Piddleville » John Ford

The romantic John Wayne

Bill Wren — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 11:53:41 +0000

It’s hard to think of John Wayne and romance at the same time. The image of one and the image of the other don’t rest well side by side; one seems to negate the other.

Hondo Lane and Angie Lowe (John Wayne and Geraldine Page).

Never one to be accused of political correctness, John Wayne’s films involving love often co-starred Maureen O’Hara, feisty but ultimately submissive.

Yet Wayne was in quite a few romantic movies and often they were very good.

In many, however, the romance wasn’t quite what we would consider our kind of romance.

Some just seem plain wrong. (See, for example, 1963′s McLintock!)

Many of these co-starred a feisty Maureen O’Hara in a contentious relationship that ended in slapstick battling, O’Hara coming out on the short end as the submissive woman.

The best of those is The Quiet Man, John Ford’s gem from 1952. It’s one of those movies you watch thinking, “That’s all wrong,” yet you love the film despite its questionable portrayal of relationships.

However, of all the John Wayne movies that were romances or involved romance as a major element, I think Hondo from 1953 is the clear winner because it is the most realistic, the most understated and most true.

The likely reason, in part, is because in the short list I made below it is the only one that is a drama, not a comedy. Of course, it’s also because it’s a very good movie.

The list below is off the top of my head.

John Wayne and romance:

Which ones have I missed? Let me know in the comments. Thanks!

The Missing (2003)

Bill Wren — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 21:31:53 +0000

Directed by Ron Howard

With a gathering of talent like director Ron Howard and actors Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones, you would expect the end result to be pretty darn good. And the movie The Missing is pretty darn good though it does have its problems, the biggest of which may be its length.

For myself, the length of a movie is irrelevant – it can be under 90 minutes long or it can run well over three hours. The problem arises when a film, regardless of its actual length, seems long. In other words, its the perception.

When it seems long, it is because it means we’re somehow not engaged as completely as we should be. This is where The Missing has a problem.

Because of where and when the story is set, The Missing appears at first glance to be a western. It’s story even suggests western with its surface similarities to older movies like John Ford’s The Searchers.

Cate Blanchett as Magdalena Gilkeson and Tommy Lee Jones as Samuel Jones.

But with its approach, themes and cinematography, it’s much more modern.

It’s as much a thriller as anything else. This may be one of the reasons it seems long – it appears to be several kinds of movies at once.

Maggie (Blanchett), a single mother of two daughters, works a farm in New Mexico. She’s also a “healer,” providing basic frontier medical help to the people in the area she lives.

One day a man who appears to be native arrives (Jones). It turns out he is her father. He wants to reconcile with her over their past but she rejects him and sends him on his way. (The woman’s background, which we learn as the movie progresses, explains this as it also explains her stoic, hard character.)

Some time after he goes, her daughters and several of the farm’s hands go out to attend to the cattle. They never return. Maggie goes to find out what happened and discovers a horrific scene.

Grief stricken Magdalena Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett).

She finds her youngest daughter but she learns quickly that the eldest daughter has been taken to be sold into prostitution in Mexico.

She’s forced to accept the aid her father can provide and so she, her daughter and her father set out to find the “missing” daughter.

This kidnapping aspect, and Maggie’s determination to recover her daughter, are slightly similar to Ford’s The Searchers. But where The Searchers is essentially a revenge tale told in the format of a quest, and is informed to a degree by the main character’s racism, The Missing is more about reconciliations, particularly between father and daughter.

And while there is some racism in Blanchett’s character, Maggie, it is nowhere near the key plot device it is in The Searchers. Here, racism is simply a way to illustrate how she feels about her father.

Where the movie bogs down is in attempting to do several things at once. It wants to show strong women within the context of the harsh realities of the early American west. It wants to present native Americans in a realistic fashion. It wants to be a thriller that, in a sense, riffs on western themes and settings. It also wants to be a bit mystical with its use of native American spirituality.

Taking on all these subjects slows down the film’s narrative. It seems to lose its focus in places.

Tommy Lee Jones is Samuel Jones / Chaa-duu-ba-its-iidan.

The spirituality aspect seems particularly ill-considered. It’s hinted at in the first act, used in part to develop Tommy Lee Jones’ character.

It becomes a more pronounced part in the second act where it’s used as an aspect of the native kidnapper Chidin, and also as a tool for Blanchett’s character arc.

