Wayne hides from two pursuers while sucking down air from above through a reed. Canutt (doubling for Wayne) does rear mounts of horses with acrobatic leaps. He also performs a stunt with a moving stagecoach that I believe he perfected. Lying in the road, he lets the coach and team pass over him and then climbs on board, going up the back and onto the top where he draws a gun on the driver.

There are fistfights, chases, gunfights, and leaps from trees onto riders passing below. All is played out in the rocky, dusty terrain not far outside of Los Angeles, long since surrendered to sprawling suburbs and shopping malls. And the extras in these scenes often look like actual working cowboys, who came to the shoot that day in their own clothes and hats.

If you know even a little about filmmaking, you can appreciate the go-for-broke immediacy of these films, with one-week shooting schedules and limited budgets. When some clever idea of director and crew clicks for them or time has been taken to frame a shot nicely against a scenic background, you sense the heart that often went into these movies. And that is also part of the pleasure.

Sagebrush Trail  and a dozen or more other John Wayne B-westerns are available from netflix and amazon. Some prints are better than others, and often a modern-day music track has been added. But the good ones are a fun way to spend sixty minutes. Treat yourself sometime.