John Wayne

[greennui]

A polarizing figure, no doubt. I used to dislike him but I find him more and more tolerable with age.

What are your fav Wayne performances/films starring Wayne?

[flip]

i've only seen nineteen of his films, didn't realize he was polarizing

favourites:
the man who shot liberty valance (john ford, 1962)
stagecoach (john ford, 1939)
true grit (henry hathaway, 1969)

least favourites:
mclintock! (andrew mclaglen, 1963)
the cowboys (mark rydell, 1972)
rainbow valley (robert bradbury, 1935)

[rischka]

oh i used to HATE him. he's a rightwing hero who really leaned into it when he was alive. but he had a fine career and i learned to appreciate him. he had a wonderful physicality. favorites.

the big trail
liberty valance
the long voyage home
red river


funny i was just watching doug fairbanks and thinking the same, tho doug reminds me more of burt lancaster. i remember sally saying she learned to watch wayne by picturing him as a flamingo LOL. he was too distracting for me to enjoy ford/wayne films for years -- except liberty valance, a childhood fave



greennui you must see the long voyage home if you haven't; WAYNE PLAYS A SWEDISH SAILOR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9b8GDHckj8

[nrh]

wayne in long voyage home is my favorite film version of an o'neil role, and better than a whole bunch that i've seen on stage.

but yeah i hated him for years without really having seen any of his movies closely. favorite performances would be -

rio bravo
she wore a yellow ribbon
the shootist
hatari!
dark command

and hm hard to think of a movie i hate much more than mclintock! and wayne's worst qualities are particularly present there.

[MrCarmady]

I like Rio Bravo a lot (and him in it) but hate the guy generally - really wooden, one-dimensional actor with shitty politics as mentioned. Time to give him another shot, though, I try periodically and I do quite like Liberty Valance and don't mind The Searchers or Red River. The Quiet Man is the absolute worst, though, and I also didn't enjoy Stagecoach at all. Sounds like The Long Voyage Home is a good one to try, Toland and all.

[greennui]

greennui you must see the long voyage home if you haven't; WAYNE PLAYS A SWEDISH SAILOR

I've seen that one and it annoyed me slightly that his character was named 'Ole Olsen' which is not a Swedish name but a Danish/Norwegian one. If he was Swedish he should have been named 'Ola/Olle Olsson". That's my nitpick lol.

[Roscoe]

Wayne's excellent in STAGECOACH and THE SEARCHERS, and he's pretty good in LONG VOYAGE HOME. But overall I find him unwatchable. There are few worse leading performances in world cinema than what he does in THE QUIET MAN, he's Keanu-level bad. To be fair, there are glimmers elsewhere, as in RED RIVER where his look of shock at being punched out by Montgomery Clift is a thing of beauty.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Took me a while to get into him, largely for the political resonance, but as I got into Ford and westerns over the past few years, he's become a comforting presence and someone I love as a performer. He's poignant and understated when he needs to be, boisterously funny at other times, adept at both drama and comedy. I also find Wayne very attractive in early roles! Indeed, a recurring aspect of his Three Mesquiteers series western entries is that he's the most attractive of the three (though Ray Corrigan's no slouch).

Seen 26, and will add to that a fair amount this wild west summer. I have a biography of him on my summer reading list as well. Some selected favourites:

Ride Him, Cowboy (1932) - not particularly good B western, but Wayne is very pretty in this (pictured below!)
Three Faces West (1940) - a well-made Dust Bowl melodrama that taught me Wayne can be hot!
Westward Ho (1935) - Republic's first production, and they put a lot into it
Red River Range (1938) - fun Three Mesquiteers w/ Wayne pretending to be a dude!
Stagecoach (1939) - a star is born!
Fort Apache (1948) - one of his understated roles, impressively different
Three Godfathers (1948) - a really complex physical performance, requiring great exertion
The Searchers (1956) - his most impressive performance

[greennui]

I like him all relaxed in the Hawks hangout films (Rio Bravo, Hatari!, El Dorado) and all haunted in the later Ford films (The Searchers, Liberty Valance). Wonder if Ford's tirades about his failure to enlist during WWII was a way to coax better performances out of him.

[liquidnature]

I love him, but I grew up watching his movies over and over as a young child - though admittedly I remember very little about them other than a few such as The Shootist and True Grit. I'd love to watch all of his films though.

Which begs the question, we've talked directors, but has anyone here seen all of the films of a particular actor? Off the top of my head, I'd be really interested in watching everything from John Wayne, Nicolas Cage, Judy Garland, Charles Laughton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Robert Donat, to name a few. I don't think I've even seen a quarter of any particular actor's filmography though.

[...]