In fact, in the second act of the film it appears to become a key, if not the key element of the story.

And then in the third act – poof! – it’s gone. It’s kind of used the way plants are as accessories to rooms. It provides colour and contrast but has no real importance to the story, though its use misleads us into thinking it does. It provides a fantastic, spiritual aspect, especially in the second act, and then is dropped for the film’s realism.

The movie actually begins with austere realism, weaves into a fantastic quality, then jumps back to its original realism. A bit confusing, to say the least.

Magdalena Gilkeson with her children.

Although Roger Ebert was bothered by what he perceived as the film’s awkward political correctness (and there is certainly some of this in the film), I found I didn’t really notice it – not like I did in, say, Whale Rider. But I do think the movie’s earnest intent to take on several issues and/or subjects, clutters it and creates a sense of extreme length.

Having said all this, however, I did enjoy the movie. The performances of all the actors were extremely good.

Blanchett and Jones don’t appear capable of giving bad performances, and the young women who played the daughters, Evan Rachel Wood as Lily and Jenna Boyd as Dot, really helped to anchor the movie’s credibility.

(We even get an appearance from Val Kilmer as a muddled army lieutenant.)

The cinematography is also wonderful. I don’t recall having seen a western, or western-informed, film with quite such a look. It’s oddly both stark and austere while also being brilliant. When colour is in a scene, it’s vibrant. Generally, clothes and background are more somber, earth tones. Yet everything stands out in great contrast. There are no sepia toned images here to suggest “age.”

Note on the DVD

The image on the disk is crisp, clean, brilliant. It’s very good. As for the special features, this is one of the better discs to get. While there is no commentary, the featurettes are numerous and almost all are focused on director Ron Howard.

He provides a great deal of insight into the film, his intentions, his experience with westerns and thoughts on westerns generally.

And nothing about special effects. (It’s not a special effects movie but I throw that last in because I’m am so tired of DVD features that go on and on about how they did special effects without providing any information about the story and the choices made.)

Is Hondo the definitive John Wayne movie?

Bill Wren — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 10:31:38 +0000

I don’t thing many people would argue that Hondo is the best of John Wayne’s movies. Similarly, I don’t many will argue against it being among his best both as a western and as a performance from Wayne. But if ever there was a movie that illustrated what John Wayne did onscreen, how he came across and essentially provided a definition for those words “John Wayne,” it’s Hondo.

Hondo (1953)

Directed by John Farrow

You don’t get more John Wayne than 1953′s Hondo. It’s a great Wayne western and that is surprising because it had two things going against it.

First is the fact that Wayne had his onscreen persona nailed by this time and the story almost seems to have been written with him in mind. The risk the movie had to play around with was avoiding becoming parody by turning character into caricature.

The second is the period the movie was made. At this time, Hollywood was crazy for 3-D and so the movie was made that way.

Unfortunately, by the time the film came out 3-D’s day in the sun was past and interest was on the wane (no pun intended).

John Wayne as Hondo Lane.

More to the point for us now is that there is an emphasis on foreground, and some specific scenes in the film that are designed to garner ooh’s and ah’s from a 1953 audience watching 3-D.

Today, especially watching it in standard two dimensional style, they feel awkward and anachronistic. Even silly.

Yet the movie manages to avoid turning Wayne into a caricature and doesn’t really suffer from its period 3-D fascination.

In fact, as I’ve seen stated elsewhere (Grant Tracey), this is probably the best John Wayne western that wasn’t directed by either John Ford or Howard Hawks. (I think Don Siegel’s The Shootist could be a contender, however.)

IMDb summarizes things succinctly: “Army despatch rider Hondo Lane discovers a woman and her son living in the midst of warring Apaches, and he becomes their protector.”

Hondo (John Wayne) approaching the farmhouse and Angie Lowe (Geraldine Page) and her son.

John Wayne plays Hondo Lane; Geraldine Page plays Angie Lowe, the woman with a son Lane comes across.

What evolves from that meeting is essentially a romance though in a western setting and with all the trappings of a western, including Apaches at war.

The movie works because it is rooted in a Louis L’Amour story that James Edward Grant turned into an almost perfect western screenplay — certainly perfect for John Wayne when it came to his character and the dialogue.

It’s aided by an Oscar-nominated performance by Geraldine Page and an equally good, though strangely so due to the odd casting, performance of Michael Pate as Vittorio, the Apache chief.

