<\/span><\/h2>\nDue to a knowledge breakdown on my part \u2013 I got the release of the year wrong \u2013 this review should have featured in the previous article, as it was actually released before Trouble Along the Way. My bad.<\/p>\n
I find it somewhat incredulous that in a decade in which JW starred in The Quiet Man, Hondo, The Searchers and Rio Bravo \u2013 classic JW vehicles one and all \u2013 that he also churned out films like Big Jim McLain.<\/p>\n
And this isn\u2019t even the worst of the bunch. We\u2019ve still got The Conqueror to talk about \u2013 and I\u2019m trying to put that off for as long as I can.<\/p>\n
Films always need a villain, and the designated flavour of the month back in the late 1940s \/ early 50s was Communists, or to give them their full name, commie-pinko subversives.<\/p>\n
And who better than to take these guys on but old Duke himself. Seeing as JW hated Communism with a passion that bordered on obsessive compulsive it\u2019s not too much of a stretch for him here, playing the title role with gusto and clenched fists as, working as an investigator for the House of Un-American Activities Committee, he carves his way through a phalanx of those Russkie SOB\u2019s like crap through a goose.<\/p>\n
I note the absence of Paul Fix in this film, so maybe his agent knew something Wayne\u2019s didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
James Arness co-stars as JW\u2019s headstrong partner and the minute you hear someone tell Wayne to make sure Arness doesn\u2019t \u2018blow his top\u2019 you just know that\u2019s the death knell for the future Matt Dillon.<\/p>\n
I could have written this stuff myself if I hadn\u2019t been only 6 months old at the time. To say this film lacks subtlety would be an understatement, but I\u2019m going to say it anyway. It\u2019s a crude, risible, hysterical piece of propaganda with a script that does JW no favours at all \u2013 yes, I mean you (again), James Edward Grant – but worse than that it\u2019s totally misleading.<\/p>\n
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![\"John](\"\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Poster-Big-Jim-McLain_07.jpg\")
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