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What are your favorite John Wayne movies? As much as I liked some of his Westerns such as Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Chisum, and McLintock, my favorite John Wayne movies were Hatari and Donovan's Reef which were non-westerns.
The Searchers.
This is the flick that should have won him the Oscar. True Grit was good, but all Wayne had to do in it was recite the lines from the book. The book had all the great speech, and both versions of True Grit were easy screenplays to write. The rest of the movie was no stretch for him.
But the Searchers- man, Wayne had to dig deep for that one. He seldom played a bad man, and he wasn't an actor to portray inner struggles, but he did both superbly in the Searchers, and he had to carry the movie all the way through almost single-handed. It's Wayne at his best ever, and one of the very best Westerns ever. I doubt that anyone but director John Ford, who Wayne worshipped, could have gotten that much out of him. Ford gave Wayne his career when he cast him in Stagecoach, and they were lifelong friends.
... and it was Ford's best movie too.
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I don't care for John Wayne as an actor. Same with Clint Eastwood. Each has the acting range of a cardboard cut-out. In fact, why not save on their salary and just use cardboard cutouts in their movies? lol
I guess a boy with the name Marion would have had to be tough growing up.
No, it would have been tough for others. They would make fun of him and be hit with one of his famous haymakers! Probably while he had a glass of whiskey in one hand and a cigarette in his mouth. This guy was a MAN!
I love Donovan's Reef too - imagine John Wayne doing a comedy! And The Searchers was definitely one of his best. I didn't like his politics but his movies were terrific. Except for that one moment of temporary insanity when he decided to play Genghis Khan
I would agree that his role as Ethan in "The Searchers" was his finest acting. Thought he also did very well as Sgt. Stryker in "The Sands of Iwo Jima." Also excellent in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon", and "Rio Grande", along with the superb, " The Quiet Man."
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Western.
