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Moriarty’s DVD Shelf! John Wayne Marathon Kicks Off With THE COWBOYS And THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER!
Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here.
I know the DVD coverage has been a little slow around here lately, but at least on my end, I’m going to try to change that. I’ve got a ton of things to cover, and one of the most enjoyable recent experiences I’ve had on DVD has been working my way through that giant stack of John Wayne titles that both Warner Bros. and Paramount put out to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Wayne’s birthday, May 26th.
Which, as it happens, is my birthday too, yeah.
I was raised on John Wayne movies. My dad’s a huge fan of Westerns in general, but Wayne specifically. I remember one of the few times he took me to a reparatory screening of something, it was so we could see RED RIVER on the bigscreen together. Considering I’m adopted (in the movie, Wayne’s the adoptive father of Montgomery Clift), it made a hell of an impression on me.
Like many of the great movie icons, Wayne played himself more often than not. Or the idealized version of himself, anyway. And over the course of my life as a filmgoer, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with that iconic version of Wayne. There are times where I’ve really hated what I saw him as a symbol of, this sort of brute force Americana, all swagger and might-makes-right, intolerant and violent. But as I’ve grown older and really dug into his filmography, I find that many of his best films are examples of smart writers and directors taking that iconography and playing with it, suberverting it or using it to make powerful comments about the Western genre or about America at the time the films were made. Wayne controlled his own fate in a way that many actors never did, thanks in large part to the rich production deal his company Batjac struck with Paramount.
By the time 1972 rolled around, Wayne’s career was on the decline. He was still a giant movie star, no question about it, but the films he was making just weren’t connecting with audiences. CHISUM and RIO LOBO both proved to be disappointments with critics and audiences alike, and when he made BIG JAKE, it was a departure from the types of films he was known for, more in line with the violent action movies of the day.
THE COWBOYS gave Wayne one of his very best late-era roles, in my opinion, and the script by Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank Jr., and William Dale Jennings is a smart, sentimental adaptation of the novel by Jennings. Mark Rydell and his cinematographer the great Robert Surtees (who shot classics like THE GRADUATE, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, THE STING and BEN-HUR) use every inch of their full scope screen to great effect here, and the new Warner Bros. release of the film is gorgeous.
The story is incredibly simple. Wil Anderson’s ranch is in trouble because people are getting gold fever and leaving the area, determined to go find their fortune elsewhere. Anderson’s got a cattle drive coming up, and no one to run it with him. Even so, he refuses to compromise his own personal ethics, and when a group of recently-released convicts led by Long Hale (Bruce Dern) shows up and offers their services, he turns them down cold. He gets a crazy idea, though, and recruits eleven boys from area to work the drive with him, the oldest of them only fifteen. Add a black cook to the mix, played with wry wit by Roscoe Lee Browne, and what unfolds is a solid, smart coming-of-age story that plays surprisingly rough.
Wayne was already an old man by the time he made this, and every single day of his 60-plus years shows on his face and in every move he makes. The kids look even younger next to him, but there’s something genuine about the way they bloom under his attention and the way they look up to him, awed by his experience. Robert Carradine made his screen debut as one of the kids, and you can see how much they all look up to Wayne as an actor. Browne makes a great foil for Wayne in their scenes together, and one of the best scenes in the film involves Colleen Dewhurst as a madam of a wagon train brothel that crosses paths with the cattle drive. The kids all do excellent work, and as far as Bruce Dern goes... he does exactly what he’s hired to do, and I can only imagine how much audiences hated him at the time.
If you’ve seen this film, you remember the ending, and if you haven’t, I won’t ruin it for you. I’ll just say that it took enormous courage for Rydell to not only shoot the ending, but to stage it the way he does. It’s a refutation of much of Wayne’s career in one way, but a confirmation of his iconic character in another.
It’s impossible to forget you’re watching John Wayne, and Rydell takes full advantage of that, making THE COWBOYS far more affecting than one might expect.
THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER is probably best known to younger audiences thanks to the recent remake, FOUR BROTHERS. Henry Hathaway’s 1965 film is a confident piece of Hollywood entertainment, and part of the charm is the reunion of Wayne and Dean Martin, who were so great together in RIO BRAVO. When ranch owner Katie Elder dies, her four sons return home, each of them having taken very different paths in life. John Elder (Wayne) is notorious, feared by everyone, while Tom (Martin) is a gambler. The younger sons, Matt (Earl Holliman) and Bud (Michael Anderson) have made decent lives for themselves, but they’re all connected by their love for their mother. When they learn that Katie died with no money, having sold the ranch off, they begin to suspect that something happened to their mother that needs to be avenged.
