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John Wayne’s Red River Sparked A Feud Between Howard Hawks And Howard Hughes – Old western – My Blog

Howard Hughes’s deliriously ahistorical “The Outlaw” is probably best known for star Jane Russell’s brassiere, which the director painstakingly designed to accentuate her 38DD bosom. Never mind that Russell claimed she wore it all of a few minutes, loathed the fit, and padded her own bra the old-fashioned way; the undergarment is still on display in a Hollywood museum — the, er, stuff of showbiz legend.The film itself is an agreeably campy Western. Doc Holliday (Walter Huston) rides into Lincoln, New Mexico looking to recover his stolen horses. He tells his friend Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell) that Billy the Kid (Jack Buetel) is the thief, which sets up a not-terribly-understated homoerotic love triangle. It’s a goofy movie that should be a lot more fun than it is, but its script by Jules Furthman boasts some nifty flourishes, one of which finds the sharp-shooting Holliday trying to goad Billy into a duel by grazing him with bullets.If you’ve seen Howard Hawks’ “Red River,” this should sound familiar. It certainly did to Hughes, who’d either fired Hawks from directing “The Outlaw” or frustrated the filmmaker so thoroughly that he quit. Either way, when Hughes caught wind that Hawks had concluded his then-unreleased Western with a scene wherein John Wayne fires a series of shots at Montgomery Clift in an attempt to drive his charge-turned-rival to violence, he threatened to sue if the sequence wasn’t removed from the final cut. With the release of “Red River” less than a month away, a compromise needed to be reached in short order.Hawks v. Hughes

Hughes’ attorney Lloyd Wright contacted Edward Small, a major investor in “Red River,” to arrange a screening of the disputed footage for the eccentric industrialist. Sure enough, Hughes dug in on his objections, and threatened an injunction that would delay the film’s planned September 1, 1948 release indefinitely.Small, who’d worked with Hughes before, knew the businessman wouldn’t back down until he got his way, so he arranged a showdown of sorts between the contentious parties. Hughes and Hawks met at one of the former’s aircraft plants in Inglewood, California. According to Scott Eyman’s “John Wayne: The Life and Legend,” the two fought bitterly over a potential remedy. This forced Small to play to Hughes’ vanity:“‘Both men were tall and lean, and I felt like the referee between two animated redwood trees,’ remembered Small. Finally, Small suggested that Hughes edit the sequence to suggest what Hawks, Feldman, and Small should do. Hughes made a few cuts, eliminating about twenty-four seconds, including a shot where Dunson’s bullet creases Matt’s cheek. Also removed were nine words of Wayne’s dialogue: ‘Draw. Go on, draw. Well, then, I’ll make you.’ As Small realized, ‘If I had made the same infinitesimal alterations, he probably wouldn’t have accepted them.’”A quick fix to an enduring classicIn 2022, these fixes could be implemented in-house overnight, with new DCPs rushed to multiplexes within days. In 1948, editing teams had to fly to the Southwest (where Wayne’s movies tended to premiere) and splice the recut footage into the already struck prints. They got the job done, and “Red River” debuted on time. The film went on to triple its budget at the U.S. box office, and earn Academy Award nominations for Best Motion Picture Story and Best Editing.74 years after its release, “Red River” is recognized as one of the finest Westerns ever made. John Wayne gives one of his very best performances as the conflicted Dunson; upon seeing his longtime collaborator in the film, John Ford exclaimed, “I never knew the big son of a bi*** could act!” Wayne is every bit as unsympathetic here as we would be years later in Ford’s “The Searchers,” but Hawks and Furthman state the case for his character’s bigoted obsolescence more plainly. He operates outside the law to maintain his empire. He is a murderer. Westward expansion might be a fait accompli, but the country will collapse if men of his tyrannical ilk seize the reins of these new territories.Like Hughes and Hawks, America struck a tenuous compromise, one that has been renegotiated for well over a century. It is disconcerting to see Dunson’s type rise again.

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How did Paul Koslo ever have a tense encounter with star John Wayne ? – My Blog

In 1975, the Canadian actor starring The Duke in Rooster Cogburn. At the time, Koslo was only 19 and still relatively green in the industry. So working with the Hollywood legend was a bit stressful.


During an installment of World on Westerns, Paul Koslo shared his experiences with John Wayne, including a time where he nearly stepped on Wayne’s lines.As the story goes, Wayne had a short 15 line monologue. And once he was finished, Koslo was supposed to respond. And as they were filming, Wayne said his part. But when it was Koslo’s turn, he froze.“The director said ‘Paul, why didn’t you say your lines?’” the actor remembered.

“And I said, ‘well, because I didn’t wanna cut him off because he hadn’t said all of his lines yet.’” Hearing the conversation, John Wayne jumped in saying, “who’s gonna? Nobody’s gonna cut me off. I can say whatever I want, you got it, kid?”Of course, the interaction made Koslo nervous, and the only response he could muster was, “okay, sir.”However, the actor admitted that the Western icon wasn’t as intimidating as the story made him sound.

Koslo shared that as long as his co-stars worked hard, Wayne was always their biggest supporter.“My impression of him was that if you did your stuff, and you were right on top of it, he was your best buddy. But if you were like a slacker, or you weren’t prepared, he could get on your case.”During the AWOW interview, Paul Koslo also shared some details behind the age-old feud between John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn.

