{"id":2784,"date":"2016-08-28T15:10:06","date_gmt":"2016-08-28T14:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/?p=2784"},"modified":"2018-04-24T17:09:46","modified_gmt":"2018-04-24T16:09:46","slug":"john-wayne-best-westerns-round-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/john-wayne-best-westerns-round-part-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"The John Wayne Best Westerns Round Up &#8211; Part III"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span lang=\"en-GB\">I\u2019m only reviewing the following movie\u00a0simply because it\u2019s a Western and it has John Wayne in it, although he probably only appears for about two minutes in a film that runs for approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes. So what&#8217;s the film?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/mostlywesterns\/How+The+West+Was+Won-1.jpg\" alt=\"Movie poster of How The West Was Won\" width=\"728\" height=\"439\" \/><\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_65 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title \" >Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 eztoc-toggle-hide-by-default' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/john-wayne-best-westerns-round-part-iii\/#How_the_West_Was_Won_1962\" title=\"How the West Was Won (1962)\">How the West Was Won (1962)<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/john-wayne-best-westerns-round-part-iii\/#McLintock_1963\" title=\"McLintock! (1963)\">McLintock! (1963)<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/john-wayne-best-westerns-round-part-iii\/#War_Wagon_1967\" title=\"War Wagon (1967)\">War Wagon (1967)<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/john-wayne-best-westerns-round-part-iii\/#The_Undefeated_1969\" title=\"The Undefeated (1969)\">The Undefeated (1969)<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_the_West_Was_Won_1962\"><\/span>How the West Was Won (1962)<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span lang=\"en-GB\">Wayne plays General Sherman in the Civil War sequence of the film, directed by John Ford. As I\u2019m sure a lot of Duke fans know, this wasn\u2019t the first time Wayne had played the famed Union general. He appeared in a cameo role a few years before in a two-part episode of the Wagon Train tv series, also directed by Ford, and was credited in the cast list as Michael Morris. If memory serves me correctly he only actually appears in silhouette but it was still the man himself. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Wayne\u2019s screen time is taken up convincing General Grant that he shouldn\u2019t resign his command once the battle of Shiloh is over. While all this is going on George Peppard as a Union soldier and Russ Tamblyn as a rebel deserter watch from the side lines. Tamblyn then attempts to shoot Grant, forcing Peppard to kill his new friend with a bayonet. Hannibal Smith gutting Tom Thumb. Now that\u2019s something you don\u2019t get to see every day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Ford manages to sneak in a couple of his stock company members, Andy Devine and Ken Curtis, into the film as well as a graveside conversing-with-the-dead scene reminiscent of other Ford films such as Young Mr Lincoln and My Darling Clementine. There\u2019s never really enough room for subtlety in these huge overblown Hollywood extravaganzas but personally I think Ford acquits himself very well, as does Wayne in his all-too-short cameo.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/mostlywesterns\/McLintock-1.jpg\" alt=\"McLintock with John Wayne &amp; Maureen O'Hara\" width=\"728\" height=\"410\" \/><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"McLintock_1963\"><\/span>McLintock! (1963)<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">This is the first film John Wayne made with director (and son of Victor McLaglen), Andrew V. McLaglen, the duo going on to work together on another four movies, three of them Westerns (to be reviewed at a later date). <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">The film reunites Duke with Maureen O\u2019 Hara for the first time since The Wings of Eagles and is very loosely based upon The Taming of the Shrew. Now there\u2019s a thought &#8211; Wayne does Shakespeare. Could you imagine Duke doing Twelth Night?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\">\u2018<span lang=\"en-GB\">If music be the food of love \u2013 mine\u2019s a medium rare rib-eye steak with a bottle of\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">tequila to wash it down.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\">I\u2019d go watch it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">As I implied in my review of North to Alaska (in <span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/john-wayne-best-westerns-round-part-ii\/\" target=\"_blank\">John Wayne Best Westerns Round Up II<\/a><\/span>) I\u2019m not that comfortable watching Wayne trying to do broad comedy and slapstick so I was fully prepared to not like this movie much, having only seen it once when it was released back in 1963, and remembering not being that impressed the first time around. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">I have to admit though that the film is better than I remembered. Being only about 11 years old back then I guess I expected a bit more action \u2013 Wayne only fires three shots in the film, two at a couple of pheasants and a blank shot at Patrick Wayne. After all, this is supposed to be a John Wayne Western, right? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Anyway, looking at the film once more with fresh but very much older eyes this epitomises Duke\u2019s high, wide and handsome persona, even if the action is sparse on the ground. There\u2019s also an iconic Wayne moment in the film when he tells Leo Gordon he\u2019s not going to hit him, then changes his mind with the words \u2018the Hell I won\u2019t\u2019 before punching Gordon\u2019s lights out \u2013 and he gets to call him Pilgrim as well. