John Wayne.

He was a big leggy, wasn't he?

Shouldn't that be 'Ally'?

Godard once said something like, "I hate J.W. when I see him on TV campaigning for Goldwater but I love him like family when I see him reach down and pick up Natalie Wood at the end of 'The Searchers.'"

Building the Duke, Film by Film

By TERRENCE RAFFERTY

JOHN WAYNE was born 100 years ago this month —“born ready,” presumably, because that’s what the men he played in the movies liked to say, and those men never lied. The whole point of the character Wayne embodied in something like 150 pictures, the overwhelming majority of them westerns and war movies, was that there was no mystery to him at all: What you saw was what you got, and if you didn’t like it, tough.

The Duke made pretty sure you’d like it, though. He once told an interviewer: “When I started, I knew I was no actor, and I went to work on this Wayne thing. I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint and a way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn’t looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. I practiced in front of a mirror.”

That self-invention, the shtick-by-shtick construction of the Wayne thing, turned out to be the only really strenuous exercise of creative imagination he’d ever need to perform. It worked, and it kept on working for nearly half a century; Wayne, conservative by nature, never saw any reason to mess with it much.

And 28 years after his death it still works, albeit less potently than it did in the years following World War II, when Wayne seemed to most of the planet the epitome of American virtue — or, at least, American power. He was large (a brawny 6 feet 4 inches), conscientious, forthright, open-hearted and dangerous when crossed. (He was also, of course, white and flagrantly heterosexual.) On the occasion of his centennial, though, let’s cut the big fella some slack, forget what he was supposed to stand for — back off, you fancy-pants sociologists — and celebrate instead the improbable durability of his appeal, which has managed to survive both his own death and that of the national self-image he willingly incarnated.

The home-video outfits that control most of the Wayne catalog have been furiously clearing their vaults, repackaging and gift-boxing previously released films, and preparing DVDs of the “special,” “deluxe” and “collector’s” variety, in an effort to catch what might be the last ridable wave of Dukemania in our lifetimes. (Marketers are born ready too.) Warner Home Video has a six-disc “John Wayne Film Collection,” which, enterprisingly, contains only movies that haven’t been on domestic DVD before, and you’ll know why. Paramount is issuing a hefty “John Wayne Century Collection,” consisting of 14 pictures, most from the later stages of his career. Lionsgate, which owns the rights to the early films he made for Republic, is offering a couple of four-disc gift sets and, with some duplication, half a dozen “John Wayne Double Features.” And Wayne fanciers may now purchase a new two-disc Special Edition of Howard Hawks’s “Rio Bravo” (1959); a Deluxe Edition of “The Cowboys” (1972); and a Special Collector’s Edition of “True Grit” (1969), which is also included in the Paramount box.

There’s no special — or deluxe, or even collector’s — reason to mosey out and fill your saddlebags with all this virile stuff. But if you’ve a mind to, and play the movies more or less randomly, you might find yourself kind of awestruck by the sheer ingenuity and adaptability of the Wayne thing: this jury-rigged contraption that somehow succeeded, with practically no maintenance and only the tiniest adjustments, in turning out the same product over and over again and always (well, almost always) leaving the customer satisfied.

I don’t mean to denigrate his acting ability: most stars of his era operated in a similar way, establishing a recognizable persona and deviating from it only under the duress of box-office decline or unfulfilled Oscar cravings. Wayne was unusual in the simplicity of his rugged-individualist persona — he was a living reproach to the very idea of complexity — and in the ease with which he wore it, like that battered, funky-looking old cowboy hat he sported in picture after picture.

And that ease is really quite an achievement, especially considering that for at least the last three decades of his screen life Wayne was representing the essence of American masculinity to the entire free world: a burden that would probably make most guys a little tense. The Duke, miraculously, seems never to have suffered from performance anxiety. He managed to look comfortable in his own skin even when that skin began to wrinkle and sag and to become, as it did in the ’60s and ’70s, more voluminous. Time isn’t kind to male action heroes; it exposes the vulnerabilities they’re not supposed to have. But when middle age hit Wayne, he took the punch and barely seemed fazed. It’s as if he believed he could lick time as he’d licked everything else that had come at him —Indians, the Japanese Army and Navy and all the many mean varmints with quick guns who’d tried and failed to put a fatal bullet hole in that weathered hat.

In some peculiar way his famous conservatism actually functioned as an aesthetic for him: He performed as if nothing, including John Wayne, ever would, or should, change. This is an odd principle for an actor; the ability to transform oneself is, at least theoretically, what the profession is about. And Wayne’s orneriness (we call it denial now) wound up producing a startling sort of disconnect between his screen persona and his creative practice. He always played the bold, two-fisted hero, but he chose his roles — and, in later life, often his directors and his co-stars too — with the cautiousness of a scared homesteader.

And yet. I’ve been speaking of Wayne abstractly because he was, by his own choice, something of an abstraction. But he couldn’t have lasted so long if he were no more than an idea. This distinctly mixed bag of centennial DVD issues and reissues serves as a useful reminder that Wayne was, for all his limitations, a remarkably vivid presence on the screen and at his best an actor of surprising dexterity. (“Subtlety” might be going too far; he’d probably consider the word vaguely effeminate anyway.)

