John Wayne Movies

[SoldierOfSoul]

Come on, I know you guys are out there! Who's a duke fan?

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

YouTube - Sands of Iwo Jima - Count Your Toes - John Wayne

 

[Miss Spaulding]

ME!!!

My favorite John Wayne film is The Searchers.

 

[religious&reasonable]

John Wayne is second only to Clint Eastwood.

The Duke is awesome but doesn't hold a candle to "The Man with No Name".

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

ME!!!

My favorite John Wayne film is The Searchers.

Great movie, one of his best roles.

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

John Wayne is second only to Clint Eastwood.

The Duke is awesome but doesn't hold a candle to "The Man with No Name".

Clint Eastwood is a good actor, but one thing you need to remember: if there was no John Wayne there would be no Clint Eastwood. The Duke was a pioneer and there has never been another who could command the screen as he did.

 

[Miss Spaulding]

if there was no John Wayne there would be no Clint Eastwood. The Duke was a pioneer and there has never been another who could command the screen as he did.

I completely agree! A great example of this is that scene where John Wayne holds up the coach in Stagecoach and his character is introduced for the first time. He totally captures and holds your attention immediately.

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

I completely agree! A great example of this is that scene where John Wayne holds up the coach in Stagecoach and his character is introduced for the first time. He totally captures and holds your attention immediately.

He had some very memorial roles, and the thing is, he really always played himself with usually a slight spin off of his own personality. He was genuine.

 

[Zoooma]

that scene where John Wayne holds up the coach in Stagecoach and his character is introduced for the first time. He totally captures and holds your attention immediately.

What a great moment! But that was John Ford not Wayne who captures your attention, in my opinion. The way that shot was framed along with the zooming in of the camera, that was just a truly remarkable and even breathtaking moment in film . . . even though it is flawed -- there's a brief blurry moment, Ringo's rifle was partially out of the shot, and The Duke had this odd blink . . . but even flawed it's perfect. With that few seconds of celluloid, John Ford made The Duke a bona fide Hollywood star. He only made a tiny handful of B-westerns after that before becoming a huge marquee name.

There was an earlier attempt to make The Duke a huge motion picture star when Raoul Walsh directed him 9 years earlier in The Big Trail in 1930. That was an enormous production and if you, whoever is reading this, never have, do make it a priority to watch the 70 mm print of that movie. 70 mm at the time didn't allow for many close-up shots but it gave the picture a bigger than life feel. (I think they filmed with 2 different cameras side-by-side and thus there's a standard 35mm print and the 70mm print and they're not exactly the same.)

Even in 1930 John Wayne was the true leading man he was always meant to be. But for whatever reason, The Big Trail didn't propel The Duke into Tinsel Town stardom. That busted attempt at giving the world Duke The Star did give us 9 years and dozens and dozens of B-movies, mostly westerns, to enjoy him in. Frankly, I can enjoy 55 minutes of The Man From Utah just as much as I can enjoy She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.

I've yet to see everything of his. Post-silent era I've seen maybe 75%, so I have a few to hit plus anything I've already seen will be a pleasure to watch again!

I don't pick many favorites for things in this world but for acting I can hands down say John Wayne is my favorite of all time.

That reminds me -- it's been a couple weeks or so since I've watched a movie of his, about time I get on that!

p.s. Clint Eastwood is simply amazing but Clint can't even lick John Wayne's boots, i mean Fuhgeddaboudit.

 

[Forrest GOP]

Come on, I know you guys are out there! Who's a duke fan?

Rio Bravo (1959)
John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson

 

[Miss Spaulding]

Rio Bravo (1959)
John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson

Love Rio Bravo, but I always leaned a little more towards El Dorado. I thought Dean Martin did a very, very good job as the drunken sherriff in Rio Bravo, I think he had pretty good acting talent.

 

[HighwayMan]

He's good. My favourite actually might be Red River. Great movie until that girl shows up at the end.

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

Love Rio Bravo, but I always leaned a little more towards El Dorado. I thought Dean Martin did a very, very good job as the drunken sherriff in Rio Bravo, I think he had pretty good acting talent.

Yeah but Robert Mitchum was much better in my opinion, that dude was so underrated. Mitchum and Wayne? priceless entertainment. Dean Martin was great too though, he could make you laugh.

 

[Forrest GOP]

Rio Bravo (1959)
John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson

Love Rio Bravo, but I always leaned a little more towards El Dorado. I thought Dean Martin did a very, very good job as the drunken sherriff in Rio Bravo, I think he had pretty good acting talent.