I’m not going to make the case for THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER as a classic or a masterpiece, but Hathaway was one of those filmmakers who could put it all together and make compelling entertainment. Between this and NEVADA SMITH, the Steve McQueen film he made the following year, he obviously knew how to get maximum tension from the revenge sub-genre. Wayne and Martin sort of overpower Holliman and Anderson as the younger brothers, but that’s fine. It’s the action set pieces and the tension that really carries the film and makes it hold up.
THE COWBOYS is available from Warner Home Video, and is also available as either an HD-DVD or a Blu-Ray release. THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER can be purchased from Paramount Home Video either as a standalone title, or as part of the John Wayne Centennial Collection.
I’m going to continue to discuss Wayne’s films here and over on my DVD blog, but there’s a lot of other stuff I want to feature here on the site in the next few weeks. Right now, I’m going to go work on finishing up part one of the set report for a film that I think is going to surprise a lot of people next spring.
Have you checked my DVD Blog Today?
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
Have you checked my DVD Blog Today?
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
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Think I'll watch it again today.
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Giddy up!
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The Quiet Man is my favourite movie.
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..in his slimy best in "The Cowboys"..
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I do think The Cowboys and Sons of Katie Elder are some of the Duke's finest. My favorite western of his tho, is The Shootist. To me, I don't think he could have picked a better film to be a sort of fitting final way for all of his rough and tumble Americana to end.
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He was brimming with Lack.
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... I'll be making my own leap into the HD world in the next few weeks, and I'll definitely be talking about it here and discussing the titles that really stand out in what is rapidly becoming a very crowded and confusing market.
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.."McQ"? It was the Dukes try for a 'Dirty Harry' type of a vibe he even had some sort of machine-gun to rival Callahans .44 Mag
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I'm guessing by your lack of mention that The Cowboys is also available in Blu-Ray, that you're to become one of the many AICN writers to pick the wrong format?
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Did you ever read Joan Didion's essay "John Wayne"? It's great. Brush up on it for your future writings about his career.
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Is it just me or does cinema in the last 15 or so years gone ridiculously pretty? I mean, there were always good loocking charmers and beautiful women but there were also people who looked very real. Like real people. In leading roles. We have real people these days but they get just bit character roles or barely distributed independent movies. Everyone in the big movies is pretty. John Wayne has a hell of a lot of personality but not a pretty face. Could he possibly be a leading man in today's cinema?
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The Quiet Man
Sands of Iwo Jima
The Searchers
True Grit
and my favorite
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Hopefully someday they will release a good box set of the Duke's work. -
Sons of Katie Elder is one of my favorites, probably because it was on all the time.
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I saw it at a revival house a few years ago and was mostly expecting to appreciate it a lot more than I enjoyed it. It's one of my favorite films now. It took a huge leap up the AFI list in June. I could never figure out why it was only at #96 before. I recently bought a DVD of Liberty Valance at Circuit City for $5.
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Geez, the great JW provided one of most memorable scores ever for the Cowboys. Just listed to that opening credits theme...makes me want to saddle up and ride every time I hear it.
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The great thing about this score is that you can hear the genesis of his later Superman theme in it. Specifically, there's a sad theme that always reminds me of Superman's "Leaving Home" theme. (ie. Check out the scene where Wayne visits the graves of his sons.)
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the other night TCM was showing my favorite John Wayne movie, Rio Bravo. It's one of those movies, at least to me, that I don't watch on a regular basis but when it's on I have to sit down and watch it. I think it's my favorite because it's the first one I saw iwth my dad. The Searchers and the Cowboys, I both saw when younger, all of like 12 or 13, and not yet the cinophile that I am today. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it's not what I got, and as a result didn't like them, but upon further and furter viewings, both I relize, how well done and amazing they both are. Can't wait to pick as many of these up on DVD as I can.
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Icon. Legend. Cinema god. What can you say about Wayne that hasn't already been said a million times? Personally I'll just say I love the big lummox. You could write articles about the Duke's greatest films for months, and I agree that The Cowboys is too often overlooked amongst his finest films. But you know you want to write up The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance next Mori. John Ford's last masterpiece and the greatest Western ever committed to film.
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I saw the Cowboys with my dad and brothers at the drive in when it came out. I was ten or so. It made quite an impression on me then, and I have enjoyed it several times since.
McQ was on in HiDef a few weeks ago and I watched and enjoyed it. It started at 10:00 (late for an old man like me) and I just tuned in for a few minutes to see how the transfer looked, and two hours later I turned off the television. Not a great movie, but there is an outstanding scene between Wayne and Colleen Dewhurst that seems to have come out of another movie its so good.
