John Wayne

  • John Ford – The Long Voyage Home (1940)

    1931-1940ClassicsDramaJohn FordUSA

    Shannon Kelley writes:
    The powers and fascinations of director John Ford and playwright Eugene O’Neill are happily met in this 1940 feature dramatizing the lives of men who serve as crew members aboard commercial freighters. Like O’Neill, Ford nursed a lifelong obsession with sailing and the sea, and had spent his early years in Portland, Maine, amid the maritime culture that this picture describes. Adapted and updated by screenwriter Dudley Nichols (Ford’s frequent collaborator) from four of O’Neill’s early plays set aboard the fictional “SS Glencairn,” the film recounts the experiences of the ship’s crew while transporting ammunition from the West Indies to England during World War II. Read More »

  • Andrew V. McLaglen – Chisum (1970)

    1961-1970Andrew V. McLaglenUSAWestern

    Synopsis:
    John Wayne toplines this biography of the cattle owner John Simpson Chisum, a controversial figure who was the most powerful man in New Mexico during the Wild West era. A founder and prominent citizen in the town of Lincoln, Chisum is slow to act when ruthless land baron Lawrence Murphy (Forrest Tucker) moves in on several local businesses and takes them over. By the time Chisum and his ally, fellow rancher Henry Tunstall (Patrick Knowles), decide to go to the law, Murphy’s already bought and paid for influence there, as well. The only recourse left to the cattlemen is to take Murphy on in all-out range war that embroils everyone in the county, including Tunstall’s hand Billy the Kid Bonney (Geoffrey Deuel) and his comrade Pat Garrett (Glenn Corbett). Screenwriter and producer Andrew J. Fenady based the script for Chisum (1970) on his own short story, a very loosely fact-based account of Chisum, Billy the Kid and their involvement in the Lincoln County wars.Read More »

  • Various – How the West Was Won (1962)

    1961-1970ClassicsUSAVariousWestern

    Sprawling epic which follows the Prescotts, an emigrant family through four generations, from the Erie Canal in the 1830’s to their settled home in the West a half a century later. On the way they encounter river pirates, and escape with the help of fur trapper Linus Rawlings, who subsequently marries one of their daughters, Eve. The parents are drowned on a foundering raft, and the other daughter Lilith becomes a riverboat singer and catches the eye of a genteel adventurer Cleve Van Valen. Read More »

  • Lewis Seiler – Pittsburgh (1942)

    1941-1950ClassicsDramaLewis SeilerUSA

    Quote:

    This film is a hard one to assess. It is like a Western taken out of context, replacing the cowboys and Indians with coal miners and steel impresarios.

    Ostensibly two coal miners, Pittsburgh Markham and Cash Evans, best friends, chance upon Josie “Hunky” Winters a high-class “countess” and both men fall in love with her. She persuades them that they need to take chances if they are to get anywhere and they do, by shaving three cents off the price of coke and persuading a steel company owner, Morgan Prentiss to sign a contract with them to provide it.Read More »

  • Various – The Longest Day (1962)

    1961-1970ClassicsUSAVariousWar

    Synopsis:
    In 1944, the U.S. Army and Allied forces plan a huge invasion landing in Normandy, France. Despite bad weather, General Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the okay and the Allies land at Normandy. General Norma Cota travels with his men onto Omaha Beach. With much effort, and lost life, they get off the beach, traveling deep into French territory. The German military, due to arrogance, ignorance and a sleeping Adolf Hitler, delay their response to the Allied landing, with crippling results.Read More »

  • John Ford – The Horse Soldiers (1959)

    1951-1960John FordUSAWarWestern

    Ex railroad man, Yankee Colonel John Marlowe leads an irregular troop on a mission into the Confederacy, feuding every step of the way with his company doctor Major Kendall. Also confusing issues is Hannah Hunter, a Southern Belle who learns of their plans and must be brought along for security reasons. They succeed in their ‘dirty’ raid on a railhead town, but escape back to Union lines looks grim, with several rebel armies closing in from all sides – including a company of children from a confederate military academy.Read More »

  • Howard Hawks – Rio Bravo (1959)

    1951-1960ClassicsHoward HawksUSAWestern

    Synopsis:
    Sheriff John T. Chance has his hands full after arresting Joe Burdette for murder. He knows that Burdette’s brother Nathan, a powerful rancher, will go to any lengths to get him out of jail. Chance’s good friend Pat Wheeler offers to help but within 20 minutes of making the offer is gunned down in the street, shot in the back. That leaves his elderly deputy Stumpy, the town drunk Dude – once a deputy and a pretty good shot when he was sober – and a young hand, Colorado, who used to work for Wheeler. Nathan Burdette meanwhile has a couple of dozen men at his disposal. Chance does his best to prepare all the while romancing a pretty gambler who goes by the name of Feathers.Read More »

  • Leigh Jason – Lady for a Night (1942)

    Drama1941-1950ComedyLeigh JasonUSA

    Jenny Blake (Blondell) is the beautiful owner of a riverboat casino, but she aspires to a life in high society. Jack Morgan (Wayne) is her business partner and influential political boss – the two are in love, but Jenny decides to leave him and the business so she could marry socialite Alan Alderson (Ray Middleton) for prestige and in return she forgives Alan’s gambling debts and pays off the back taxes of his family’s once-grand mansion and plantation. Her new in-laws are infuriated by this marriage of convenience, and do everything in their power to ruin Jenny in the eyes of society.Read More »

  • Robert N. Bradbury – Westward Ho (1935)

    1931-1940Robert N. BradburyUSAWestern

    Westward Ho begins as hero John Wyatt (John Wayne) vows to avenge the death of his parents at the hands of cattle rustlers. Years later, Wyatt is put in charge of a band of vigilantes, bent on rounding up a gang of outlaws. He discovers to his chagrin that one of the bandits is his own long-lost brother (Frank McGlynn Jr.) This revelation eventually leads our hero to the men responsible for the slaughter of his family. Gorgeous location photography by Archie J. Stout is the film’s main asset. Though released by Republic, Westward Ho is closer in spirit to John Wayne’s previous “Lone Star” series for Monogram — and small wonder, since it was originally intended to be part of that series.Read More »

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