The Emergence of a Different Duke

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Steve (John Wayne): How'd you do last season?

Father Malone (Tom Tully): We showed up for every game.

Steve: I'd say that was raw courage.

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Most people probably think of westerns when they think of John Wayne. Or maybe war movies.

But "Trouble Along the Way," which premiered on this day in 1953, was neither.

I suppose you have to give credit for that to John Ford's "The Quiet Man," which premiered in 1952. That, I believe, was the first John Wayne movie that did not cast the Duke as a cowboy or a serviceman, and it opened up a whole new world for him, one on which movie production companies were only too happy to capitalize.

Ford didn't direct "Trouble Along the Way." Michael Curtiz (who directed "Casablanca") did. I don't often use the word heartwarming to describe a movie, but I could apply it to this one. I could also apply other words that are not as complimentary, but I think the writers may have realized that. To compensate, they loaded the script with dialogue that, in my opinion, was far wittier than most movies that were made in the late '40s and early '50s.

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For example, when Wayne and Father Burke (Charles Coburn) were talking about the football program at St. Anthony's College, Wayne asked, "What system do you use?"

"'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,'" Burke replied. "But, usually, the others do it to us first."

In "Trouble Along the Way," Wayne played a recently divorced football coach (actually a college athletics instructor who was chronically unemployed because he was apparently incapable of getting along with the folks in charge). He needed to find a job to retain custody of his daughter.

Meanwhile the folks at St. Anthony's faced the prospect of having to shut down due to heavy debt, but Father Burke theorized that the school could get out of debt if it fielded a winning football team because that would attract the financial support of well–to‐do alumni.

To accomplish this, Wayne was hired to coach St. Anthony's football team.

(By the way, if you're a football fan, you probably believe the myth that Vince Lombardi was the first to say, "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing." Lombardi did say it, but he wasn't the first; in fact, it was John Wayne in "Trouble Along the Way.")

I suppose it goes without saying that Wayne's character had some rough edges. Thus, to smooth out those edges, Donna Reed entered the picture as a social worker.

By the way, film buffs should look for James Dean in an uncredited appearance as a football spectator.

An Important History Lesson

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When I was in junior high, I was assigned to do a book report on Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day."

Looking back, I would have to say that the book was probably a bit beyond my years. I mean, I love history — I have always loved history — and I love a good story, but the book was a bit technical for me, at least at that time in my life.

I didn't know who most of the people in the book were. I guess I hadn't studied World War II or D–Day too much at that point, had no idea, really, of their significance in American history.

And in my mind, too, I suppose, that was my parents' war — but they had been children when it was fought. It was probably more my grandparents' war. Either way, I probably saw it as their history, not mine.

Perhaps that is how it is for everyone. Major events that have gone before belong to someone else. The current ones belong to whoever is coming of age, and generations to come will have their own. It depends on whose time it is, and even though it is technically true that a time belongs to all who live through it, it truly belongs to those who are coming of age, whose impressions are still being formed. For the most part the rest of us share ownership of that time.

But not always.

Remember Sally Field in "Forrest Gump" and what she told her son as she was dying?

"It's my time," she said. "It's just my time."

People tend to be more in tune to what happens in their times — and less so about what happens in other people's times.

But I guess I am slipping away from the point — which is that "The Longest Day" was a good history lesson, whether in print or on the big screen.

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"The Longest Day" had an all–star cast — so many stars I can't name 'em all.

In that sense it reminded me of "Tora! Tora! Tora!" the definitive dramatization of Pearl Harbor.

There were actors everyone should be able to recognize — Henry Fonda, Richard Burton, Sean Connery and John Wayne, for example — and others whose faces are familiar but you've really got to be past a certain age (or of a certain time, to return to my earlier theme) to know their names — I suppose Eddie Albert, Peter Lawford and Robert Mitchum fall in that category.

It also reminded me of "Tora! Tora! Tora!" in the sense that it was faithful to the facts of the story, which were dramatic enough.

It was filmed in black and white in a documentary style at a cost of $10 million. For nearly 30 years it was the most expensive black–and–white film ever made — until "Schindler's List."

The movie brought to life the story in a way the book couldn't do for me when I was 14.

I don't know how much of that story young people are taught in school today, but the parts I found the most compelling were the accounts of the tricks the Allies used in the battle with the Germans.

Like dropping mannequins with parachutes to deceive the Nazis into thinking an expected invasion was happening in an unanticipated area.

Or using an attractive young female bicyclist as a diversion to slip a wagonload of resistance operatives past Nazi soldiers.