Other than the Quiet Man, though, none of the movies are Wayne's best, IMHO. The best are The Searchers (the new HD transfer is amazing) and the Ford cavalry trilogy "Rio Grande" "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" and "Fort Apache". I would put "Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" up there as well.
Wayne was also great in a hilarious episode of "I Love Lucy". Wanye legend: Wayne played "the centurion" in The Greatest Story Ever Told". He had one line, "Truly he was the son of God". The legend is that he was so drunk on the set that it took George Stevens a day to get that one line out of him. Wayne never gets the recognition he deserves as an actor. In sixties and seventies he became hated by the hippies and liberals, and people forgot how good he actually was. He is brilliant throughout The Searchers, often named as the greatest film ever made by critics. And, there is a scene in "Yellow Ribbon" where he talks to his dead wife at her grave that is just mind blowingly moving. They don't make em like John Wayne anymore. -
No need to apologize again; just find someone else more dedicated to upcoming DVD releases. You can still do your favorite sets-I won't squawk.
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I'll believe it when I see it. ;) You always promise this, so now you're the boy, and I don't see any wolves around. At least you are offering us lists full of some DVDs that have been available for months and passing them off as new releases. ;)
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aren't offering us lists...aren't. Goddammit!!!! I hate it when I do that. "Fuck a duck" to quote Clooney from Good German.
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Very good. The Wayne DVDs have been out for months (unless these are new and part of a campaign started by that huge wave a few weeks/months ago). Ha, ha very good.
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I also recommend if you are looking for Wayne movies, the shootist, and Rio Bravo, the man who shot liberty valance
Good stuff, not sure though if all are out -
I'm actually looking to install both a Blu-Ray and an HD-DVD player in the house so I can compare titles for a while. I'll make my own informed decision based on my personal experience, not based on people condescending to me on the Internet or trying to bully me one way or the other, thanks.
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The movie is available in DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. In any event, I'm sticking with DVD and not getting EITHER HD or Blu-Ray. In 5-10 years, mass media storage will allow digital transfer of all files and individual discs will be a waste of my space. Just purchase the size of the file you want through your media provider.
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Y'all realize that the flamers for BluRay are the same PS3 devotees, right? Besides, both formats are doing well. HDDVD is on the upswing, and when the exclusive contracts that Fox has with BluRay expires in a couple of years, they will then sign a contract with BOTH entities, as Universal will as well. You BluRay flamers don't get it. If a company can make more money by doing both formats, they will. So, say goodbye to the Fox BluRay only, and more than likely, Disney/Touchstone as well. Sony/MGM for obvious reasons will stick with BluRay only, and they will make half the money the other studios will... and THAT is what's going to make BluRay fail. Why do you people trust Sony? They've backed every single bust in media technology in the last 30 years, with Beta and Mini-Disc.
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Always come back to watching "Big Jake"...to me, the oddest movie in the Wayne filmography...almost tongue in cheek, flavorful opening narration followed by horrendous Eastwood-Leone violence (Richard Boone and his band of psychos slaughtering everyone in sight at Maureen O Hara's ranch. Rest of it veers from rollicking American western to mean-spirited Italian western gundowns. And Boone makes a truly loathsome villian and worthy adversary.
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The Comancheros, Hatari, Rio Bravo, North to Alaska, McLintock, The War Wagon, Chisum, Sands of Iwo Jima, and Donovan's Reef. The rest of his films I can live without.
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Flip, you're right, The Searchers is one of the greatets films ever made, similarly ignored by the Academy in much the same way Saving Private Ryan was. And watching The Searchers on HDDVD is exactly why this new format was invented... absolutely fucking beautiful cinematography.
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"FILL YOUR HANDS YOU SON OF A BITCH" (from TRUE GRIT; the audience--a melting pot--erupted in cheers and applause. Remember when movies were fun?).
I think Wayne's sleeper is EL DORADO, a remake of his RIO BRAVO. Great chemistry between Wayne and Robert Mitchum . James Caan is cool, too, though his impersonation of an Asian may make you squirm a bit. Fuck politics, many of Wayne's fims (e.g. THE QUIET MAN, wonderful) are timeless. -
The guy is bland and boring. There's no one who can put me to sleep quicker than John Wayne. I remember liking the idea of Westerns as a kid but unable to actually sit through an entire Western thanks to John Wayne's inherent blandness. Thank the gods Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone came along and saved the genre. Without them who knows what would have happened. In the immortal words of Miller, "John Wayne's a fag."
