John Wayne.

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.

yeah, i was surprised by it, too. bunny lake is missing is a masterpiece... until the ending, which is hasty and something of a letdown.

I like a lot of things in IHW and Bunny, but neither really works for me.

Two extraordinary things about Hondo, his OK 3D western directed by John Farrow:

He and Geraldine Page (her film debut) play really well together.

Wayne describes his character as part Indian. That has to be the only time.

Saw it years ago and, yeah, their pairing was odd and persuasive -- a bit like Wayne and Clift.

Just finished the Scott Eyman bio: excellent.

The above encouraged me to (re-)watch Wake of the Red Witch, which should be considered one of Wayne's better ones. He's terse and mean in this, perhaps uncustomarily cruel. It's a bit convoluted in construction and the action scenes are awkward, but the dialogue has a real bite to it. Gail Russell is not much of an actress but has a truly otherworldly look at least.

Took a look at Hondo also and one can see why it was a favorite of Wayne's. It seems to effectively condense his ideas about the West and it also looks great. Maybe a little too simple to be a great film though.

^carrying on...

Saw a 35mm print of Wake of the Red Witch (1948) last night at a (second) retro of Republic studio films restored by the Film Foundation; it was introduced by Martin Scorsese, who pegged it (occasionally quoting his cinephile pal Bertrand Tavernier) as a "heightened" romance with "a fight with a giant octopus" "influenced by the Brontes." (or, Wuthering Heights at Sea.) Luther Adler plays Wayne's antagonist, a South Pacific shipping magnate and romantic rival for Gail Russell, for all he's worth. Very strange, but certainly gives the lie to the idea that Wayne didn't play any unhinged sadists before The Searchers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMamNIofWBU

(rumor has it the rubber octopus was the one later stolen by Ed Wood)

thought this piece was superb:

https://lithub.com/on-john-wayne-cancel-culture-and-the-art-of-problematic-artists/

fabulous. thx for posting

Very good, and I didn't know the factual basis of The Searchers.

The fact that Wayne is dead makes the films less problematic for me. Also, the Rock Hudson story shows that there's ambiguity even in someone who professed opinions as vile as some of Wayne's.

well "he was one of the good ones", I assume

agree that the dead are less problematic, you aren't supporting them financially for one thing

Haven’t read the whole thing yet and am still more of a Red River than Searchers guy, but yeah.

herself ("she" for the strict anglicans) is just after reading didion's piece on him over several meetings around the filming of katie elder and was surprised by the gentleness with which she treats the subject

Damn that was excellent.

And like Mrs Dmac I was struck by the gentleness of the Didion interview too. Quite unexpected.

I like that

I wonder if Duke ever found out that Ford was likely bisexual (as Maureen O'Hara did)

When the Ward Bond rehabilitation comes I'm gonna kill myself

Feel like I just read something unsavory about him in Me Cheeta.

According to all accounts he was an obnoxious loud-mouthed reactionary asshole. Nobody liked him except for John Wayne, who was his bestie.

Good actor though

Just found this in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, by David Thomson:

But that begins to take us into his strange career as boaster, bully, boozer, and member of the unwholesome John Ford gang. As such, there are many stories about Bond’s stupidity, his uncouthness, and his being the butt of jokes—and sadly these are more entertaining than many of the films he made. Which is not to say that Bond was a hopeless case:

he made Wayne look like a mild Red-basher

I've given The Searchers about six chances; still think it's as overlit, broadly written and acted, and pokily directed as I did twenty years ago. I've given up because Ford and Duke made at least four better cowboy films less revered.

That has more or less been my experience as well

Speaking of Ward Bond, do yourselves a favor and don't do a deep dive looking into Walter Brennan. Hoo-boy, what an asshole...

with or without teeth?

Both!

5th-best Ford-Wayne western is still pretty good