What we end up with is a movie that has the requisite western drama and action but also rich characters that reveal themselves unhurriedly. It is in Hondo’s nature to be a man of few words though, when he does speak, what he says is rich with meaning and is one with his actions.

Hondo Lane and Angie Lowe (John Wayne and Geraldine Page).

Angie, the abandoned wife with a child, is also vague — even deceitful in what she says — because she’s unsure of who this man is and she is alone, in Apache territory, with a son to protect.

The two discover one another slowly and are attracted in part for the respect they have for one another.

The end result is almost a template for a good western — strong story, strong characters, and a story arc that when it is completed feels that way: complete.

This is just one really good western and is definitely worth seeing at least once.

Is it the definitive John Wayne movie? I don’t think so. It may, however, be an almost near-perfect example of the definitive image of John Wayne that lingers even still.

(I’ve seen Hondo spoken of as being similar to another 1953 movie, Shane. But I think the similarity is superficial at best. They are alike in that there is a farmhouse and a stranger who comes upon it. The stranger is good with a good gun; the farmers are peaceful and domestic. Where the movies go from there is very different and there is little if any similarity in what the movies’ concern themselves with.)

Mister Roberts more drama than comedy

Bill Wren — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 13:29:14 +0000

Mister Roberts is a much-loved movie so I always feel bad when I say that for me it’s just so-so. I kinda like it; I kinda don’t like. It may be due to not being much of a fan of either Henry Fonda or Jack Lemmon. (My mother loved Jack Lemmon.) I admire Fonda more than like him.

On the other hand, I love William Powell. Fonda was probably the better actor but I’d watch a William Powell movie simply because Powell is in it, whereas with Fonda I’d probably ask, “What’s the movie?”

Mister Roberts (1955)

Directed by John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy

A very popular fictional story from the 1950s, Mister Roberts began as a novel by Thomas Heggen. It later became a stage play written by Heggen and Joshua Logan and starring Henry Fonda as Mister Roberts in over 1,000 performances.

It’s popularity was such that it was inevitable that Hollywood would turn it into a film, which they did, the screenplay written by Joshua Logan and Frank Nugent.

The film itself starred Henry Fonda and had not one but three directors — the credited John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy, and the uncredited Joshua Logan.

I’ve never seen this as a play but the film of Mister Roberts is often referred to in a misleading way because it tends to be spoken of in terms of comedy. I wouldn’t call it a comedy or even a comedy-drama. This is a drama with quite a few light, even comic moments. But it’s definitely not something I would call a comedy.

The story

Antagonists Captain Morton (James Cagney) and Mister Roberts (Henry Fonda).

The story is about a cargo ship (The Reluctant, aka the Bucket) and its crew in the Second World War suffering from the tedium and ignominy of being away from the action and, in the eyes of many of them, particularly Mister Roberts, being unimportant.

The ship is ruled over by Captain Morton (James Cagney), a self-promoting, self-interested tyrant. He is petty and indifferent to the needs of his crew, including their morale. Life on his ship is unexciting at best and he likes it that way.

Fonda’s Mister Roberts stands in direct contrast to him (and opposition): he wants to be in the action, sees the crews’ needs and is effective and efficient in a leadership role. The crew look up to him; they are contemptuous of their captain.

However, while the Captain and Roberts are antagonists and apparent opposites, they are very similar in one way: neither really sees or understands the crew and its the crew that is at the heart of the movie.

Mister Roberts is amused by, but doesn't quite "get" Ensign Pulver (Jack Lemmon).

Both Captain Morton and Mister Roberts are focused on themselves — the Captain with personal status in mind, Roberts on his personal contribution to the war. Mister Roberts sympathizes and empathizes with the crew, but he doesn’t quite get them (highlighted by his amused puzzlement over Ensign Pulver played by Jack Lemmon).

In the end, Mister Roberts finally does come to understand and appreciate them; the Captain does not.

The movie

Why three directors? The answers vary. John Ford began the movie and was replaced by Mervyn LeRoy either due to Ford becoming ill or Ford simply being replaced (some say due to disagreements with Henry Fonda). Josh Logan is said to have been brought in to re-shoot some Ford material the producers weren’t happy with.

Perhaps that is why the movie leaves me with a sense that it is close but not quite there when it comes to how well it works.

While the movie looks like a movie it feels like a play. I think this is due to certain stage elements and staging that are ported over from the stage version, such as the ongoing, “Now hear this. Now hear this …” announcements, the small potted palm and the way many scenes are staged (like the film’s ending when the letter is read).