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The last time I watched it I couldn't help thinking that the invasion of Normandy as presented in "The Longest Day" was probably the most realistic depiction of modern warfare committed to film until "Saving Private Ryan."

"The Longest Day" received five Academy Award nominations and took home two Oscars — for Black–and–White Cinematography and Visual Effects.

The Duke in Ireland

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"He'll regret it 'til his dying day if ever he lives that long."

"Red Will" Danaher (Victor McLaglen)

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When most people think of John Wayne, they probably think of cowboy movies or war movies — or, in the case of "The Alamo," I suppose, both, even though I guess the cowboys in "The Alamo" were really frontiersmen.

And I will admit that, if someone mentions John Wayne to me, my first thought will be of "The Searchers," which is my favorite John Wayne movie.

I wrote a year ago that I thought his performance in John Ford's "The Searchers" was his defining role, and I still feel that way. But a close second would have to be a movie in which he played neither a cowboy nor a soldier — another Ford–directed movie called "The Quiet Man," which premiered on this day in 1952.

Ford won his fourth and final Best Director Oscar for "The Quiet Man." His previous Oscar was for "How Green Was My Valley," which took place in Wales and also starred Maureen O'Hara (Wayne's love interest in "The Quiet Man"). Among movie fans "How Green Was My Valley" is remembered for being the movie that beat "Citizen Kane" for Best Picture. (Perhaps it was compensation for that injustice that "The Quiet Man," clearly the superior movie, was beaten for Best Picture by "The Greatest Show on Earth" — although "High Noon" was the betting favorite in that category.)

("Of all my films," O'Hara said, "'The Quiet Man' is my favorite, and John Wayne, who became a dear friend, was my favorite leading man.")

Wayne played an American boxer returning to the village in Ireland where he had been born. He had been traumatized by having killed a man in the ring so he had returned to reclaim the family farm and start a new life.

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When he met O'Hara, she became part of his plan for that new life.

But there was one big obstacle — O'Hara's bullying brother played by Victor McLaglen. He had wanted that farm for himself. When the owner, a wealthy widow played by Mildred Natwick, didn't sell it to him, he declined to give his sister his consent. Then, on their wedding day, he refused to give her her dowry. Wayne's character cared nothing about the dowry, not realizing what it meant in Irish culture — and simultaneously creating a rift between them.

In those cowboy and soldier movies, the climactic moment typically had Wayne in some sort of gunfight; in "The Quiet Man," it was a fistfight as Wayne, the supposedly reformed boxer, took on McLaglen in a memorable fistfight that ended with the two of them expressing grudging admiration for each other.

Barry Fitzgerald played a curmudgeonly sort of character, the kind of part he was born to play. I doubt he ever did it better than he did in "The Quiet Man."

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"The Quiet Man" received seven Oscar nominations and won two awards. Ford took home Best Director, and Winton Hoch and Archie Stout won the Oscar for Best Color Cinematography.

Really, with all that gorgeous Irish countryside to work with (Ford, certainly one of the most influential filmmakers of his generation, was known for his frequent use of on–location filming), how could they miss?

Settling a Score

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Lomax (Kirk Douglas): Do you always wear a gun over your underwear?

Taw Jackson (John Wayne): Just lately.

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The war wagon concept dates back hundreds of years — to the Middle Ages when heavily armored wagons were used as both offensive and defensive weapons.

Their usefulness on the battlefield waned as the weaponry and tactics of war evolved. Perhaps it was inevitable, given how many horses it must have required to haul those things around. They weren't exactly your standard stagecoaches.

But apparently they found another use later on — as the forerunners to the armored car in which all sorts of things of value have been transported from one place to another over the years.

And the name of the western that premiered on this day in 1967, "The War Wagon," referred to an armored (and armed) wagon that carried a shipment of gold. The shipment belonged to a mine owner who had framed a rancher (John Wayne). The rancher ended up in prison, and the miner confiscated his land — then found gold on it.

The rancher's prison sentence was reduced for good behavior, and he returned to his old stomping grounds with the intention of robbing the miner of a shipment of that gold.

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To assist him in this endeavor, he recruited a man (Kirk Douglas) who shot him several years earlier. Kennan Wynn played another one of Wayne's recruits as did Howard Keel.

It probably goes without saying that Wayne had scores to settle with both the miner who framed him and took his land and the man who shot him. That's a ticklish situation, to put it mildly. But Wayne managed to tiptoe delicately through the minefield.

When you've got apparent scores to settle with both your enemies and your allies, you don't have a lot of margin for error.