Yeah, Wayne isn't so much an "actor" as he is a compelling screen presence, in the right roles. He never really developed more than a limited set of masculine signifiers, but he got very good within that limited range of physicality and stunted emotions which happen to be overwhelmingly popular in Hollywood cinema. He can play authority figures of moderate intelligence, physically savvy both personally and in how he relates to the other actors and do loose jocularity, the coach and the athlete set basically. He has a interesting voice and line delivery which makes him unique and holds audience attention, feeding into the sense he's "different" than the other actors onscreen which helps make him the center of attention and helps provide that sense of authority when matched to how he carries himself as someone not really in conversation with others exactly, but somehow a little bit apart. He comes across as a doer and a guy follows rules, his own or some outside set, not as someone who ponders ideals or possibilities, he just knows what he needs to know or he could play someone a bit innocent and blind to machinations of others out of the same sense of being of a world to himself, though that was more in his early career as he aged out of the pure innocent to one of a more conservative ideal of moral virtue, which is more a malignant version.

He's generally pretty bad at romances for that reason, unless they are like The Quiet Man, where he and O'Hara are used more as icons of a sort rather than full fledged individuals. O'Hara made a good match for Wayne because she was likewise limited in her abilities as an actor, though of course in a different way than Wayne. It's only Hondo that has any real sense of an actual human romance and that's largely thanks to a superlative performance by Geraldine Page that humanizes the relationship.

Wayne, however, is ideal for how he was often used in films. Ford knew exactly what he was doing in casting Wayne and could get the most out of the limited emotional framework Wayne worked with. Ford wasn't the only director who made good use of Wayne, as his career progressed those attributed became so hardened and tied to his persona that casting him usually meant knowing what the role would end up becoming. The directors that tried to push Wayne out of that range or just use him for box office name appeal without considering those limits would often end up with a disaster as Wayne didn't adapt or "act" in that way.

Hondo is probably my favorite Wayne for Wayne film, the Ford films of course are the more cinematically significant. I also have a strong fondness for several Wayne films where he isn't quite fit to the same mold, Three Faces West, as Evelyn mentioned, where Wayne is surprisingly solid in a slightly more complex role, and Trouble Along the Way and Tycoon, in the first of which Wayne is cast well enough for the story, but the story messes with conventions in ways that I find fascinating but others likely might not, and in the latter Wayne isn't really good, in fact he has one wordless reaction moment that is so inexplicable in what he's trying to convey that it stands out as a pinnacle of actorly indecision, but I still find the movie itself quite interesting for how it tries to use Wayne and how odd it is otherwise, but again others differ. Hatari! and In Harm's Way are others I like quite a bit, though I'm less enthused than most about the other Hawks films, don't hate 'em just not gaga about 'em. Hathaway knew what he was getting with Wayne and their movies are fine and Wayne was effectively Wayney in a good number of other films I liked moderately well, but in his later career he could as often be too Wayney, the conservative self-parody of his better work. Without Reservations though is probably the worst of the 90 Wayne films I've seen, even including The Conqueror. (A fair portion of that number are more cameo roles, so between 70 and 80 is closer to the mark.)

[Umbugbene]

^ Greg that seems like a pretty spot-on assessment. Hatari is my favorite Wayne role, partly because it mocks his own persona when he's thrust into a romantic situation and doesn't know what to do. I also like Reap the Wild Wind.

[...]

Heh. I watched Reap the Wild Wind and Wake of the Red Witch too close together to remember clearly remember the details of which scenes are in what movies. I like one of them and didn't care as much for the other, but can no longer say why.

[wba]

A polarizing figure, no doubt. I used to dislike him but I find him more and more tolerable with age.

I also used to dislike him as a young cinephile, but nowadays I adore him (as an actor/performer, of course).

I don't so much go by performance, but these are some of my favorite films with Wayne, all masterpieces, in my opinion (out of the circa 30 of his films that I've seen):


The Great K&A Train Robbery (1926, Lewis Seiler)
The Big Trail (1930, Raoul Walsh)
Baby Face (1933, Alfred E. Green)
Tall in the Saddle (1944, Edwin L. Marin)
Angel and the Badman (1947, James Edward Grant)
3 Godfathers (1948, John Ford)
Rio Grande (1950, John Ford)
Rio Bravo (1959, Howard Hawks)
How the West Was Won (1962, George Marshall, Henry Hathaway, Richard Thorpe, John Ford)
El Dorado (Howard Hawks, 1967)
Chisum (1970, Andrew V. McLaglen)

I still have a long way to go, 'till I've seen all of Mr. Wayne's almost 200 movies…

[MrCarmady]

I love him, but I grew up watching his movies over and over as a young child - though admittedly I remember very little about them other than a few such as The Shootist and True Grit. I'd love to watch all of his films though.