One of the Lionsgate boxes features John Ford’s elegant, discreetly rousing “Rio Grande” (1950), in which Wayne gives a movingly restrained performance as an Indian-fighting cavalry officer trying to reconnect with a wife and a son he hasn’t seen for years. In John Farrow’s “Hondo” (1953), Wayne does a sensationally charismatic, slightly menacing, turn as a self-possessed loner wandering the West in the company of an evil-tempered dog. (The movie — whose hurtling climactic sequence was directed not by Farrow, but by Ford — is like a swifter, less self-conscious version of “Shane.”) And he’s fascinating to watch even in Richard Wallace’s sluggish “Tycoon” (1947), in the Warner collection, because his driven, obsessed civil engineer is practically a rehearsal for his driven, obsessed cattle rancher in Hawks’s “Red River” (1948), which proved to be the strongest performance of his career.

But the best way to understand John Wayne’s persistent popularity is to watch “Rio Bravo,” in which he plays Sheriff John T. Chance, defending his beleaguered jailhouse with the aid of a drunk (Dean Martin), a gimpy old man (Walter Brennan), a very young gunman (Ricky Nelson) and a shady lady (Angie Dickinson). He’s now on the wrong side of 50 and getting hefty, but he radiates good-humored serenity as he wrangles his motley crew of helpers, trades innuendo with leggy Angie and totes his rifle on his nightly rounds of the rowdy town. His trademark walk is looser-hipped than ever, the hat is pretty much a disgrace and he looks irresistibly happy. It’s a voluptuously, almost sinfully, relaxed performance, a kind of offhand apotheosis of the aging but still viable Wayne thing.

“Rio Bravo” is, like many Hawks pictures, an idyll, a neverland in which nothing matters except friendship, wit, sex and professional competence. The constant, testing question is “Are you good enough?” It’s a perfect setting for a fantastic, semimythological creature like the Duke to cavort in. Wayne may have started with a gimmick, but give him his due: For 50 years on the screen he was always — and in the full, Hawksian sense of the words — good enough.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Pretty patronizing stuff.

OK, so I saw a pic of him very early in his career and he actually was sort of hot at one time.

http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Mptv/1303/3930_0010.jpg

Not that one.

I'm a dedicated carnivore, but Wayne is too much beef for one mouth.

xpost to original years old post- i didn't like the quiet man movie because it wasn't true to the original story. quiet man was this wee tiny guy not 6' 5" john wayne. it soured me right from the beginning.

sorry if this has been covered already.

xpost

Alfred, I think Dietrich said the same thing.

kev, yer the only person I've encountered who's read it, or possibly the only who knew there was a story.

I read it in 9th grade -- a low-rent Dubliners kind of thing. Our teacher screened the movie. We were a little surprised that John Wayne made color movies.

Rio Bravo.
I have been drinking.
At 4 am.

^^ modified haiku form

they showed the 3D version of "hondo" in my town tonight! didn't go though: tickets were $55 (!).

SARRIS: Apropos of nothing at all, I just remembered a funny thing. Hawks was talking about a scene with John Wayne and Angie Dickinson in Rio Bravo. And John Wayne says something very cutting, very full of attitude towards her. And Hawks said, "You know, Wayne can't get away with that. I mean, he can't do that. He can't really project this kind of superior feeling. But Bogart can. Bogart can really insult a woman. He can really, you know, take her apart. But Wayne just—you know, he's too repressed to do that."

HASKELL: Well, he's gentler, really.

SARRIS: Yeah, he's much gentler.

HASKELL: Yeah. That's what's so ironic. All these liberals just hate John Wayne, and...

SARRIS: And they love Bogart.

HASKELL: ...they love Bogie. But Bogie is much more macho and arrogant in every way.

http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/bringing-up-hawks-20080925

Which was the other cavalry one, besides Fort Apache and Yellow Ribbon?

i just noticed that no one answered this five-year-old question! it's "rio grande."

I saw Patricia Neal on her TCM special say Wayne was an obnoxious diva the first time she worked with him, but she got along great with him on In Harm's Way. (he had a better marriage, she speculated)

One of the few man able to carry this off and not be sued.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4VKiqTO-xM

was watching big jake on tcm. what a fucking amazing actor this dude was.

from Bodanovich's review of the new bio:

Among the most interesting things I learned from this book are how well Wayne expressed himself in prose, how cogently he formulated his thoughts and what a good student he was. He had wanted, at one point, to be a lawyer, and the few writings Eyman quotes are quite impressive, especially because Ford liked to give the idea that his main star (whom he picked on mercilessly during shoots) was somewhat of an unlettered boob. One time, when I told Ford I was going to give Duke a book for a birthday present, Ford growled, “He’s got a book!”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/books/review/scott-eymans-john-wayne-the-life-and-legend.html?ref=books&_r=0

That guy Eyman is a pretty good writer. Recommend his book about the transition to the sound era.

Read the intro to this book right now and it definitely looks like a keeper. Don't know whether I search should recent book about The Searchers first.