“I mean, Kate and him, they were always like this,” said Koslo, while punching his fists together.According to Koslo, politics were behind the fight. Hepburn was a democrat and Wayne was a republican.“It seemed like… in a fun way. I don’t know if it was for real,” he admitted. “You know, she would be sitting on the hood of a truck going like a hundred feet down to the set where they were shooting, and how Wallis was having heart attacks. She was really a daredevil, and she was full of piss and vinegar.”

The actor also noted that he didn’t get to spend much time with the actress, so he couldn’t get a proper gauge on the so-called feud. Almost all his time was spent with The Duke.The only interaction Koslo had with Hepburn was while shooting an intense scene where they were “moving this nitroglycerin to another location because we were going to rob the U.S. Treasury with it, and [John Wayne’s] about to ambush us.”And that happened right before Paul Koslo nearly stepped on John Wayne’s lines.

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What John Wayne said in his angry letter to Clint Eastwood and how Eastwood responded. – My Blog

John Wayne and Clint Eastwood are the two biggest icons of the Western movies, however, Wayne wasn’t always a fan of Eastwood’s work. In fact, Wayne hated one of Eastwood’s Westerns so much he sent him a letter decrying the film. Here’s how Eastwood reacted to the letter — and how the public reacted to this movie.

This Clint Eastwood movie was a lot darker than John Wayne’s films : First, a little background. The Western was a staple of American cinema from its early days. It often presented a glorified view of American expansionism. During and after the civil rights movement, Westerns began to evolve, often presenting a critical or at least cynical view of the Old West. Movies like that became especially popular during the 1970s, but by the 1980s the genre was no longer an American staple.


One of the more famous dark Westerns from the 1970s was High Plains Drifter. The film is about a mysterious criminal who comes into town, to get revenge for his brother who was murdered as many of the townsfolk watched by idly. No one in the film is very sympathetic — they’re all either evil or passive in the face of evil. It’s a far cry from the more uplifting films which made Wayne famous.


What John Wayne said in his letter to Clint Eastwood — and how Eastwood responded : It’s very easy to see High Plains Drifter as a critique of the American West. According to the book Ride, Boldly Ride: The Evolution of the American Western, that’s how Wayne saw the film. In addition, he saw it as incorrect.Eastwood told Kenneth Turan “John Wayne once wrote me a letter saying he didn’t like High Plains Drifter. He said it wasn’t really about the people who pioneered the West.

I realized that there’s two different generations, and he wouldn’t understand what I was doing. High Plains Drifter was meant to be a fable: it wasn’t meant to show the hours of pioneering drudgery. It wasn’t supposed to be anything about settling the West.” According to the book John Wayne: The Life and Legend, Eastwood did not write back. How the public reacted to ‘High Plains Drifter’ : Clearly, Wayne was upset by the film. This raises an interesting question: Did High Plains Drifter resonate with the public?

According to Box Office Mojo, High Plains Drifter earned over $15 million. Even by the standards of the 1970s, High Plains Drifter was not a tremendous hit. For comparison, Box Office Mojo reports a less dark 1970s Western starring Eastwood called The Outlaw Josey Wales earned over $31 million.Regardless, High Plains Drifter has a bit of a legacy. It was the first Western that Eastwood directed himself. Eastwood would go on to direct several other Westerns including the Oscar-winning Unforgiven. Wayne wasn’t much of a fan of High Plains Drifter — and neither was the public.

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John Wayne spent a lot of time in Mexico doing charity work at orphanages . – My Blog

Easily overlooked amid the prolific acting career and larger-than-life persona was John Wayne’s generosity. He was generous with his family, whom he welcomed into his own career with open arms. And in the years since his ԁеаtһ, the philanthropy carried out by his estate has been dedicated to cancer research.Recently, the official John Wayne Instagram account posted a throwback photo from 1970.


It shows Duke visiting a Mexican orphanage with actress Raquel Welch.“Giving back to the community was important to Duke, he’s pictured here with Raquel Welch visiting an orphanage in Mexico in 1970,” the caption of the post reads.The heartwarming photo shows John Wayne giving a smile to a child outside the orphanage. Raquel Welch can be seen behind him to the right, doing the same thing.

John Wayne Had an Affinity for Mexico : John Wayne spent a lot of time in Mexico. For one, the iconic Western actor filmed no less than six movies in the country throughout his career. Beyond his acting career, however, Duke just loved spending time there.Granted, most of that time wasn’t spent at orphanages. But John Wayne did his small part in other ways too.

The town of Chupaderos in Northwestern Mexico was effectively built by Wayne and the movies he filmed there. Although, it did fall on hard times after he stopped making movies there.Nonetheless, Mexico was one of Wayne’s favorite destinations. His estate posted another photo back in April of the Western icon taking in the sights of Acapulco.“Duke loved to travel all over the world and one of his favorite places to visit was Mexico.

He’s pictured here in Acapulco in the late 1940’s, where he owned a hotel called Hotel Los Flamingos with his friend Johnny Weissmuller, who played Tarzan,” part of the caption reads.One of the things that brought Wayne to Mexico was his yacht, the Wild Goose. One of his favorite activities was sailing it down the coast of Mexico with his family.“For a long time, whenever I dreamed about him, we were on the boat,” John Wayne’s daughter Marisa said.Duke Owned a Hotel in Acapulco, Mexico : As the caption from the Instagram posts mentions, John Wayne owned a hotel in Mexico.

Along with a group of celebrities, John Wayne bought Hotel Los Flamingos in 1954 to use as a private getaway.After using it for vacations and private events for a few years, the group decided to sell the hotel. Today, Hotel Los Flamingos is still in operation. And fortunately for travel-inclined fans of the Duke, getting a room there is actually pretty affordable.

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