![\"John](\"\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/big-trail-2-644x550.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\nHere Duke plays a trail scout and trapper by the name of Breck Coleman, but if he\u2019s a trapper he seems to be dressed inappropriately in all-white.<\/p>\n
Wayne is given lines such as \u2018I gotta kill me a pair a skunks back apiece on the road to Santa Fe\u2019, and, when the settlers want to turn back in a huge snowstorm, \u2018We\u2019re blazing a trail that started back in England\u2019. <\/p>\n
Nice for old Blighty to get a positive namecheck in a Hollywood film. <\/p>\n
To be fair to JW though, the supporting cast aren\u2019t all that convincing either. It might be that the larger than life performances are down to the acting company trying to acquaint themselves with the move from silent to sound.<\/p>\n
Director Raoul throws in everything but the kitchen sink. We get cheating gamblers, wagon trains, Ward Bond, square-dancing settlers, a buffalo hunt, an Indian attack, incomprehensible horn swaggling galoots, inclement weather, love and romance, revenge \u2013 you name it, The Big Trail\u2019s got it. <\/p>\n
The film does look good though, having been shot in 70mm as well as 35mm \u2013 I\u2019d recommend you try and watch this in widescreen rather than the cropped version I taped from tv a few years back.<\/p>\n
The plot is fairly straightforward, with Duke vying for leadership of the wagon train with the boss Red Flack.<\/p>\n
It turns out Duke \/ Coleman has been tracking Flack and his crony Lopez, who killed a friend of his, with the intention of bestowing frontier justice on the pair. <\/p>\n
This part of the story is eerily prescient of the end of Stagecoach, in which the Ringo Kid helps in getting the passengers to Lordsburg before killing the Plummer gang. <\/p>\n
Here he tracks Flack and Lopez in a snowstorm, finds Lopez frozen to death and checks out Flack with his handy throwing knife. Cue a welcome home from his sweetheart and everything is fine in the valley. <\/p>\n
Apart from Duke\u2019s fledgling screen career, that is.<\/p>\n
![\"Allegheny](\"\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/allegheny-uprising-1-700x550.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>Allegheny Uprising (1939)<\/span><\/h2>\nSecond-billed after Claire Trevor again in the same year they co-starred in Stagecoach, Wayne plays frontiersman Jim Smith in an action adventure story set a few years before the American War of Independence. <\/p>\n
Also in the cast is George Sanders so cue the British as the villains. <\/p>\n
What with most of the nice American settlers labelled as \u2018rabble\u2019, \u2018treasonous dogs\u2019 and \u2018blasted traitors\u2019 it\u2019s no wonder the British eventually got their arses kicked out of the colonies. <\/p>\n
If only we\u2019d been a bit more reasonable who knows how it might have all panned out \u2013 and that\u2019s the closest I\u2019m going to get to politics for now.<\/p>\n
Interesting to see JW dressed in authentic frontier fringed buckskin costume, effectively auditioning for the part of Davy Crockett twenty years before he actually played the role properly.<\/p>\n
The thing I love about these RKO \/ Republic Wayne on the cusp of stardom era movies is spotting someone lower down the cast who goes on to feature in later John Wayne films. <\/p>\n
Ten minutes in, step forward Chill Wills, serenading Claire Trevor in the local tavern. He also serves the same purpose in the Laurel and Hardy\u2019s Way Out West for all you Chill fans.<\/p>\n
Duke and his compatriots pursue an Indian raiding party who have kidnapped a couple of children (holy Searchers – that sounds familiar).<\/p>\n
Unfortunately named the Black Boys, they disguise themselves by blacking up their faces with war paint on top – not sure how this movie would play in today\u2019s politically correct climate, what with Wayne and the others offending two ethnic minorities for the price of one but, as they say, different times. <\/p>\n
Like a lot of low-budget films such as this one the plot itself tends to be convoluted at best so I\u2019m not going to go into detail here, but in a nutshell, Sanders as Captain Swanson plays a nasty English army soldier – told you so \u2013 who is ordered to protect the population from marauding Indians. <\/p>\n
Being a stickler for the rules he unwittingly allows the even nastier Brian Donlevy to trade illicitly with the local tribes by giving him a permit to transport army goods, so It\u2019s up to JW and his boys to disrupt the illegal trade and bring the villains to justice.<\/p>\n
![\"Claire](\"\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/allegheny-uprising-2-728x547.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019m not sure why Claire Trevor is the nominal star of the movie as her character is literally left out of most of the action, Wayne and the others coming up with a whole bunch of devious tricks in order to keep her out of harm’s way. <\/p>\n
The film lacks the usual climactic good versus baddie battle and turns into a court case in which Donlevy shoots one of Wayne\u2019s mates then frames Wayne. <\/p>\n
I think I may have to check out the end of the film again because I don\u2019t remember Donlevy getting his just desserts for committing murder. The first thing that struck me watching Allegheny Uprising is that it reminds me of the kind of main feature you\u2019d have seen as a kid back in the 1950s at a Saturday morning picture show.<\/p>\n
In short not earth shattering or particularly memorable but adequate fare for the non-discerning John Wayne fan.<\/p>\n