Wayne and Douglas had a kind of a friendly competition going on, though. At one point, after they had confronted and gunned down two bad guys (one of whom was Bruce Dern), Douglas remarked, "Mine hit the ground first."

To which Wayne replied, "Mine was taller."

The rest of the movie was about the caper — the attempt to get away with all that gold. And, while I usually try to find some moral or lesson in a movie or TV episode about which I am writing, I can't think of one for "The War Wagon." It was just good entertainment.

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I know Wayne made westerns that were humorous as well as westerns that were dramatic. Most, I would say, would be categorized among the latter. That represented most of my exposure to the Duke, anyway.

But "The War Wagon" was different. It leaned more toward humorous, with Wayne's character more bemused than indignant about his circumstances — and I have always found that refreshing.

John Wayne's Defining Role

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"Figure a man's only good for one oath at a time; I took mine to the Confederate States of America."

Ethan (John Wayne)

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Sixty years ago today, "The Searchers" premiered on America's movie screens. Its hero, played by John Wayne, was unabashedly racist. He was a middle–aged veteran of the Civil War, a former Confederate soldier who returned to West Texas a few years after the end of the war, presumably with the intention of forming a partnership with his brother.

When I say the character was racist, those who haven't seen "The Searchers" might presume from what they have read so far in this article that the character was anti–black. But he wasn't. He was anti–Indian.

See, in the story, Indians raided a neighbor's homestead and stole some cattle. Wayne and some others went in search of the Indians to retrieve the cattle, but it turned out that the theft was simply a ruse to get the men away. When the men returned, Wayne's brother's home was in flames. His brother, his brother's wife and their son were killed. Their two daughters had been kidnapped.

So Wayne and his nephew (Jeffrey Hunter) embarked on a search.

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The search went on for five years. Early on, the body of the oldest daughter was found brutally murdered and, presumably, sexually assaulted. The search went on for the youngest daughter, who had been 8 years old at the time of her abduction. No one knew what had become of her.

They finally found out. She was with the chief of a company of Comanche. She was played by a young Natalie Wood, 17 in real life and one year removed from her Oscar–nominated performance in "Rebel Without a Cause." Seventeen is a bit older than Wood's character would have been. Kidnapped at the age of 8, discovered five years later.

I saw it a few years ago after having gone several years without seeing it, and I remember thinking that Wood looked really young in the early part of the movie, much younger than she should have been. It wasn't until later that I realized that the young version was Natalie's younger sister, Lana Wood, who would have been about 9 when the movie was made.

Natalie played the role briefly at the end when Wayne found her in the Comanche camp. She said she was now a Comanche and didn't wish to return with him. Wayne would have preferred to see her dead and pulled his gun on her, but Hunter shielded her.

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I had to wonder, as I watched it a few years ago, if "The Searchers" would have been a success in the theaters today. Wayne's racism certainly would have been a lightning rod for criticism, but, like Captain Ahab, there was a kind of beauty in his character, driven by an obsession that seems ugly without its redemptive qualities.

What are those redemptive qualities? Well, the character stood for principles like devotion and loyalty, but he was driven by the desire for revenge. He was a complicated character, worthy of Shakespeare.

It was a gritty story; the American Film Institute ranked it #12 all time — and #1 among the westerns. High praise.

It was pretty successful at the box office, too, but it received no Academy Award nominations. That surprised me when I heard that for the first time. I wasn't really surprised that Natalie Wood wasn't nominated. Her part was pivotal, but her screen time was brief. She did far more to deserve that nomination for "Rebel Without a Cause."

But the failure to nominate Wayne was a big mistake on the part of the Academy.

I once read a Roger Ebert column about the movie, and I recall that he said Wayne's character was the most compelling character Wayne and director John Ford ever created together. And that is certainly saying something, given how many times they made movies together.

It also happens to be true.

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John Wayne's fans will point to all sorts of movies and roles that they will tell you defined the Duke — but it is hard to imagine either a John Wayne movie or role that could be said to have defined him better than "The Searchers."

The Middle Installment of Ford's Cavalry Trilogy

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Captain Nathan Brittles (John Wayne): Were you ever scared, "Captain" Tyree?

Sgt. Tyree (Ben Johnson): Yes, sir. Up to and includin' now.

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John Ford's "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," which premiered nationwide on this day in 1949, took home the Oscar for Best Color Cinematography.