It does make an effort to make it more cinematic, particularly with the second unit and location shots. By second unit I’m thinking of the ocean shots of ships going by (not so much second unit as stock footage of a kind, I think). I can’t help thinking this is a John Ford element, if not John Ford footage since he had been documenting the war as a director.

William Powell in his last film as Doc and Henry Fonda reprising his role as Mister Roberts.

But once a scene engages — characters enter; dialogue begins — the stage feel enters with them. I found it a bit off-putting, but that may just be me. There is also a period sensibility portrayed in the characters and in the film overall that makes the movie feel a bit anachronistic.

As much as I love the performers here — Henry Fonda, William Powell, James Cagney, Jack Lemmon, Ward Bond and others — the movie for me is a bit underwhelming given its reputation. I like it but it’s definitely not a favourite. It is said that both Josh Logan and Henry Fonda felt the film fell short of the stage production.

However, for many this is a much-loved movie and one of the best from the 1950s.

As a final aside, this was the last film appearance of one of my favourite actors, William Powell. He plays Doc, the father figure with wise counsel in the movie.

Mister Roberts (1955)

Bill Wren — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 12:49:40 +0000

Directed by John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy

It’s popularity was such that it was inevitable that Hollywood would turn it into a film, which they did, the screenplay written by Joshua Logan and Frank Nugent.

The film itself starred Henry Fonda and had not one but three directors — the credited John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy, and the uncredited Joshua Logan.

The story

Antagonists Captain Morton (James Cagney) and Mister Roberts (Henry Fonda).

Mister Roberts is amused by, but doesn't quite "get" Ensign Pulver (Jack Lemmon).

In the end, Mister Roberts finally does come to understand and appreciate them; the Captain does not.

The movie

Perhaps that is why the movie leaves me with a sense that it is close but not quite there when it comes to how well it works.

William Powell in his last film as Doc and Henry Fonda reprising his role as Mister Roberts.

However, for many this is a much-loved movie and one of the best from the 1950s.

As a final aside, this was the last film appearance of one of my favourite actors, William Powell. He plays Doc, the father figure with wise counsel in the movie.

The great and debatable Red River

Bill Wren — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 12:08:14 +0000

I really go on a ramble here about this movie, though it is more a ramble about John Wayne’s acting and speech pattern than the film. This is considered one of the great westerns by many and I would be among them. However, while I like Wayne in it and think it’s one of his best roles, it is not my favourite John Wayne performance.

Red River (1948)

Directed by Howard Hawks

‘I never knew the big son of a bitch could act.’
– John Ford –

I don’t if those words ever actually did stumble from John Ford’s mouth, but it is sometimes said that was his reaction to seeing John Wayne in Red River.

Slightly over a year later Ford’s She Wore a Yellow Ribbon would be released, and I don’t know how he could have made that without some belief in Wayne’s acting ability.

It doesn’t really matter.

What does matter is that John Wayne was a good actor, though it’s often easy to forget that when the Wayne image is so large and the number of films he made so many.

We also think of good acting in terms of drama. However, if you’ve ever paid attention to any of the comedies John Wayne was in, he’s equally good. He has great timing and great expressive reactions. But let’s get back to Red River …

John Wayne as a focused Thomas Dunson.

It’s deservedly considered one of the great westerns.

If, like me, you tend to associate John Wayne with John Ford, keep in mind he made something like five movies with Howard Hawks, at least two of which should be on any list of best westerns: Red River and Rio Bravo.

Red River is the story of a cattle drive. From IMDB:

“Tom Dunson builds a cattle empire with his adopted son Matthew Garth. Together they begin a massive cattle drive north from Texas to the Missouri railhead. But on the way, new information and Dunson’s tyrannical ways cause Matthew to take the herd away from Dunson and head to a new railhead in Kansas. Dunson, swearing vengeance, pursues.”

Dunson is played by John Wayne; Garth is played by Montgomery Clift in his first onscreen appearance. (Clift had had a good deal of success on Broadway prior to this.)

John Wayne and Montgomery Clift as Tom Dunson and Matt Garth.

Wayne has a an interesting role to play in the movie. He’s both hero and villain.

He starts out as a determined young man, leaving a wagon train to head out on his own to Texas with little more than a dream of raising cattle — a lot of them.