![\"John](\"\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/dark-command-2-357x550.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>Dark Command (1940)<\/span><\/h2>\nOkay, so let me make sure I\u2019ve got this right. <\/p>\n
Gabby Hayes is a travelling dentist who employs John Wayne to start an argument with anyone who crosses his path, after which JW then punches them in the mouth in order that they are then forced to seek dental help from the aforementioned Mr Hayes. <\/p>\n
Seeing as there\u2019s no writing credits on the version I watched I checked IMDB and there are four writers associated with Dark Command which doesn\u2019t usually bode well for a film, and already it hasn\u2019t got off to a good start. <\/p>\n
Mind you, I think this is the first time I\u2019ve ever been able to understand every word Gabby Hayes says so let\u2019s be thankful for small mercies.<\/p>\n
Set in Kansas a year before the outbreak of the American Civil War, there\u2019s a huge dollop of overt patriotic sentiment running through this film. <\/p>\n
First off John, playing a likeable character called Bob Seton, nearly has an early \u2018Republic. I like the sound of the word\u2019 moment when he hears schoolchildren singing \u2018My Country, \u2018Tis of Thee\u2019, then stepping in to protect someone from an angry crowd with the words \u2018If a man\u2019s born in this country he has rights\u2019.<\/p>\n
Something JW obviously forgot himself when he helped to run Carl Foreman out of town in the early fifties, but I\u2019m going to keep my powder dry on that subject for when I get to check out Big Jim McLain. <\/p>\n
Moving swiftly on, it\u2019s reunion time for Duke in this one, working with the star of the film, Claire Trevor, for the third time \u2013 they\u2019ll meet up again a few years later in The High and the Mighty. <\/p>\n
![\"John](\"\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/dark-command-3-688x550.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\nThere\u2019s also stalwart Gabby Hayes and the director is Raoul Walsh of The Big Trail. <\/p>\n
What\u2019s interesting to see for all of us cowboy fans though is the pairing of Wayne with Roy Rogers who plays Trevor\u2019s brother. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s intriguing to see Rogers eschew his well-known cowboy persona and do a bit of quite impressive acting for once.<\/p>\n
Duke thinks about doing a bit of gun-running but wisely sidesteps that profession and runs for town Marshal instead, which he wins. His opponent, Will Cantrall (Cantrell \/ Quantrill \u2013 geddit?), played by Walter Pidgeon, decides in a fit of pique to avenge his defeat by setting the whole country ablaze, which is a bit of an overreaction if you ask me, but the die is cast. <\/p>\n
JW vies with Pidgeon for the love of Claire Trevor, a situation which becomes even more complicated when that nice Roy Rogers shoots and kills a man in cold blood when they argue about slavery. Roy Rogers? A murderer and a racist? <\/p>\n
And to think when I was a kid that I worshipped Roy even more than he revered Trigger. And that\u2019s saying something.<\/p>\n
In quick succession Pidgeon defends Roy, intimidates the jury, get\u2019s him found not guilty, the civil war starts, Pidgeon goes off on one and cue montage of Cantrill\u2019s (Quantrill\u2019s) Guerillas pillaging, burning and raping arbitrarily on either side of the border. <\/p>\n
Pillaging and burning anyway. Let\u2019s not forget. The Hayes Code still stood for something back in 1940.<\/p>\n
There are a whole lot of other twists and turns in the plot too numerous to recount here so I really recommend you check this film out if you haven\u2019t seen it before. It\u2019s not just an entertaining watch, it tackles a whole raft of issues including racism, patriotism capitalism, warism \u2013 you name an ism, the writers throw it into the mix.<\/p>\n
Just in case you were wondering, John Wayne finally gets his girl. Bet you didn\u2019t see that one coming.<\/p>\n
![\"John](\"\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/three-faces-west-1-356x550.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>Three Faces West (1940)<\/span><\/h2>\nThere were a number of Hollywood films produced in 1940 that overtly referenced the war in Europe at the time, including titles such as Foreign Correspondent, The Great Dictator and Waterloo Bridge. <\/p>\n
This is a relatively unknown entry in that list, unknown to me anyway, that in a way deals with the same subject.<\/p>\n
Charles Coburn and Sigrid Gurie play father and daughter refugees from Nazi occupied Vienna who are hired by Wayne, as farmer\u2019s organizer John Philips, to work as doctors in a mid-Western dust bowl town. <\/p>\n
Philips learns that the land is going to be declared barren and that the whole town is going to have to uproot and move to better farming land 1500 miles away in Oregon. <\/p>\n
JW gives a stirring speech to those farmers who wish to stay and battle it out with the elements:\u2018Everyone of us has been served by a dispossessed notice, not by Uncle Sam or a bank or some mortgage company, but by a little gal we\u2019ve been kicking in the teeth \u2013 mother nature\u2019. <\/p>\n
Prophetic words indeed. Makes you think that if Wayne were alive today he\u2019d be supporting Al Gore and the climate change lobby when it come to saving the planet. <\/p>\n
Then you sober up and realise drink makes you say stupid things sometimes.<\/p>\n
The moral is: if the couple from Vienna can find a new home elsewhere then so can Wayne and his farmer friends. Then it rains. Leni asks if the rain will \u2018save our land\u2019. <\/p>\n