And why shouldn't it? It was filmed against the backdrop of the awe–inspiring Monument Valley along the Utah–Arizona border. Nature gave Ford the perfect set, and it cost him nothing to make — which was good because, as it was, "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" was one of the most expensive westerns ever made — at the time.

(Ford and Wayne had worked in Monument Valley before — when they made "Stagecoach" 10 years earlier.)

In hindsight, it is viewed as the middle installment in Ford's so–called cavalry trilogy — sandwiched in between "Fort Apache" and "Rio Grande" — although they weren't successive chapters of the same story. John Wayne, however, did star in all three.

Now, when you read your history (as most folks don't seem to do these days), you'll find many accounts of Gen. George Armstrong Custer's last stand. But, other than occasional references to what Custer's widow did, I have seen little about what happened after the massacre at the Little Bighorn.

"She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" tried to fill that gap — albeit with what I assume was a fictional story. Wayne's character, a cavalry captain, was close to his mandatory retirement when he was given his final assignment — to deal with some renegade Indians who had broken out of a reservation.

Wayne's character also had to escort his commanding officer's wife (Mildred Natwick) and niece (Joanne Dru) to an eastbound stage. Dru caused quite a stir, as a young, attractive woman is apt to do when surrounded by soldiers who have been assigned to a remote outpost.

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Wayne gave one of the greatest performances of his career — some will tell you it was his greatest performance, and I won't argue that. I can live with it — although there are other roles for which I could make a pretty good case.

Although they had worked together before, Ford supposedly said he didn't know Wayne could act until he saw him in "Red River."

The Academy didn't agree. Wayne didn't receive an Oscar nomination for "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon." He was nominated the year before ("Sands of Iwo Jima"), but the only nomination he ever received for a role in a western was the one he received for playing Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit" 20 years later.

And he won that one.

'Stagecoach' Was About Images

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"Well, there are some things a man just can't run away from."

The Ringo Kid (John Wayne)

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(1939 is widely regarded as the greatest year ever for the motion picture. Ten movies were nominated for Best Picture that year, and today I take a look at the first of those 10 movies to hit the theaters.)

As in most genres, the movie western has many icons. John Wayne is certainly one of them.

In fact, the Duke is probably the first image that comes to mind for most people when they think of big–screen cowboys. And he made a lot of westerns in his life, many of them in the 1920s and 1930s.

But it is the one that made its debut 75 years ago, John Ford's "Stagecoach," that really launched his career.

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Ford, too, had made many westerns, but "Stagecoach" was his first since the introduction of "talkies." I suppose he had made movies in just about every other genre, but, for some reason, he hadn't directed a western with sound. Maybe he regarded it as more of a risk to his reputation.

(That's kind of hard to rationalize, but, really, what other explanation could there be? After Ford made "Stagecoach," he went on to make classic westerns like "The Searchers," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "Fort Apache," "My Darling Clementine" and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," among others.)

Wayne made his initial appearance in the movie when a stagecoach, eastbound from Arizona to New Mexico, picked him up after it came across him carrying his saddle after his horse had gone lame. Wayne's character, the Ringo Kid, was a fugitive from justice, and he wasn't so much picked up as he was taken into custody by a cavalry lieutenant who was on board.

Actually, it was sort of illogical that Ringo should be taken into custody on that particular stagecoach, which was occupied by a rather unsavory group — a prostitute (Claire Trevor), a banker (Berton Churchill) who was embezzling $50,000 from his bank, a whiskey salesman (Donald Meek), an alcoholic doctor (Thomas Mitchell) and a gambler (John Carradine). About the only respectable passenger was the pregnant wife of a cavalry officer (Louise Platt).

The rest of the movie was about the various hazards the stagecoach encountered on its journey. A subplot was the budding romance of Wayne's character and Trevor's character.

I've heard it said that an authentic country music song has at least one of a certain list of elements — drinkin' or guns or pickup trucks or prison or trains or Mom. The more the better, I suppose.

I guess it is that way with a western movie. I'm not a diehard fan of the western. But if that comparison is valid, then "Stagecoach" pushed all the right buttons.

It had horses and Indians and gunfights. There was a spine–chilling scene in which Wayne's character (played in the scene by stuntman Yakima Canutt) walked along the team of running horses to retrieve reins that had been dropped by Andy Devine when his character was shot, even a showdown on a town street in the Old West.

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Speaking of which ...

I imagine that most moviegoers in 1939 weren't very well traveled. Air travel was still an emerging technology in those days, and the nation didn't have the extensive highway system it has today. My guess is that most Americans had no idea that there were places in this country that looked like the region in which "Stagecoach" was set.