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The gun was the "new" MAC-10, with a noise suppressor on it. "Makes it easier to hold..." or something like that. Saw a program about movie effects years ago and they used the beach chase scene in McQ to illustrate some things. At one point, McQ lays the MAC-10 on the windowsill of his car and fires a big burst at the pursuing bad guys. The car flips and rolls, bad guys are dead, film at 11. The program showed that they basically fired a pole concealed in the trunk straight down into the ground, casuing the car to flip. Very cool, no CGI, just bang! and hope this isn't your last car stunt. As for John Wayne, he's perhaps my favorite actor, ever. I enlisted during Viet Nam primarily becaused I thought "that's what the Duke would do". Didn't have a clue one way or the other about the war (I was all of 17), but I thought I was doing the right thing, etc. I have since gotten much older and wiser, but I still love the Duke. As for rbatty024...yes, you're a total troll...take a bow, then hit the road. The only fag here is the one in your mirror!
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Everyone asks him "I thought you were dead?" (Snake Plisken anyone?)
When asked why no ransom, he says 'They burned my ranch, killed one man, left another for dead and took my grandson. I ain't paying them for that.'
BTW, same writers as Dirty Harry. -
You enlisted because "That's what the Duke would do"?! I don't even know where to start, probably because with a realistic world view like that, 17 or not, I'm amazed you're still here. Did you actually go over? And how hard did reality hit you when you got there? Don't misunderstand. I have nothing but respect for someone who has made the conscious decision to lay down their life for a cause they believe is worth that, but inlarge part for a romantic view of an actor (or the tearfully jingoistic image he projects), well... man. I'm not trying to be an arrogant prick here and say anyone's better than anyone else, and I know you're being sort of humble in a weird way by admitting that on a tb, but I'm just trying to understand. And I do realise the government's still conning kids into doing their dirty work overseas through the media, but it just seems like you were already halfway there. Sorry, I'm just a bit agog I guess that you'd admit it here.
Yes you're obviously more self aware now, but geez, the cg thing. It's still predominately done the old way (it's still cheaper). I think you saw a Die Hard trailer once. Look at stuff like Hulk. The character might not have been there, but they still use the same tricks for flipping the cars, only difference is they don't have to worry so much about seeing the rigs as they can just 'rub' them out. Same with many otherwise cg heavy movies.
I agree completely with you though about rbatty's trolling. He and Animal should get together and have little trolletes. -
If I haven't completely pissed you off yet and as you seem to want to talk about it, can you tell me more specifically about how you were at the time? I'm not baiting here. Although I'm still having trouble coming to terms with John Wayne's image leading you to war, I'm honestly and sincerely interested in what you were going through. You hear about raving mother's groups saying cartoons will turn us into axe-wielding killers and Rambo encouraged a generation to march for Ronnie, but 99% of the time it's garbage and it's the person with the inclination that seeks out and finds these things to justify their existing feelings, not the other way around. So can you tell me/us if it was a spur of the moment thing and you loved what the Duke 'stood for' anyway so what the hell? Was it also the gang you hung out with? Were you (this is an honest question) stoned and drunk and partying a fair bit and maybe the timing was a bit lousy? Going through shit with the folks? I know these questions are sort of hamfisted, but yeah now I've calmed down a bit I'd be interested in your reply. Thanks.
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Big Jake was my first non-G movie. It was shown in a double feature (remember those?) with "Snoopy Come Home"!!!
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Yeah, I realize that my personal favs don't match the popular opinion of many film buffs, but that's just my opinion. I never really have cared for many of Wayne's other films for one reason or another. I suppose the Quiet Man is an ok film in its own right, but it's certainly not one that I can stand to watch more than once every blue moon. To each his own I guess. Hell, if some people can actually like SAW and Hostel, I guess I'm entitled to actually enjoy Hatari. ;)
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Red told the story about he and Wayne playing knock rummy at night on location by lantern light,Red said,"Duke just picked up a card when I saw a Lepold walk into the camp five feet behind Duke. I whispered to him Duke there's a Lepoid behind you!"
When turned around slowly stared the big cat in the face. Turned back to me, throw down a card then anounced, "Ask him if he wants to play winners. Another strange fact about that movie, for those who watched it and remember the dead elhephant in the movie. It was a rouge that wreaked a native village and asked the film crew for help. Wayne was the one who shot it dead. Some of the granny film of the hunt was used in the baby elephant water hole scene. Remember with an elphant gun you have two shots between the epephant and being turned into a smear on the ground!
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