John Wayne Movies

Did you know there are 172 John Wayne movies, besides the 27 movie appearances Wayne made as himself and the numerous films he produced? 

Did you know there are film buffs who go online to write about their favorite John Wayne movies? 

Did you ever watch John Wayne when he was young, in a movie called Angel and the Badman? 

I think it’s my favorite of the John Wayne movies, although True Grit, with Kim Darby playing Mattie Ross to his Marshall Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn, and  Rooster Cogburn, with Katherine Hepburn playing Eula Goodright to his same character, are up there on the “Howdy, Maam” top ten John Wayne movies…for me.

I was never into John Wayne when I was a kid watching the few available movies on the few available channels.  Maybe I couldn’t appreciate that strange, loping affect, or that exaggerated macho cowboy crap. 

The again, maybe I just didn’t appreciate cowboy westerns much. 

I was into the bad boys like James Garfield and Jimmy Cagney, and later—much later—leaned more toward the sophistication and wit of the Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart.  The dirty, eye-patched, oafish kind of voice…they all did little for me.

But somewhere along the way this movie connoisseur grew up and into the nuances of a good western or the delightful details of another kind of bad boy genre, the outlaw film.  And a few months ago, I watched Angel and the Badman and “I saw the liiiight, Lord!” 

The premise is typical to a number of John Wayne movies, and includes involvement with crime, guns, hiding out, more guns, and a woman.  (Can’t you just hear Wayne saying “a woman.” As if he were a disgusted desperado, the commitment-phobe, the solitary man,  heaving the word out with a stress on the wo-?)But the “bad” guy here has a deeply seated sensitive side that comes out at the last of the movie, of course. 

The Searchers
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Quirt (love the name, too) is escaped from the law, has fallen dreadfully ill, and is taken in by a Quaker and his wife, who have a pristine and pure daughter, Penelope Worth (played by Gail Russell). 

The daughter falls innocently and for the first time in love with Quirt, who will have none of it, who doesn’t really catch on to her affections for some time. 

The contrasts make movie history, blazing the trail for the black and white of Dirty Dancing characters (little rich girl in love with boy from wrong side of tracks who works at resort where her family is vacationing) and recalls elements of, even, Romeo and Juliet…with the forbidden at the center of the eventual love between these two extreme opposites.

Good moral redemption at the close, though I won’t give it away specifically…any more than I will give away the essence of the other 171 John Wayne movies that you yourself will have to grow into…if you haven’t already.