Ford often used existing locations in his films. When moviegoers saw "Stagecoach," they saw the sprawling landscape of Monument Valley on the Utah–Arizona state line. Ford returned to the area several times, helping to make Monument Valley what most moviegoers imagine when they picture the Old West in their minds.

So Ford's movie entertained and educated at the same time. Escapism at its finest.

I watched this movie again for the umpteenth time two weeks ago when it aired on the opening day of Turner Classic Movies' annual salute to the Academy Awards, "31 Days of Oscar." It was shown, appropriately, on a Saturday afternoon, and I allowed my thoughts to wander to what it must have been like to be a boy in 1939, watching John Wayne in cowboy movies in a darkened theater.

By the time I came along, Wayne was the definition of what it was to be a cowboy. But that really began 75 years ago today.

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"Stagecoach" is said to be one of the most significant movies ever made. It has been further said that Orson Welles watched it dozens of times prior to making "Citizen Kane."

Part of what made it so important was the performance of Mitchell, who had quite a year in 1939. Most movie scholars will speak of 1939 in reverent tones, and it was an exceptionally good year for movies. It was also a good year for Mitchell, who was a supporting actor in three of the movies that were nominated for Best Picture — "Stagecoach," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "Gone With the Wind."

Mitchell was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in "Stagecoach" — and won it, too — but he could just as easily have been nominated for either or both of the other two.

Strangely, though, 1939 seems to have been the peak of Mitchell's career; although he kept making movies until his death in 1962, he wasn't even nominated for his performance as Uncle Billy in the now–classic Christmas movie, "It's a Wonderful Life."

Mel Brooks' Masterpiece?

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"If you shoot him, you'll just make him mad."

Jim (Gene Wilder)

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A friend of mine recently observed, after watching it again, that "Blazing Saddles" is still good after 40 years. "Why is that?" she asked.

I guess the answer to that is different for everyone. In my case, it's just always funny, no matter how many times I see it. Some movies (or sitcom episodes or comedy CDs) are like that. They always make me laugh, even though I know what is coming.

Others have much shorter shelf lives.

But "Blazing Saddles," which premiered on this day in 1974, always makes me laugh. It's one of those movies that you can just say the punchline and usually make the people around you laugh.

Such as ... "Mongo like candy." (I suppose that is my personal favorite.)

"Blazing Saddles" was like anything else Mel Brooks did. It was simply silly fun, usually offensive to someone, in some respects a guilty pleasure, I guess.

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It might have been his masterpiece, though.

Whatever you might say about any other Mel Brooks movie — that, for example, it was not politically correct — went double for "Blazing Saddles."

In many ways, Brooks seemed to save his most objectionable stuff for "Blazing Saddles."

Like this line (delivered by Slim Pickens) on testing for quicksand: "Horses? We cain't afford t' lose no horses, you dummy! Send in a couple–a niggers."

The "N–word," as it is called now, was abundant in "Blazing Saddles." I can only wonder what kind of response this movie would get if it was making its debut today. Would people appreciate the satire? Or would they focus only on the use of an offensive word?

The head of Warner Bros. objected to the word at the time — but he also objected to the campfire scene and the scene in which Mongo punched a horse, two of the scenes I hear mentioned the most. He wanted those scenes and every use of that word cut from the final product, but Brooks had complete control and ignored the complaints.

A few years ago, in an interview that served as the basis for an article in the Directors Guild of America's magazine, the DGA Quarterly, Brooks said he probably would have to leave out the N–words if he made the movie today.

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Interestingly, both actor Cleavon Little and writer Richard Pryor encouraged the word's use 40 years ago.

Frankly, it would be wrong for anyone to take offense at anything Brooks said or did in his movies. He was impartial about that, an equal–opportunity offender. He made fun of blacks, but he made fun of whites, too. He made fun of Jews, but he also made fun of Christians. He made fun of women, but he also made fun of men. He spared no one.

I have always thought his humor was — mostly — just plain silly. If I had a complaint about Brooks' humor, it was that I often thought it lacked sophistication. Sometimes I thought his humor was a little, well, obvious. I like wit that catches you by surprise. But that's just me. There have certainly been times over the years when I have felt that the humor on Saturday Night Live was just plain silly, lacking sophistication, a little obvious. But I still watch it. (OK, I don't watch it as often as I did, but I do watch it.)

I guess it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it seems to appeal to most people in a guilty pleasure kind of way. I always liked what Roger Ebert said about it: "It's a crazed grabbag of a movie that does everything to keep us laughing except hit us over the head with a rubber chicken."