JW bestows a big smacker on her lips \u2013a reward for showing she\u2019s now fully integrated into American society. Then they plan to marry. Then a letter arrives telling Leni that Eric, her fianc\u00e9, who she thought was dead, is still alive and plans to come to America and marry her. <\/p>\n
Luckily for everyone concerned, Eric turns out to be a genuine cast-iron twenty- four carat gold-plated dyed in the wool Nazi son-of-a-bitch, which means that Duke and Leni get to live happily ever after.<\/p>\n
The film \u2013 still not sure what the title means but I\u2019m sure someone out there will let us all know – can be viewed in more ways than one, either as a romantic drama between the lady from Vienna and the rough and tumble mid-American JW character, or as a propaganda piece that encourages Americans to embrace the influx of wartime refugees fleeing persecution from their homeland. <\/p>\n
Kind of a mashup of Grapes of Wrath meets Casablanca, although actress Sigrid Gurie as Leni is no Ingrid Bergman, and Wayne\u2019s no Humphrey Bogart. On the other hand, who would want him to be? <\/p>\n
Hardly any action to speak of apart from the occasional punch thrown by JW at those who don\u2019t agree with him, so a bit of a curio but not the best of the Wayne \/ Republic titles from this era.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/long-voyage-home-1-710x550.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>The Long Voyage Home (1940)<\/span><\/h2>\nI was surprised to see Wayne top-billed in this, his second film for Ford, based upon the writings of Eugene O\u2019Neill. <\/p>\n
His position in the credits of the films he made in the early 40s still fluctuated between star and co-star and seeing as The Long Voyage Home is really an ensemble piece I was expecting him to be lower down the cast. <\/p>\n
John Wayne plays Swede Olsen, a somewhat na\u00efve merchant seaman aboard a ship bound for England during the early years of WWII. Duke attempts a Swedish accent in this one, which is probably why he didn\u2019t try a German accent in The Sea Chase. Pity. I reckon he\u2019d have sounded great.<\/p>\n
Cinematographer Greg Toland shares the screen with Ford\u2019s name in the opening credits, his innovative deep focus compositions in The Long Voyage Home further explored by Toland a couple of years later in Citizen Kane. <\/p>\n
Staunch Ford stock company members such as Barry Fitzgerald, Thomas Mitchell, Ward Bond, Mildred Natwick and John Qualen are all present and correct, along with British actors Ian Hunter and Wilfrid Lawson, playing respectively a mysteriously broody member of the crew and the ships captain. <\/p>\n
I watched this film a couple of years ago so I\u2019m relying on my fading memory here but I seem to remember that the story of Wayne\u2019s character is foregrounded more towards the end when he nearly ends up being shanghaied by an unscrupulous shipping agent and press-ganged for another ship. <\/p>\n
His compatriots rescue him and he manages to get safely back to meet his family in Sweden.<\/p>\n
Some of the characters come to a sticky end, with Ward Bond copping it early on and Ian Hunter getting shot to pieces by an enemy fighter plane that attacks the ship, which is transporting explosives to England. <\/p>\n
Thomas Mitchell is press-ganged onto another ship which is torpedoed and goes down with all hands. So, not exactly a barrel of laughs but then there aren\u2019t that many John Ford films with a happy ending anyway.<\/p>\n
The fact that Ian Hunter\u2019s character turns out to have been an alcoholic who has left the Navy and his family in disgrace brings home how much the theme of drink permeates not only Ford\u2019s work, but also a lot of the actors associated with his films in general. <\/p>\n
Wilfrid Lawson, who played the frequently inebriated father of Claire Trevor in Allegheny Uprising \u2013 now there\u2019s type casting for you \u2013 was a famous carouser and imbiber of the demon drink off screen as well as on.<\/p>\n
I think it was Michael Caine who told the story in one of his autobiographies \u2013 yes, he wrote more than one but not many people know that \u2013 of the time Richard Burton bumped into Lawson in a pub one evening. <\/p>\n
Already four sheets to the wind, which would have served as a good alternative title for The Long Voyage Home, Lawson told Burton after a few more drinks that there was a very good play being performed in a theatre just opposite the pub and if they hurried they\u2019d catch the second act. <\/p>\n
Firmly ensconced in their seats the play began and after a few minutes Lawson said to Burton, \u2018now watch this bit, it\u2019s going to be really interesting.\u2019. <\/p>\n
Burton asked why to which Lawson replied, \u2018because I\u2019m supposed to come on next\u2019. Makes you proud to be British, and that\u2019s a fact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Looking back over the numerous articles I\u2019ve written in the last year it may not have escaped anyone\u2019s notice that I have generally concentrated on the high profile and better known John Wayne movies. There\u2019s a reason for this. First … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[48,42,107],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2937"}],"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=2937"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2955,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2937\/revisions\/2955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"The](\"\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/shepherd-of-the-hills-1-728x451.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"John](\"\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/big-trail-1-697x550.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\n