John Ford - S/D

you should be OK

i dont know of diff versions

The Iron Horse: stunning but not necessarily moving

3 Bad Men: same here, but both are enormously compelling, his composition is so perfect

Doctor Bull: my favorite of the Will Rogers pictures, genuinely very funny ("why are we staring at the cemetery? somebody get out?")

Judge Priest: very good but the DVD I watched was awful quality, need to rewatch. first "speaking to a dead loved one" scene?

Steamboat Round the Bend: underrated, the girl is great. there's an amazing moment where an angry mob of Confederate vets salute a mannequin of Robert E. Lee with utmost seriousness, feels like a classic Ford image.

The Prisoner of Shark Island: more than any other, Ford's influence on Ingmar Bergman is so clear here: shadow of Lincoln's dying face through mesh door, Mrs. Mudd revealed in the reflection of the bulletin board door condemning her husband, arrow pattern of the water as the boat draws closer to Shark Island.

The Grapes of Wrath: it's reassuring to know that "Oscar movies" haven't changed much in 80 years

How Green Was My Valley: so immersive and painterly, unlike TGOW, which is much more stark and barren

3 Godfathers: nice but overlong and not as good as 3 Bad Men

Wagon Master: more than any other film here, this one really invites multiple viewings... a distillation of running themes that is somehow more elusive than any other film here

The Sun Shines Bright: very good but the brutal racism here and in Judge Priest is really hard to get past for me, like the parade march is clearly a moving scene but watching that dude (and Rogers earlier) call black men "boy" throughout the movie makes it hard for me to get swept up

The Long Gray Line: the most bizarre discovery of this run, one of the most structurally unusual films I've ever seen, the first 90 minutes are the type of sentimental slapstick that sunk The Quiet Man for me, but once the clock really starts moving the momentum of the movie really has a powerful effect... this movie is the final shot of Fort Apache expanded into a ~135 minute movie. pretty great

Sergeant Rutledge: another outlier stylistically, it doesn't have the look of a Ford picture, feels shockingly modern. love the old ladies. Ford's preference for shooting as few takes as possible fails Woody Strode here, he's consistently compelling but there are a handful of really bad takes that sort of break the spell of his character for me

and I will watch The Fugitive before LV, only because it was one of Ford's favorites (along w/ TSSB and WM)

The Grapes of Wrath: it's reassuring to know that "Oscar movies" haven't changed much in 80 years

damn, it's not my favorite but you're so rong

it's a great movie, stylistically unique and truly evocative of a barren America, but it's a message movie with long speeches, otherwise anathema to Ford.

The Grapes of Wrath has directly been cited as one of the earliest examples of what we now know to be an "Oscar movie." (Inaccurately, I'd say; The Crowd was a best picture nominee at the first Academy Awards.)

i think Grapes is better than the book (and the Steppenwolf stage version i saw about 30 years ago)

oh it's much better than the book even though Steinbeck is too unfairly forgotten these days

The book develops quite slowly and lays a very broad foundation under the Joads' story that the movie couldn't possibly replicate. I can see where the slow pace of the book is completely out of synch with contemporary audiences, who can encompass the film much more easily, but Steinbeck's version was a whole education compared to the movie.

yes, it's a more sweeping social panorama, but such are the two media

I'm assuming Ford was more judicious about what pages he ripped out of the script of Grapes. I haven't read the book, but the movie seemed faithful to a fault to the text, but again I'm assuming he didn't really have a choice with such a major book.

another thing that struck me about Grapes was how much of it was shot on sets with backdrops - it counterintuitively makes the landscape feel so huge and empty, unlike any of the movies shot in Monument Valley where the landscape is so inviting and postcard ready. the America of Grapes is practically post-apocalyptic

the America of Grapes is practically post-apocalyptic

The Great Depression really was an apocalypse for millions of Americans. Try to get ahold of Wild Boys of the Road for an even more post-apocalyptic movie.

I know, I specifically meant the mis en scene of the movie - he really pulls it off in creative ways. very limited use of sound, too. lots of quiet wind throughout. I'll check out Wild Boys of the Road

not entirely faithful

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath_(film)#Differences_from_the_novel

If I remember tomorrow evening I'll check out The Grapes of Wrath.

In the meantime, in the last several weeks I have seen:

1) The Informer: Drastically inferior to the 1929 Arthur Robison silent version. Between this and Hangman's House (1928) I'm convinced Expressionism was a bad influence on Ford. The opening bit with the heroine about to Sell Herself to a bowler-hatted toff for her passage to America was as risibly transparent as certain special effects conveying Gypo's thought processes.

2) Hangman's House: Are all of Ford's treatments of Irish themes this heavy-handed?

3) Bucking Broadway: Now this I liked, especially the finale (the hero and his sidekicks literally ride into a New York hotel full of dudes with Dishonest Intentions towards women, and proceeds to kick their fancy asses).

At this point, my favorite Ford film is still The Whole Town's Talking. And if you have not seen Wild Boys of the Road (Wellman, 1933), do so at your first opportunity.

I've never seen The Whole Town's Talking, or Hangman's House. I *have* seen Bucking Broadway, and that is a pip.

The Great Depression against the Dust Bowl just seems like something none of this generation is equipped to comprehend even though we're all clearly going to go through something just as bad.

and there won't be any studio films about ours

The Florida Project, as a snapshot of capitalism carried to its logical ends, is probably the closest we'll get to an American successor to The Grapes of Wrath. The works of the Dardenne Brothers also owe something to this tradition. But I cannot imagine a major American studio of today letting itself be associated with a work of this nature. For that matter I can't quite place this movie in pre-war filmmaking, even by comparison with Our Daily Bread or Man's Castle. I am assuming Joseph Breen took a firm and verbose stance on what could and couldn't make it into the movie.