Ebert conceded that the movie's goal wasn't lofty — merely to make people laugh.

"It's an audience picture," Ebert wrote, "it doesn't have a lot of classy polish and its structure is a total mess."

And, yet, Brooks always makes me laugh. Saturday Night Live does that, too. Not as much as it once did, but still ...

Did you know that Brooks wanted John Wayne to make a cameo appearance? Wayne declined. He loved the script and assured Brooks he would be "the first in line" to see the movie, but he thought the risqué material wasn't right for his image.

Others have been more willing to publicly embrace the movie. The American Film Institute ranked it #6 on AFI's list of the Top 100 comedies. And the Academy Awards recognized it with three nominations.

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Madeline Kahn received one of those nominations — for Best Supporting Actress, which she lost to Ingrid Bergman. It was Kahn's second straight Best Supporting Actress nomination. She was nominated for her work in "Paper Moon" but lost to co–star Tatum O'Neal.

For my money, Harvey Korman could have received a nomination. At one point in the movie, his character actually does say, "You men are only risking your lives while I am risking an almost certain Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor."

But Korman was not nominated. The movie received its two other nominations for film editing and best original song.

He could have been nominated. It was one of the best things he ever did. Likewise for Kahn, who was nominated.

And it is one of the best things Wilder has done. (Wilder wasn't nominated for "Blazing Saddles," but he has been nominated for Oscars twice, both times for Brooks projects.)

All the folks who worked on "Blazing Saddles" deserve to have it mentioned in the lead paragraphs of their obituaries when they die — as it was when Kahn's death was reported in the New York Times in 1999 and when Korman's death was reported in the Los Angeles Times in 2008.

Generational Clash in the Old West

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Simms Reeves (Hank Worden): Plantin' and readin', plantin' and readin'. Fill a man full o' lead, stick him in the ground an' then read words on him. Why, when you've killed a man, why try to read the Lord in as a partner on the job?

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For the most part, John Wayne was an heroic figure.

But, occasionally, he lapsed into a darker character. He didn't explore that side of his movie persona too often, which is too bad, really, because it was an opportunity to see him as a flawed and imperfect man. Far too frequently, his movie roles portrayed him as some kind of western Superman.

He was far from that in the movie that premiered 65 years ago today — Howard Hawks' "Red River." Unlike the sort of character he was known for playing, Wayne's character in "Red River" was an unsympathetic one, clinging to old ways in spite of changing dynamics.

Set in the mid–19th century, Wayne played a frontiersman who craved the life of a Texas cattleman, and he abandoned a wagon train to pursue his dream, accompanied by Walter Brennan. His fiancee was part of the wagon train, which was targeted in an Indian raid shortly thereafter. The only survivor of the raid was a young boy who was informally adopted by Wayne.

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Together, they built one of the wealthiest cattle ranches in Texas — only to see its value reduced to nothing following the Civil War.

His fiancee's death had left Wayne's character embittered and destroyed any hope that he could find happiness in his new life.

Most westerns up to this time — and, certainly, most of Wayne's movies — had an inspirational quality to them. "Red River" had a sharp edge, a gritty quality to it.

I've heard "Red River" described as a "Mutiny on the Bounty" set in Big Sky country, and that isn't a bad comparison.

Upon the return of his adopted son, played by Montgomery Clift, from the war, Wayne's character decided to move his cattle about 1,000 miles to the north, to Missouri where beef markets could be found, but en route to Missouri there were gangs and Indians.

Wayne was able to keep his men in line as long as Clift backed him up, but there came a time when Wayne stepped over the line and Clift challenged him.

It was the familiar clash between the old generation and the new. Clift represented a willingness to embrace change while Wayne resisted.

It's a conflict that has been played out countless times on the big screen and in real life.

Clift seized the herd and made for Kansas, where there was a new railroad to Missouri.

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If it wasn't the first time Wayne played against type, it was one of the first times — and it wouldn't be the last. I'm sure it must have been a bit of a shock for moviegoers who weren't accustomed to seeing Wayne in that kind of role.

In many ways, though, the role Wayne played in "Red River" was the perfect preparation for the role he would play in John Ford's "The Searchers" eight years later.

Winning the West

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Narrator (Spencer Tracy): This land has a name today and is marked on maps. But the names and the marks and the maps all had to be won, won from nature and from primitive man.

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I don't remember if "How The West Was Won" was the first movie I ever saw at a movie theater.