But even in this early stage, there is a hint of obsessiveness in his determination. Nothing matters — love, people, anything — only the dream.

Once he finds where his ranch will be, he establishes himself and the movie jumps ahead 14 years. (You’ll see Wayne’s Dunsun begins with a white hat. Once we jump ahead, it is black.)

Following the transition, we see Dunson has established his dream but now it is threatened. A lot more plays into the success of raising cattle than the raising of them. The economics of markets and transportation have an impact. That is what he is facing now.

In the face of this threat, he becomes intractable. He’s going on a cattle drive to Missouri. His terms for others to join him are black and white and unalterable. The further on the drive they get, the more focused and tyrannical he becomes.

His focus is very similar to Wayne’s Ethan Edwards in The Searchers.

Matt removes an arrow that has pinned Tess Millay (Joanne Dru).

And for me, The Searchers is one of the two movies I found myself thinking of after watching this movie, in terms of Wayne’s performance.

For some, this is their favourite John Wayne performance, even his best. But while I think it is among his best, for me it’s not the best and it’s certainly not my favourite.

This movie comes across to me as the first major articulation of the John Wayne we think of when we think ‘John Wayne,’ even though he’s a dubious hero in Red River. I find his performances in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and The Searchers better — they are definitely my two favourite performances.

Listening to John Wayne’s speech pattern in Red River, I could hear the Wayne we know but it seemed as if it wasn’t yet quite there.

He has an almost slow motion staccato quality in his sentences with a falling note to each, except the last. They go beat – beat – beat, or beat – beat – beat – beat, with the last beat a downbeat with a falling sound. There will be a series of two or three sentences like this punctuated by a final sentence that usually goes up.

John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in Red River.

Despite the staccato nature, however, there is a musical fluidity to his speech in his best roles.

In Red River, however, I find that music sometimes missing. There are times it came across to me as excessively flat as I waited to hear that final, punctuating line that goes up, but it isn’t always there. (I’m thinking particularly of a transitional scene where Wayne does a voice over.)

Of course, all of that is very subjective but it is how it came across to me. That perception may have been reinforced by the way Howard Hawk’s directs the movie in a very episodic fashion with a number of fade outs to fade ups as transitions, as opposed to something like cross-dissolves that can make a movie seem more fluid and of a piece.

The movie isn’t all John Wayne, however. There is much more, including the other major lead, Montgomery Clift.

I have to confess, I’ve never been a big fan of Clift. He always comes across to me as not-quite-there, somehow not on the same page as everyone else. That’s due to his natural style and his heavy dependence on his eyes. At his best, he communicates everything with his eyes — intelligence, doubt, love and so on.

For me, however, he just as often comes across as someone a bit doped up and out of it.

Montgomery Clift's eyes get a workout in Red River. And it works!

In Red River, though, I find he’s at his best. He plays a very quiet, thoughtful (and dangerous) Matt Garth.

You can see what he thinks, and feel his restraint, and know something is coming to a head and it is all in his eyes. He and Wayne make a great contrast here both in styles and roles.

Someone I rarely see mentioned in reviews of Red River is the young Mickey Kuhn, who plays the young Matt in the movie’s first act. He is brilliant in his scenes as a cocky but also frightened and traumatized boy. He’s in the movie only briefly, but he’s wonderful in his scene.

Lastly, there is the movie’s often discussed ending. Is it legitimate, or is it a Hollywood cop-out happy ending? I think it’s debatable to a degree but I have to side with the latter view. It comes about very abruptly and out of the blue and, ultimately, unsatisfying. As proof, I think you need at only look at the fact that is discussed to the degree it is.

Still, it is up for debate. It may be yet another of those things that has no objective answer, just our subjective response.

Hondo (1953)

Bill Wren — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:01:39 +0000

Directed by John Farrow

You don’t get more John Wayne than 1953′s Hondo. It’s a great Wayne western and that is surprising because it had two things going against it.

First is the fact that Wayne had his onscreen persona nailed by this time and the story almost seems to have been written with him in mind. The risk the movie had to play around was to avoid becoming parody by turning character into caricature.

The second is the period the movie was made. At this time, Hollywood was crazy for 3-D and so the movie was made that way.

Unfortunately, by the time the film came out 3-D’s day in the sun was past and interest was on the wane (no pun intended).

John Wayne as Hondo Lane.

More to the point for us now is that there is an emphasis on foreground, and some specific scenes in the film that are designed to garner ooh’s and ah’s from a 1953 audience watching 3-D.