Which begs the question, we've talked directors, but has anyone here seen all of the films of a particular actor? Off the top of my head, I'd be really interested in watching everything from John Wayne, Nicolas Cage, Judy Garland, Charles Laughton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Robert Donat, to name a few. I don't think I've even seen a quarter of any particular actor's filmography though.

John Cazale pops to mind, obviously, but otherwise this is much harder than with directors. I'm guessing a lot of people have seen all the James Dean movies, though I haven't.

[...]

For older studio or "classic " era actors trying to watch everything they were in can be a huge and somewhat pointless task as the amount of films made were often enormous for the biggish stars and the quality of movies and performances were so variable. There are maybe a handful that might make the attempt somewhat rewarding, if you were into the actor, Laughton, for example, was usually expected to bring something more to his roles than most. The major film producing nations seemed to have similar enough methods that going by stardom would lead down a lot of relatively uninteresting alleyways when the actors were used for box office and weren't all that invested or suitable for the roles. Specialty actors or short career types might be doable and interesting enough, I try to see every Virginia O'Brien film I can, but she wasn't a star. I've seen almost all Fred Astaire's films, but really don't have much interest in a couple of his late TV movies and the like as they aren't gonna show me anything much.

Modern actors are maybe a more fruitful venture, or some of them anyway, as they have more choice in what they appear in, have a wider array of possible film areas to explore, if they're interested in doing so, and generally make far fewer films than studio era actors. That's true-ish at least of some of the more interesting odd actors, while modern genre actors or actor producers can be interesting for their own reasons as films are built around them in different ways than before. In other words, you have Tilda Swinton, Kristin Stewart, Nicolas Cage types who make a variety of odd movies because she is kinda odd herself, Meryl Streep, Juliette Binoche or Daniel Day Lewis types, actors as stars, who are usually the center of their films and get to be very selective about their choices, Jason Statham or Jet Li types who are the top level talents in their particular genres, and Tom Cruise types who basically make their own movies. Even the more "normal" stars are easier to follow as the way movies are made now allows for easier opportunity to see everything they do if you really want to. I'm sure there are people who've seen all Tom Hanks movies, for example, or try to see everything Jennifer Aniston or Adam Sandler is in, maybe not on this site so much, but choosing movies by who's in them is not only common, but the basic expectation of the commercial film industry. Heck, absent any other more compelling interest of the moment, I'll watch movies for who's in them at times and have gone out of my way on occasion to seek out bodies of work by actors, though not to a completist end, more just to try and answer some question I might have at the time.

(I know there are people who would try to watch everything by actors like SRK too, but the Indian film industry kept to a studio model longer than some other countries, so that makes it harder to see everything for anyone but the most hardcore fans given the large number of films he's in. That, I suppose, is a difference between some casual fans of stars and those more interested in movie history, not that those need be entirely exclusive categories.)

Or to put it a different way, there's absolutely no reason to watch every John Wayne movie save for the sake of being a completist because you aren't going to really get anything more from Wayne as an actor beyond a certain point. It becomes a state of constantly diminishing returns. Wayne changed a bit over time, but you don't need to watch every one of his early cheap westerns to see what kind of actor he was when he was young. Some will be better than others in terms of movie making, but Wayne is more or less Wayne in all of them. If it finding a "hidden treasure" or getting to know the history of the genre or low budget movie making, then sticking just to Wayne films and ignoring, say, Ken Maynard oaters isn't the best way to go. There just isn't much reason beyond saying you did it to track down every Wayne film at some point.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Which begs the question, we've talked directors, but has anyone here seen all of the films of a particular actor?

Within cinephilia (as opposed to, say, classic Hollywood fandom - a line I try to straddle), watching around actors isn't as popular a method as watching around directors, but I think it can be just as rewarding! Studio systems were usually star/genre systems, and so following the development of a particular star can be really educational and rewarding if you're interested in the history of a studio or a genre. It can also be a way to find hidden gems that maybe weren't directed by a big name auteur.

There's a number of classic film actors whose filmographies I'd love to complete or at least come close to completing by way of a viewing project or three. I currently have two star-themed viewing projects on the go:

• I read a bio of Edward G. Robinson and I have about 20 Eddie Gees recorded this May off TCM, so I'm working my way through his delightful work. I probably won't try to complete his filmography this time around, but I'll get so I can get there eventually if I want. I have a private list on Letterboxd that I'm working to build, of my 20 favourite Robinson movies/performances, and I'll make it public when I'm done. I find having a list like that really fun and motivating for a viewing project like this.

• The other viewing project, which I just started because I thought it would be good for my soul, is watching/re-watching all the Deanna Durbins in order, and the goal there is definitely completion (she only has around 20 movies).