It might have been. As I have mentioned in this blog before, I grew up in a small town in central Arkansas that had an old–fashioned single–screen movie theater downtown (and a drive–in on the outskirts of town). It wasn't unusual for it to take two or three years — or longer — for first–run movies to arrive in my town.

By that time, of course, they were no longer first–run movies. Many had probably already been shown on TV by the time they made it to my hometown theater.

I have vague memories of seeing "How The West Was Won" — which made its American debut on this date in 1963 (it premiered in the United Kingdom about four months earlier) — on the big screen.

In those days, the theater used to distribute cards that indicated which movies were showing on which days during whichever month it happened to be, accompanied by mini reproductions of the movie posters that were on display in the lobby and outside the theater. "How The West Was Won" had two dozen mug shots of the stars who were featured — and that caught my child's eye.

I was old enough, by the time I saw the movie, to read some, and I remember reading what I could of the card and pointing out the stars with whom I was familiar. My parents were both teachers, and my mother started teaching me the alphabet and how to read before I was in first grade.

I don't remember hearing the word "epic" before I saw "How The West Was Won," but that movie has always been my personal standard for what an epic should be — a big, sprawling movie so big it took three directors, two dozen Hollywood stars and thousands of extras to tell the story of Westward expansion in the 19th century.

And what a story it was.

Oh, sure, it was a sanitized version of American history, glossing over many of the more painful chapters, but it was still a good story. It was so sanitary that children could — and did — watch it without suffering any trauma. And, if the adults in the child's family didn't mind tap dancing around some sticky subjects.

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As many stars as "How the West Was Won" had, only one that I know of — Debbie Reynolds — was in it practically from start to finish.

Sometimes I think it should have been called "The Story of Lilith Prescott," but I guess that wouldn't have attracted viewers.

Also, I suppose it would have been hard to give that kind of billing to just about any actress — even one as popular as Reynolds — over stars like Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda or John Wayne, even though those three actors had relatively small roles when compared to Reynolds'.

(Another thing. It probably would have been hard to justify a $15 million budget in 1962 for a movie in which Reynolds was regarded as the major star. She was a popular star in her day, as I say, but she was never the kind of bankable star Stewart, Fonda and Wayne were.)

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Even though I was quite young when I saw it for the first time, I will always be glad I saw "How the West Was Won" on a big screen.

It was made for the wide screen. It was simply too big to be confined to a TV screen.

The Man Who Really Shot Liberty Valance

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I've never really been a John Wayne fan.

While he was living, I suppose I could have been called a casual fan — if such a thing exists. I didn't watch many of his movies — as opposed to some of my friends, who saw them all.

Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call me a selective fan.

(On the other hand, maybe that is nothing more than semantic gymnastics.)

Anyway, today is the 50th anniversary of the theatrical release of one of my absolute favorite John Wayne movies — John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" — and the thing that I like about it is that, in the end, it turns out that John Wayne was not the man anyone thought.

Oh, he was a rancher named Tom Doniphon, of that there was no doubt, and, as the movie opened, there was also no doubt of something else. He was as dead as a doornail.

But it turned out that he hadn't really been the man people thought he was.

The movie paired Wayne with Jimmy Stewart for the first (but not the last) time. Stewart played an aging senator who returned to the western town where they had met as young men for Wayne's funeral.

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While paying his respects, Stewart was asked to sit down for an interview with a local reporter, and he proceeded to tell the story of their friendship through a series of flashbacks.

In spite of being two very different personalities, Stewart and Wayne became friends. Stewart was the more cerebral of the two, a young lawyer with a commitment to justice and education. Wayne was the strong–and–mostly–silent type he often played, a man more given to action than words.

There was a third character without whom the stories of the other two would have had no real meaning — the character whose name appeared in the title, Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). He was a bully who manipulated and terrorized the town's residents.

The moment of truth finally arrived. Stewart's character agreed to face Valance in a gun duel, even though he wasn't very handy with a firearm. To everyone's surprise, including his own, Stewart killed Valance with a single shot.

Or, at least, he seemed to.

It was the clear turning point for Stewart's character. Now known as "the man who shot Liberty Valance," he rode his new reputation to a successful political career. By the time Wayne's character died, Stewart's character had been a senator twice and an ambassador once and was the apparent favorite for his party's nomination for vice president.

Wayne, meanwhile, lived his life in relative obscurity. Stewart also married the woman Wayne wanted (Vera Miles) so it was also a life of solitude.

And it was a life spent concealing a secret — Wayne was the man who actually shot Liberty Valance, but he persuaded Stewart to accept the credit and pursue his career in public service. His motivation? The happiness of the girl he loved — but who did not love him.