Today, especially watching it in standard two dimensional style, they feel awkward and anachronistic. Even silly.

Yet the movie manages to avoid turning Wayne into a caricature and doesn’t really suffer from its period 3-D fascination.

In fact, as I’ve seen stated elsewhere, this is probably the best John Wayne western that wasn’t directed by either John Ford or Howard Hawks. (I think Don Siegel’s The Shootist could be a contender, however.)

IMDb summarizes things succinctly: “Army despatch rider Hondo Lane discovers a woman and her son living in the midst of warring Apaches, and he becomes their protector.”

Hondo (John Wayne) approaching the farmhouse and Angie Lowe (Geraldine Page) and her son.

John Wayne plays Hondo Lane; Geraldine Page plays Angie Lowe, the woman with a son Lane comes across.

What evolves from that meeting is essentially a romance though in a western setting and with all the trappings of a western, including Apaches at war.

It’s aided by an Oscar-nominated performance by Geraldine Page and an equally good, though strangely so due to the odd casting, performance of Michael Pate as Vittorio, the Apache chief.

Hondo Lane and Angie Lowe (John Wayne and Geraldine Page).

Angie, the abandoned wife with a child, is also vague — even deceitful in what she says — because she’s unsure of who this man is and she is alone, in Apache territory, with a son to protect.

The two discover one another slowly and are attracted in part for the respect they have for one another.

The end result is almost a template for a good western — strong story, strong characters, and a story arc that when it is completed feels that way: complete.

This is just one really good western and is definitely worth seeing at least once.

An imposing little Stagecoach from John Ford

Bill Wren — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 12:19:22 +0000

When you think of how long it takes to make a movie today, at least a Hollywood movie, it’s quite astonishing to find John Ford cranked out three pretty extraordinary movies in 1939. His “go to” guys in that period were Henry Fonda and John Wayne. (In 1939-1940, he made five films — three with Fonda, two with Wayne.)

The number of movies isn’t the amazing part, though it is notable; what is remarkable is the quality of those films. (The movies are Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Grapes of Wrath and The Long Voyage Home.) For many, that creative glut would be a career. With Ford, some of his best films were still ahead of him.

Stagecoach (1939)

Directed by John Ford

For what is essentially a simple western, Stagecoach is a pretty imposing little film. It’s daunting for all the film history associated with it, beginning with the introduction of John Wayne as movie star. (His first starring role was in Raoul Walsh’s 1930 movie The Big Trail. But it was John Ford and Stagecoach that made him a star.)

Interestingly, Wayne wasn’t the big star of Stagecoach. Claire Trevor was. She gets top billing and the movie is an ensemble piece, so no one character really dominates as they do in a “star vehicle.”

The movie also gave us Monument Valley, in Utah, which would afterward be forever associated with John Ford and be the quintessential “old West” landscape with its plateaus, mesas and buttes. And for many, this is the movie where Ford’s cinematic eye for people and landscapes — often low-angled shots; often sky dominated — is first seen.

Plateaus, mesas and buttes in Stagecoach (1939).

There is one shot in particular that I loved. The upper two thirds of the frame is cloud fluffed sky. The lower third is plateau with a mesa off to the right; nothing but dessert otherwise, but for a trail with the lonely stagecoach winding along it from right to left, small and vulnerable.

The story is simple enough and one that is standard fare now: a group of people on their way from here to there, in this case on a stagecoach, encountering and overcoming various threats along the way.

In this movie, the threat comes from Geronimo as the stagecoach is passing through hostile Apache territory.

Riding the stage with the marshal (George Bancroft) are the “proper” lady, Lucy (Louise Platt) and the banker (Berton Churchill) … and a number of social outsiders. The hooker, the drunk, the outlaw … all with stronger moral codes than those who make up the proper society from which they’re excluded.

We meet John Wayne as the Ringo Kid in Stagecoach.

Both Dallas (the hooker) and the constantly inebriated Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell) have been run out of town by self-appointed guardians of social mores.

Along the way, they meet up with the Ringo Kid (John Wayne), the outlaw. Though a disparate group and one at odds with itself, it is in working together that they make it to their destination.

As far as the story goes, the movie is nothing exceptional, at least not today. It’s significance is in what it means historically, as far as cinema goes, and John Ford’s directorial work.