Other names I'd love to do soon: Bela Lugosi (my beau!); Jean Harlow (another short, fascinating filmography); and, honestly, John Wayne (at least, all his westerns, yes even and especially the B series westerns of the '30s).

[flip]

The other viewing project, which I just started because I thought it would be good for my soul, is watching/re-watching all the Deanna Durbins in order, and the goal there is definitely completion (she only has around 20 movies).

deanna durbin was exactly who i was just going to mention! not counting the wartime propaganda variety show shorts, i still have four to see (mad about music, along with three of her last films which i don't hold out much hope for). but i'll watch them all as soon as i can find copies of them.

ignoring things made for tv, i've seen all of uta hagen's films (there are only three of them, and i've seen them all purely by coincidence).

i've seen 29 of 39 anna faris films, so besides durbin's, her filmography is probably the one i'm closest to 'completing'.

i thought i'd be closer with buster keaton than i actually am, i guess he was in a ton more things that he didn't direct than i realized. and audie murphy made more films than i realized too, thought i'd be closer to him but for both i'm only around 25%. there are very few actors i'd ever consider making an effort to 'complete', so i doubt if this thread pops up a few years from now my situation will be much different.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

deanna durbin was exactly who i was just going to mention! not counting the wartime propaganda variety show shorts, i still have four to see (mad about music, along with three of her last films which i don't hold out much hope for). but i'll watch them all as soon as i can find copies of them.

If you have trouble finding copies of them, I believe I have file copies of all the Durbins on my drive.

I recall finding Mad About Music to be my favourite of her early films, mostly because I found it had an interesting meta quality to it. It's largely about how studios control the lives of movie stars and the real person becomes hidden behind a star persona. There's a moving moment where Durbin looks directly at the camera and seems to be pleading with the audience, not as character but as herself, to set her free and let her be just a regular girl, not a movie star. I don't want to built it up too much, and I'll see how I feel on upcoming rewatch, but definitely well worth seeing for the Durbin fan!

[flip]

If you have trouble finding copies of them, I believe I have file copies of all the Durbins on my drive.

oh wow, i'd love to see them, it looks like one of them was u'led to youtube a couple of weeks ago, so the only ones i'd have left are mad about music, up in central park, and for the love of mary. maybe this is the year i finally get on kg

[nrh]

(I know there are people who would try to watch everything by actors like SRK too, but the Indian film industry kept to a studio model longer than some other countries, so that makes it harder to see everything for anyone but the most hardcore fans given the large number of films he's in. That, I suppose, is a difference between some casual fans of stars and those more interested in movie history, not that those need be entirely exclusive categories.)

i'd argue that especially in the '90s the studio model in hindi film, apart dharma and yash raj (who gave srk his biggest hits) or rajshri or eros which is more a financier than a studio, the system was more a weird spider web of small producers and shady financiers, with a ton of mob cash involved. which for srk early career means he ended up working on a constant stream of weird auteur projects alongside the bigger films.

more than keeping with studio structure i'd say indian film industries have held onto the idea of the star sign; i can't think of anywhere else in the world where figures like rajini, vijay, srk etc still have same meaning (even as some have struggled to keep commercially viable).

edit - in some way cruise may be the huge exception to this rule...

[...]

That's a fair correction. I wasn't thinking as much about the specifics of how the financing works out as much as just the methods of, relatively, quick and budget oriented film making, where quantity of product seems to come closer to the old Hollywood model than the current mix of blockbuster/tentpole and quasi-indie works driven by a different kind of talent/producer relationship at the originating stage.

Oh, and regarding watching all Durbin or Wayne films or whatever, there's of course nothing wrong with that if you enjoy the stars for whatever reason. I just meant the potential knowledge gained is a different kind of thing than say tracking a director's body of work to better understand their methods or possible themes.

And speaking of Tom Cruise, I just realized that I've seen all but three and a half of his movies. I guess I'm maybe a bit too interested in his weird persona/career.

[flip]

I recall finding Mad About Music to be my favourite of her early films, mostly because I found it had an interesting meta quality to it. It's largely about how studios control the lives of movie stars and the real person becomes hidden behind a star persona. There's a moving moment where Durbin looks directly at the camera and seems to be pleading with the audience, not as character but as herself, to set her free and let her be just a regular girl, not a movie star. I don't want to built it up too much, and I'll see how I feel on upcoming rewatch, but definitely well worth seeing for the Durbin fan!

yes, i see that quality in the film, and it works alongside the theme of how fictions become reality, not only durbin's fictions about her father but also the manager's fictions about durbin's mother, and that idea can map onto celebrity, but also to art/storytelling, among other things. i need to think about that amazing cinema scene some more (that was unexpected!), there are a lot of fictions in the movie at different removes from reality - there's a lot more in mad about music to think about than in the late durbin films, i found!