What Price Glory (1952) or When Willie Comes Marching Home?

got a super cheap DVD comp of 6 of Ford's comedies & these are the only ones left

they're in my Fox box, haven't watched em

WPG is a remake

John Ford receives the Presidential Medal of Honor from Richard Milhous Nixon. Like it or not folks... this is what Irish-American excellence looks like. pic.twitter.com/FLPdyEGKFz

— ℑ 𝔇𝔬𝔫'𝔱 𝔅𝔩𝔞𝔪𝔢 𝔜𝔬𝔲 (@NickPinkerton) October 8, 2019

If I want Irish-American excellence I'll watch a Cagney movie. What Price Glory watch party anyone?

my mother always said, "Nixon's not Irish."

Since when was Nixon Irish?

he claimed to be at some point, i think on a state visit to Ireland

Every US President claims they're Irish. Apart from Trump, probably his one redeeming quality.

What they usually mean by Irish is Protestant settlers in Ireland from Scotland or England sent there as colonizers.

Ford's one of the few directors whose work Nixon could identify by name.

well, kinda hard not to

same of the general public, after Hitchcock and Chaplin

a side note:

https://epicchq.com/us-presidents-with-irish-heritage/

As my dad used to say, they've had one Catholic president and look what they did to him.

When Willie Comes Marching Home is one of his better comedies w/o Will Rogers. not totally fluff either, goes well with The Long Gray Line as movies about the conflicted feelings of military personnel stationed at home who never see combat. Willie is dying to fight in the war, and his WWI vet dad resents him being stationed in his home town, despite the fact that he was such a good gunner that they made him the instructor. it's from 1950 so it looks great & he wrings so much out of the thin premise and a mostly light script.

just noticed that Robert Wagner is in the remake of What Price Glory

It is with heavy heart that I announce that I apparently will be forced to see Roland Emmerich's Midway. pic.twitter.com/nZZ1nyeISS

— ℑ 𝔇𝔬𝔫'𝔱 𝔅𝔩𝔞𝔪𝔢 𝔜𝔬𝔲 (@NickPinkerton) November 6, 2019

Watched Wagon Master last night. Good lil western. Only really knew Ben Johnson from Last Picture Show so didn't even recognize him. Pretty effortless acting from him. And christ could he ride a horse. The scene where he's escaping from Indians, every other rider in the scene is getting bounced around on their horse, while Ben is going twice and fast and doesn't move an inch.

Ford pegged it as one of his favorites. I've heard it was one of the most enjoyable sets he had. Makes ya wonder how much the experience of filming has on a director's or actor's personal favorites rather then purely the end result.

I think it's set in 1880. Which means it was as distant from 1950 as 1950 is from now whoa.

well, Ford knew old Wyatt Earp

speaking of Wyatt Earp...the Dodge City diversion section in Cheyenne Autumn is bizarre. I get what he was trying to say with it but it's pretty jarring and superfluous.

yeah I watched that recently and had a similar reaction.

also u+k:
Ford used Navajo people to portray the Cheyenne. Dialogue that is supposed to be the "Cheyenne language" is actually Navajo. This made little differences to white audiences, but for Navajo communities, the film became very popular because the Navajo actors openly were using ribald and crude language that had nothing to do with the film. For example, during the scene where the treaty is signed, the chief's solemn speech just pokes fun at the size of the colonel's penis. Academics now consider this an important moment in the development of Native Americans' identity because they are able to mock Hollywood's historical interpretation of the American West.

Remembering hearing something about that, but didn't know which film it happened in. Awesome. I'm sure they patted themselves on the back simply for having actual Native Americans in the film and speaking their own language in parts. But he wasn't about to fly in Cheyenne to the film shoot in AZ/UT.

for a guy born in the 1890s working in the western genre, my impression is that Ford treated the Natives fairly well. He wasn't a superman.

I also think they probably pranked the dialogue earlier than that film.

Oh for sure. I mean the plot for CA is very pro Native anti US govt. That was rare in early 60s afaik.
A bit similar to Smoki "tribe" I knew about before but was just reading about in a magazine today: white biz men from Prescott AZ doing "burlesque" snake dances in full Indian garb and face paint sounds awful and ridiculous now, but for the time that was progressive relative to the official doctrine of banning and trying to extinguish any Native Am culture.

he be sittin down

https://www.publicartportland.org/project/the-john-ford-statue/

https://silver.afi.com/Browsing/EventsAndExperiences/EventDetails/0000000028

Some Ford silents will be screened as part of this series. Any other ILXors interested in going?

pic.twitter.com/Ci3zWpIbFN

— Peter Labuza (@labuzamovies) February 19, 2020

I was surprised to learn, after watching Wagon Master, that it enjoyed such a strong rep among Ford cultists. I found it kinda slight, mostly due to the weakness of Johnson and Carey Jr. as leads and Ford's unwillingness to exploit the full menacing potential of the Clegg gang.

P tempted by this new set from Indicator

https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/collections/frontpage/products/john-ford-at-columbia-1935-1958-le

I think the ensemble nature of Wagon Master is part of its appeal, tho along those lines i prefer The Sun Shines Bright.

The Long Gray Line is his weirdest movie
xp