Stewart chose to reveal the truth during the interview, but the reporter chose not to print it and burned his notes instead. The truth remained known only to a few people in the movie — and to the audience.

(By the way, if you're one of those people who likes to do an unofficial imitation of Wayne's speaking style, it may interest you to know this was the movie in which he spoke of a "pilgrim."

"Whoa, take 'er easy there, Pilgrim," he says at one point, inspiring a generation of John Wayne imitators.)

Maureen's Milestone

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Seems like I've been doing a lot of writing about death lately, here and in my other blogs.

Therefore, it's a nice change of pace to be able to write today about someone who is still living — Irish–born actress Maureen O'Hara.

You seldom hear O'Hara's name anymore. She made her last film appearance a decade ago, just as she was entering her 80s. She is 90 today.

She was quite a saucy redhead back in the day, though, and she shared the screen with many of the top leading men of her era, but she seemed particularly drawn to projects involving her friend John Wayne and director John Ford.

O'Hara made her screen debut in Alfred Hitchcock's "Jamaica Inn" when she was still in her teens. Her subsequent film credits include appearances in "How Green Was My Valley," "Miracle on 34th Street," "Rio Grande," "The Quiet Man," "The Parent Trap," "Spencer's Mountain" and "The Rare Breed."

And, thanks to some on–the–ball scheduling, you can see the passion she could bring to the screen tonight on Turner Classic Movies when TCM shows two of her best films with Wayne — "The Quiet Man" at 7 p.m. (Central) and "Rio Grande" at 9:15 p.m. (Central) — as part of its daylong salute to O'Hara in its annual "Summer Under the Stars."

John Wayne's Birthday

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It was 102 years ago today that John Wayne was born.

I haven't found any scheduled showings of any of his movies to mark the occasion, but Turner Classic Movies will be showing one of his best films, "Angel and the Badman," tomorrow night at 7 p.m. (Central).

I guess it's kind of risky to proclaim any of John Wayne's movies as one of his best. The Duke still has some devoted fans, nearly 30 years after his death, and each has very definite ideas about what makes a John Wayne movie special.

Some of his fans will tell you his best movie was the one for which he won his only Oscar — "True Grit." Others would say 1939's "Stagecoach," John Ford's classic that allmovie.com says "quickly became a template for all movie Westerns to come."

Wayne was the subject of some controversy in the 1940s. Many movie stars enlisted to fight in World War II, but Wayne did not. His film career, thanks in part to "Stagecoach," was blooming in the early 1940s, and, while there were reports of his inquiries about enlisting in spite of the exemption he received because of his age and family status, apparently he never followed up on those inquiries, That may have been because the studio that had him under contract, Republic Studios, allegedly threatened to sue Wayne if he enlisted — although, logically, it seems very unlikely that a studio would sue its most bankable star for choosing to go to war.

Anyway, while other movie stars interrupted their careers to fight the Germans and the Japanese, Wayne remained stateside and made several war–oriented films. I suppose there are some of his fans who would choose movies he made during this period as being among his best, but I'm inclined to think that most of his best films came after the war ended — "Fort Apache" and "Red River" in 1948, "Sands of Iwo Jima" and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" in 1949, "The Quiet Man" in 1952, "The Searchers" in 1956, "Rio Bravo" in 1959, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" in 1962.

I'm glad that TCM will be showing "Angel and the Badman" this week because I think it illustrates something I have always believed — that Wayne's best films were not necessarily shoot–'em–up Westerns or war flicks but stories about love and redemption. And that is what this film is about. Wayne plays a wounded outlaw who finds shelter with a Quaker family. His character evolves, thanks to the influence of the family's daughter (Gail Russell), but he still wants to kill the man who killed his foster father.

Most people probably wouldn't rate it as one of his best, but I have no problem putting it up there with classics like "Stagecoach" and "The Quiet Man."

Wayne wasn't a great example in his personal life. He was married three times, and his second wife was convinced that he and Russell had an affair during the filming of "Angel and the Badman." A chain–smoker from young adulthood, Wayne was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1964 and had his left lung and four ribs removed. He encouraged people to get examinations, which was good, but he was chewing tobacco and smoking cigars within a few years of his surgery, which wasn't.

He was often criticized for his right–wing politics, and he claimed to have played a role in the blacklisting of "High Noon" screenwriter Carl Foreman.

But his best movies gave us characters and storylines that focus on qualities that most people find admirable.

That, I think, is his enduring gift.