Just came across this long piece on tcm about Woody Strode which contains some good stories about Wayne and Ford and is obviously interesting in itself.

Any love for John Wayne as Genghis Khan in the Conqueror? Reminiscent (in a specific way) of Sean Connery as the Arab lead in those couple of movies from the'70s: badly out of place accent meets absurd ethnic mismatch and both are ignored by whoever is making the decisions. I remember the writing being pretty busted as well. It's great

Guy who wrote the book on The Searchers calls this book "entertaining" in the Washington Post today:
http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/john-wayne-the-life-and-legend-by-scott-eyman/2014/04/04/f3cc6dc2-af84-11e3-9627-c65021d6d572_story.html
Link for tcm Woody Strode bio: http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/333896%7C0/Woody-Strode-8-5.html

Just came across this long piece on tcm about Woody Strode which contains some good stories about Wayne and Ford and is obviously interesting in itself.

― Tompall Tudor (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, April 5, 2014 11:34 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ford had the hots for woody strode

or maybe he had the hots for woody's trode, i can't recall

Searchers book is a Kindle daily deal today.

more on the book, and Duke's bank commercial shot by Haskell Wexler

http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/book-review-john-wayne-the-life-and-legend

Love how the bio starts off with that passage from The Moviegoer.

anyone seen this Ozark moonshine Technicolor drama (1941, Henry Hathaway)? With Harry Carey as Christ.

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/23975

^This is a surprisingly poetic and strange film, based on a quasi-religious best seller of 1907 (this was at least the third film adap)... The Wayne-Harry Carey relationship at the core is quite powerful, getting juice from the fact that HC was the John Wayne of the teens and '20s. Also Beulah Bondi plays a blackhearted matriarch instead of one of her warm ones, and Ward Bond fights JW eleven years before the famous one.

(there is a DVD in a Wayne set)

^^I'he got that (budget) set in a pile of the unwatched somewhere. Also includes The Conqueror, Jet Pilot, and a couple other westerns.

Ah yes...

$5:

John Wayne: The Franchise Collection (budget bundle from Universal; contains Seven Sinners (w/Dietrich), The Shepherd of The Hills (Wayne as a moonshiner), Pittsburgh (w/Dietrich & Randolph Scott), The Conqueror (oh yeah), & Jet Pilot (a semi-legendary nutso anti-commie feature helmed by Hughes/Von Sternberg, co-staring Janet Leigh as a comely Russian pilot/spy--Truffaut paraised it in The Films In My Life)).

― Mucho! Macho! Honcho!: Turn Off The Dark (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, July 3, 2011 10:10 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I hope it's a decent transfer, the color was KO even in a not-mint print.

These screengrabs look nice: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews22/john_wayne_american_icon_collection.htm#shepherd

Thanks for the ideas.

btw Ford was either slow or bullshitting when he said he didnt know JW could act until Red River. He's fine here.

Wayne's acting is pretty economical of postures, gestures, facial expressions and vocal inflections. They're easy to miss.

btw Ford was either slow or bullshitting when he said he didnt know JW could act until Red River. He's fine here.

― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, June 9, 2015 7:57 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ford was famous for insulting wayne (though not as much as he insulted ward bond) and i get the feeling that statement was kind of an insult above all else.

ain't that right, pappy?

Wayne has never been less than credible in every one of his major films (I guess The Alamo is major). Watching In Harm's Way for the first time during the holiday break, I was moved by how quiet and courtly he can be.

in harm's way is a great film

might be the only great film produced by a studio in 1965, actually.

tbh i think the idea that john wayne was a bad actor is mainly popular with ppl who have never watched a john wayne movie

and from decades of terrible imitations/lampoons.

in harm's way is a great film

― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Tuesday, June 9, 2015 10:09 PM

I like Bunny Lake is Missing but I thought Preminger's thread snapped with The Cardinal. I checked it out, ready to face some ponderosity, but no! The editing rhythm was beautiful and the elisions almost Ozu-like.

Very consistent, while TCM keeps programming films featuring actual Klansmen.

lol, Charles Coburn films tonight! look him up

Wait until they find out about Stumpy

not seeing any news about TCM cancellation

but i trust j.lu has her sources

http://www.tcm.com/schedule/weekly.html?tz=PST&sdate=2020-08-22

TCM.com hasn't said anything, but the message board regulars noticed.

Moreover, The Searchers is in the prime 8pm slot.

Watching Rio Bravo again (fourth time?), I'm struck by John Wayne's beautiful serenity. He's always observing the other characters, as an actor and as Chance. He's relaxed but wary. His best performance.

yes! a very thoughtful performance in a fairly rambunctious movie

I got into a dispute with a friend in the neighborhood yesterday when he told me that he never watches “those kind of Westerns,” because John Wayne was “a cartoon” and “not cool like Clint.”

I finally remembered that he had actually gone to film school but seemed to be one of those Film Bros we have talked about.

But not after I had already started to go full-on Ethan Edwards on him, saying “Maybe not according to what you believe, but according to what that Comanche believes!”

I misquoted it slightly. Time for another rewatch soon I guess.