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">The fact that this takes place at the top of a mud pit tells you all you need to know about the comedic nature of the film and, yes, everyone ends up getting knocked headlong into it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Seeing as this is a James Edward Grant scripted opus, it should come as no surprise that the case for gender equality is not exactly at the forefront of the narrative, particularly when it comes to Wayne\u2019s treatment of Maureen O\u2019Hara, playing his estranged wife, in the sequence at the end of the film. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Still, although the sexual politics of the film is not going to gain too many brownie points from feminists and the politically correct brigade of today, it was probably deemed all clean fun back in the less enlightened early 1960s.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">To my thinking the climactic encounter between Wayne and O\u2019Hara is rather too reminiscent of the end of The Quiet Man, the film striving too hard to duplicate the success of their earlier film together. Also, on the assumption that a John Wayne film must on occasion have a musical interlude, Jerry van Dyke and Stephanie Powers are no much for Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson. Rio Bravo it isn\u2019t \u2013 and it\u2019s definitely not The Quiet Man either \u2013 but then to be fair this was only the first time Wayne worked with Andrew McLaglen. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">For my money it took until Chisum until they finally made a genuine classic Wayne Western together.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/mostlywesterns\/War+Wagon-2.jpg\" alt=\"The War Wagon poster with John Wayne &amp; Kirk Douglas\" width=\"728\" height=\"554\" \/><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"War_Wagon_1967\"><\/span>War Wagon (1967)<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Watching this film for the first time since I saw it on release back in 1967 I suddenly realised why it was I used to get confused sometime as to which Wayne Western was which. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Here he\u2019s wearing the red shirt and leather waistcoat combo from McLintock before reprising the natty blue shirt and waistcoat from Rio Bravo and Katie Elder. Along with the familiar clothing we get the ubiquitous Bruce Cabot \u2013 enjoying a somewhat meatier role this time as the villain \u2013 and Bruce Dern in a short-lived role as a gunman wiped out by Kirk Douglas with Wayne gunning down his stand-in, Cliff Roberson, at the same time. No wonder Dern took his time getting his own back in The Cowboys.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">The War Wagon is actually quite a good film, firstly due to the script by writer Clair Huffaker, here providing an adaptation of his novel Badman, having previously written the screenplay for another excellent Wayne vehicle, The Comancheros, back in 1960. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Secondly, and I think I\u2019m right in saying this, John Wayne works for the first time with seasoned Western director Burt Kennedy \u2013 they went on to do The Train Robbers together a few years later \u2013 so all in all it\u2019s a pretty good addition to the Wayne Western canon. Throw in Kirk Douglas as a gun for hire and the film delivers the goods. Not a classic \u2018classic\u2019 Duke Western if I\u2019m honest, but still quite watchable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">It\u2019s a few minutes into the film before you find out Duke isn\u2019t one of the bad guys, in fact he\u2019s just got out of jail after being framed by Bruce Cabot, losing his ranch in the process and determined to exact his revenge by stealing the gold from Cabot\u2019s security vehicle of choice, the iron-clad heavily armed war wagon of the title. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Thinking about it there haven\u2019t been that many heist Westerns to speak of &#8211; The Great Train Robbery from 1903 and the train robbery sequence from The Wild Bunch are the only ones that spring to mind right now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\"> Talking of The Wild Bunch it\u2019s good to see Emilio Fernandez, who went on to play the murderous, throat-slitting Mexican drunkard General Mapache in the Peckinpah classic, playing against type here as a mild-mannered Mexican peasant who so impresses Wayne that Duke decides to donate half of the money he steals from the war wagon for Emilio\u2019s village orphanage. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Actually, that\u2019s not quite true. He plays a murderous drunken Mexican bandido who shoots at bottles of tequila placed precariously upon the head of musical star Howard Keel \u2013 and that\u2019s a sentence which for so many reasons I thought I\u2019d never end up typing.<\/span><span lang=\"en-GB\"><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/offer-listing\/1559724544\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1559724544&amp;linkCode=am2&amp;tag=mostlywesterns-20&amp;linkId=776b90fb6dfedbbeec12418c6506e57e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/m.media-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51S5H8746SL._SL160_.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" src=\"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=mostlywesterns-20&amp;l=am2&amp;o=1&amp;a=1559724544\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" \/>I have a cookbook called True Grits which is based around a bunch of recipes loosely associated with John Wayne movies. For The War Wagon the authors have come up with a sushi dish they call the Raw Wagon \u2013 don\u2019t ask. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Now, I never actually had the chance to meet John Wayne myself \u2013 I tried to one drunken night many years ago when he was staying in Chelsea in a house in Cheyne Walk while over in the UK to film Brannigan (lucky for me he wasn\u2019t home at the time) \u2013 but I\u2019m prepared to bet if you ever offered him a plate of Raw Wagon he\u2019d probably tell you he\u2019s killed a man for less. I know I would.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/mostlywesterns\/The+Undefeated-1.jpg\" alt=\"The Undefeated poster with John Wayne &amp; Rock Hudson\" width=\"728\" height=\"544\" \/><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_Undefeated_1969\"><\/span>The Undefeated (1969)<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">I guess by the end of the 60s I\u2019d kind of become all \u2018John Wayned\u2019 out so I didn\u2019t get to see a lot of his later films as and when they were released. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">As far as The Undefeated goes I\u2019d caught bits of it on tv over the years but it wasn\u2019t up until recently that I actually sat down and watched the film the whole way through. I had great expectations for this movie, bearing in mind it\u2019s directed by Andrew McLaglen, someone perfectly placed to inherit the mantle of directing Westerns from Ford. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">His earlier films such as The Way West and Shenandoah certainly showed he had what it takes to be considered a realistic successor to Ford so I was looking forward to finally getting round to watching his second Wayne Western in full.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">If there\u2019s a checklist detailing the pre-requisites for a John Wayne cowboy film then someone working for McLaglen certainly covered all the bases. Harry Carey Jr.? Check. Ben Johnson? Check. Bruce Cabot? Goes without saying. John Agar? But of course &#8211; although I don\u2019t remember actually seeing him on screen but then maybe I wasn\u2019t looking hard enough. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Throw in Paul Fix, Dub Taylor, Don Collier and of course Cliff Roberson and a decent scriptwriter in James Lee Barratt (Shendandoah) and you\u2019re guaranteed a winner. Or are you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">The movie kicks off quite well with a decently staged civil war sequence \u2013 in fact you could be forgiven for thinking that Wayne has wandered onto the set of The Undefeated from the end of The Horse Soldiers, morphing from Colonel John Marlowe in the latter film to Colonel John Henry Thomas \u2013 thankfully the middle name of Henry making Wayne\u2019s moniker just about acceptable in polite society. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Then it kind of goes a bit downhill after that. Rock Hudson is perfectly adequate as the leader of a defeated Confederate brigade \u2013 cue the traditional scene of the rebels and the union army trying to out-sing each other with their respective national anthems a la Dodge City (and Casablanca come to think of it) \u2013 but the attempt to make a serious adult Western is scuppered by the need to include a needless punch-up sequence that doesn\u2019t really add to the story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">There\u2019s also an ill-fated attempt to introduce a liberal element into the story with a young white woman falling for Wayne\u2019s adopted Indian son, Blue Boy. A very young Jan Michael Vincent \u2013 or just Michael Vincent as he\u2019s credited here &#8211; vies with Blue Boy for the attentions of the lady in question but to my mind this issue is never resolved by the end of the film. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Not that anyone back in the 60s would have been offended by such a storyline. As the critic Roger Ebert points out, the actor playing Blue Boy, one Roman Gabriel, looks about as Indian as \u2018one of the Beach Boys\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Wayne appears to be enjoying himself in his role as ex-soldier turned horse seller, but his statement prior to driving a herd of 3000 horses across the border of \u2018Let\u2019s take em\u2019 to Mexico\u2019 just doesn\u2019t compete with \u2018Take em\u2019 to Missouri, Matt\u2019. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en-GB\">Dig those crazy sideburns the Dukester sports, though. Very stylish. In terms of late career Wayne Westerns, The Undefeated isn\u2019t as fast-paced or as exciting as The War Wagon for example, but then to be fair Duke was 20 years younger and 10 times faster back in 1949. An adequate Wayne Western at best.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m only reviewing the following movie\u00a0simply because it\u2019s a Western and it has John Wayne in it, although he probably only appears for about two minutes in a film that runs for approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes. So what&#8217;s &#8230; <a title=\"The John Wayne Best Westerns Round Up &#8211; Part III\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/john-wayne-best-westerns-round-part-iii\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about The John Wayne Best Westerns Round Up &#8211; Part III\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,11],"tags":[37,6,4,30,106],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2784"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2784"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2787,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2784\/revisions\/2787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}