Even though many of the things Ford did have since been copied and have become fairly common, the look of Stagecoach is still striking; more so when seen in its historical context.

"A powerful story of 9 strange people" - Stagecoach.

For any serious lover of westerns, this movie is a must.

Apart from being at the start of an extraordinary string of westerns from John Ford that cover decades, it also gives us that moment when the camera moves in on John Wayne’s face announcing, in no uncertain terms, “Meet your favourite star for the next forty years.”

Yes, John Wayne was around for a long time after this movie came out. It should also be mentioned that simply as a movie, this is one very good film.

(In this same year, 1939, Ford would also direct Young Mr. Lincoln and Drums Along the Mohawk.)

Stagecoach (1939)

Bill Wren — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 11:37:00 +0000

Directed by John Ford

Plateaus, mesas and buttes in Stagecoach (1939).

In this movie, the threat comes from Geronimo as the stagecoach is passing through hostile Apache territory.

We meet John Wayne as the Ringo Kid in Stagecoach.

Both Dallas (the hooker) and the constantly inebriated Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell) have been run out of town by self-appointed guardians of social mores.

Along the way, they meet up with the Ringo Kid (John Wayne), the outlaw. Though a disparate group and one at odds with itself, it is in working together that they make it to their destination.

As far as the story goes, the movie is nothing exceptional, at least not today. It’s significance is in what it means historically, as far as cinema goes, and John Ford’s directorial work.

Even though many of the things Ford did have since been copied and have become fairly common, the look of Stagecoach is still striking; more so when seen in its historical context.

"A powerful story of 9 strange people" - Stagecoach.

For any serious lover of westerns, this movie is a must.

Yes, John Wayne was around for a long time after this movie came out. It should also be mentioned that simply as a movie, this is one very good film.

(In this same year, 1939, Ford would also direct Young Mr. Lincoln and Drums Along the Mohawk.)

John Ford, John Wayne and Expendable

Bill Wren — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:05:35 +0000

Sometimes the release dates of movies can be significant. Get it wrong and you’re all in a muddle, as I was when I watched They Were Expendable.

The movie itself isn’t anything I would say you should rush out to see unless you’re a really big John Ford and/or John Wayne fan. The tone of it is curious, however, given the kind of movie it is and what it is about. Some movies are intriguing despite not being great films and that is the case with this one.

They Were Expendable (1945)

Directed by John Ford
I was very confused when I watched the war movie They Were Expendable because I thought it was from 1941. It turns out that is when the movie is set as it opens. My confusion evaporated, however, when I realized it was from 1945, though it is still an unusual movie that John Ford gives us.

Believe me, with this movie the year really matters – especially if you confuse it with four years earlier.

This movie was released in December of 1945. In World War II, Japan formally surrendered in September of 1945.

The movie is somber recounting of the early days of the war for the U.S., beginning with the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941.

Made with the approval and assistance of the U.S. Navy, Army and Coast Guard, it shows us the U.S. getting its behind kicked by the Japanese – starting in Pearl Harbor and continuing through the Philippines.

Battle scene from They Were Expendable (1945).

Audiences at the time of the film’s release, however, would be fully and completely aware of the end result of it all – victory in the Pacific; Japan’s surrender.

The reason John Ford shows us all the bad news from the war’s early days is because he’s telling the story of the PT boats – how their role in the war came about (they weren’t highly regarded originally), how they won respect and the sacrifices made by the crews that worked them. (The tagline was, “A tribute to those who did so much… with so little!”) However, the main character is really the boat itself.

The movie is a solemn tribute and sober homage but also full of patriotism which, appropriate to the period of its release, may strike a current day viewer as a bit much.

There are good action scenes in the movie as well as some interesting, almost noir-ish lighting in others. The movie itself appears to be in poor shape, at least on the DVD copy I have. I don’t know if any restorative work went into it but it doesn’t appear so given the scratches in a number of scenes. I’m a bit surprised it comes to use from Warner Brothers. It may have something to do with the lack of good original film materials. I don’t know.

John Wayne and Robert Montgomery in They Were Expendable (1945).

Overall, I can’t say this is a great movie. It’s a curious one, however. It’s worth seeing at least once, especially if you’re a fan of either John Ford or John Wayne. Just keep in mind this movie should probably be viewed as a propaganda work.

And maybe that is what makes it peculiar. It’s quite a bit of “Rah, rah!” about PT boats but seems to also want to be a solid drama and thus it acquires a bipolar quality.