El Dorado is a great pick too.

 

[GrinningDwarf]

Big Jake:

"Who do you think you are, mister?"
"Jacob McCandles."
"Oh. I heard you were dead."
"Not hardly."
"Well...I'm...I'm sorry, Mr. McCandles..."

....................................................................

"No, sir. I havn't stuck my nose into anybody else's business since I was ninteen year old...and it nearly got me killed."

(Cowboy in lynch mob kicks little boy to the ground.)

"Now what did you have to go and do that for?"

........................................................................

"And now you understand. Anything goes wrong, anything at all... your fault, my fault, nobody's fault... it won't matter - I'm gonna blow your head off. No matter what else happens, no matter who gets killed, I'm gonna blow your head off.

..........................................................................

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

I must admit that "The Green Berets" was ridiculous, although it had some great action scenes, the overtly pro-Vietnam war message was laughable.

 

[Zoooma]

Should the film have been pro-Communist???

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

Should the film have been pro-Communist???

No, but they shouldn't have tried to trick future soldiers into thinking that the Vietnamese civilians would worship American troops either.

 

[GrinningDwarf]

Should the film have been pro-Communist???

No...but the sun setting over the ocean was a bit much. (For those who might be geographically challenged, the ocean is to the east of Vietnam. The sun rises over ocean, not sets.) They just needed a good "Duke walking into the sunset" shot to end the movie with.

 

[Zoooma]

Lotsa years have gone by since I've seen THE GREEN BERETS. For a few months now I've been working through Duke's 1930's B-westerns. Going from 26 year old John Wayne to almost 62 year old John Wayne is kinda like a shock to the system, particularly when he's that old and leading Green Berets in combat.

Anyway, here's what I saw as far as ridiculousness (or not)...

Firstly, the sunset thing I immediately noticed. On the air field, if you didn't catch that they were returning from their mission that same day, at first it coulda been, maybe was morning, perhaps . . . until the sun was shown setting in the East. That was lame. I don't forgive blatant errors in geography. I'm pretty good at noticing that stuff and often they really bug me . . . but I understand wrapping up the film that way. There's no proclamation that this is a gritty and gruesome actual depiction of war down to every last detail. Besides, ya ever seen the TV series China Beach? The sand and ocean and sunsets (although not over the ocean) still existed in Vietnam during wartime.

Oh, and another lame production error was when the sun rose the morning after the Viet Cong attacked Camp A-107 . . . that was the fastest I've ever seen the sun come up! It went from dark of night through dawn to sunrise and a bright blue sky in about 3 minutes or less. Oi.

Secondly -- siding with the Americans did happen. I didn't really see a portrayal of Vietnamese citizens worshiping American soldiers, though. I saw villagers who didn't want to be brutally, sadistically, savagely tortured and murdered by the barbarian Viet Cong. In reality, there were many villagers throughout Vietnam who did side with the Communists . . . but not all of them. The kids smiled but the adult villagers portrayed in the film were glad-without-smiling that the Americans were there to help. Some looked worn down, almost shell-shocked, from the VC's abuse during the war that they were waging. The villagers took humanitarian aid, shelter, and they gave information to help the Americans, but I don't think they were shown to be worshiping them. So I don't believe there was any trickery of future soldiers going on here.

Now, was the overtly pro-Vietnam War message really laughable? When this was filmed in late '67, the Fall of Saigon was still 7½ years away. That's a mighty long time, but I'm here to tell ya, there's something else -- when this came out in July of '68, the war was not yet a lost cause for the United States. WWII movies made during WWII didn't show the Allied powers possibly losing the war. They didn't show the Nazis as okay people and/or that they should have been left alone because it's not a fight the U.S. should be in. Those movies did depict death of American military but they generally were not completely truthful and totally accurate depictions of the reality of war. Yet they were applauded for raising morale. At the time, Hollywood was almost a branch of the Armed Forces and the objective was to support the war, not create opposition to it. WWII films were essentially propaganda to prop up, well, everyone -- "Let's kick some Nazi (and Japanese) butt!" Even Bugs Bunny & Daffy Duck took part in that!

The same thing was to be for this film. At the time, many questioned why we were in Vietnam. Many were protesting and disgruntled and skeptical, exactly like the David Jannsen journalist character Beckworth. But that wasn't the opinion of everyone. There were plenty of Americans who wanted the U.S. to kick the Commies' butts. Remember, the war wasn't lost yet. John Wayne wasn't merely just a star reciting his lines and being told what to do in front of the camera, but he was also co-director and producer, and he, as a man, as a patriotic and freedom-loving U.S. citizen, as a human being, believed in helping the South Vietnamese drive back the Communists. I've also got to believe in my heart that his soul was truly, deeply affected by the atrocities committed by the VC against the innocent Vietnamese population. I feel that same way about the atrocities committed against the innocent people of Afghanistan by the Taliban and the people of Iraq by Saddam Hussein as well as the absolutely horrific human rights abuses in so many nations such as the Congo and Sudan and others. But unlike John Wayne, I can't don camo and rally the U.S. Armed Forces and the American public and politicians in Washington who don't mind a war happening somewhere that the U.S. is not involved in. The Duke, on the other hand, was great at such a thing, as demonstrated in his WWII movies made during those years -- he was America's #1 Cheerleader For The Troops (or maybe #1.5 after Bob Hope.)

So that's what John Wayne wanted to do in 1967-68 -- support the troops in making this picture. He was also out to change some minds, like the transformation of Beckworth. If people could come to understand, like Beckworth did, exactly what horrible things were happening over there, maybe they'd change their minds. John Wayne believed that that should happen plus he wanted to rally the troops while trying to give a somewhat accurate depiction of things happening in that war at that time. Of course the film wasn't exactly accurate but what was shown on the screen was not portrayed in a pretty, spit-polished way. Some horribly ugly ways to die at the hands of the VC were both seen and talked about, and this movie does not show being in that war as a piece of cake. Quite the opposite. You simply cannot sanely walk away from this movie thinking, "Vietnam looks like an okay place to fight. No problem." Because of that, the movie *is* anti-war in a way. How could it not be? If I was 17 or 18 in 1967 or '68 and not yet called to duty, after seeing this I might be like, "Yeah right! What-freakin'-ever. I'm goin' to Canada, eh, 'cause I don't want to face that war. No way, Jose." So how could this be a pro-war movie? Top Gun glorifies war. The Green Berets does not.

Roger Ebert and others think/thought The Green Berets is pro-war in a way that should not be supported because war is wrong. (Ebert reportedly gave it 0 stars.) Or maybe they were just against the U.S. being in Southeast Asia because the U.S. wasn't attacked first. That's a legitimate reason for many people to take an anti-war stance. It does kind of make sense -- why punch someone if they don't punch you first? You shouldn't do that. But wait . . . Hitler never punched the United States first. Hmmm. He landed a few spies on Long Island but the Nazis never fired a single shot on the homeland of our Good Ol' U.S. of A. Not . . . A . . . Single . . . Shot. No attack. None. What did Hitler ever do to us?!?!?! Same as what North Vietnam did to us -- Nothing.

Yes, the film was made to change minds and point out what kind of people we were fighting, but The Green Berets does not blatantly proclaim: "We NEED to be fighting the Vietnam War and YOU should think so, too." It doesn't say that at all. What's primarily depicted for the audience is a battle and a mission, a small slice of the war, each with an outcome that is considered a victory but each with a heavy human price attached. Hmmm, that sounds like every other WWII movie. Following the logic, if The Green Berets is pro-war then that would then make all of those WWII pictures pro-war, also . . . right? So why were all those films in the early 40's okay and this bad? Doesn't make sense to me.

And personally, I don't see how this being considered a pro-war movie could be a bad thing. WWII movies were about digging in and defeating evil. What was Communism? Peaceful Shangri-La Utopia Disneyland Paradise? Unicorns & rainbows, puppies & kittens, merry-go-rounds & cotton candy, happyness, full bellies and never any oppression for all? Not exactly. This film wasn't so much about whether we should intervene in someone else's fight, it was about protecting human rights, preventing atrocities no person should be subjected to and beating some Communism with a big stick. And that comes with a human price because evil men don't stop their oppression after sitting down for a nice little chat over Heineken and Ho-Ho's. Throughout modern history, which dictators and truly evil leaders have done that? Which have sat down for a discussion about the human rights abuses they are committing and then changed their mind to start treating human beings how they should be treated versus brutally oppressing them? Mao? Hitler? Hirohito? Pol Pot? Mussolini? Stalin? Milosovic? Saddam Hussein? Omar Al-Bashir? Ahmadinejad? Kim Jong Il? Than Shwe? Mugabe? Idi Amin? Ho Chi Minh? Some men you just can't reach.

No, the U.S. can't go to war everywhere to beat down and remove every bad man in power, but we were in it in Vietnam when The Green Berets was made and like every WWII movie made during that war, this was made to support the troops. Was that somehow wrong?