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Unsurprisingly, John Wayne Hated The Way The Movie Industry Was Heading – Old western – My Blog

In 1949, John Wayne was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Allan Dwan’s war film “Sands of Iwo Jima.” Despite several thoughtful antiwar films that preceded it — specifically “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “The Best Years of Our Lives” — “Iwo Jima” came at a time when patriotic, downright jingoistic movies about World War II were coming into vogue. In particular, 1949 saw the release of films like “Battleground” and “Twelve O’Clock High,” both films about the nobility of war and the heroism of soldiers. Both those films were nominated for Best Picture, although they lost to the political corruption drama “All the King’s Men.” Wayne himself lost Best Actor to Broderick Crawford, the star of “King’s Men.”In 1969, Wayne looked back on “Iwo Jima” in an interview with Roger Ebert, and posited that he lost his Oscar for political reasons. A lot had changed in Hollywood from 1949 to 1969, and a new, exciting type of grounded, emotional cinema was coming into view. The French New Wave was in full swing, and a new generation of filmmakers, the first to be professionally trained in film school, was starting to appear on the horizon. 1969 was, to recall, the year of “Easy Rider.” Nostalgia about cowboys and soldiers was on the wane.There was, however, enough nostalgia to net Wayne another Oscar nomination for his appearance in “True Grit,” an award he would ultimately win, beating out both Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight for “Midnight Cowboy.” Prior to his win, he spoke with Ebert about the increasingly left-leaning nature of Hollywood. It seems that, even from the start, pundits were complaining about being “canceled” and that Hollywood was getting “too political.”Political art

As many critics will be eager to point out, all art is political. Every piece of art is going to necessarily reflect the time and the overarching politic of when it was made, always communicating a message that an artist may or may not even be aware of. If a film seemingly has “no politics” or is “just entertainment,” it is promoting the politic of the status quo, arguing that a lack of change is what is currently needed. Which is, of course, a political statement.Wayne, however, had no appreciation for such nuances, feeling that politics got in the way of cinema far too often. To Ebert, on the event of his “True Grit” win, he said:“I was nominated for ‘Sands of Iwo Jima’ but I didn’t win. Well, maybe this time they’ll review the picture instead of me and the war. That little clique back there in the East has taken great personal satisfaction in reviewing my politics instead of my pictures. And they’ve drawn up a caricature of me. Which doesn’t bother me; their opinions don’t matter to the people who go to movies.”The “clique from the East” Wayne refers to may be a reference to New York critics who were seemingly keen on analysis and sociology. Wayne was also grossed out by some outcry over the new MPAA ratings system that was, in 1968, being pioneered to replace the moribund Hays Code. He said:“I’m telling you, goddam it, everything’s mixed up now. I got a letter from that fellow who runs the Motion Picture Association. Jack Valenti. He wanted my opinion on the new rating system. I didn’t even answer because — well, my answer would be there shouldn’t be any need for such a thing in our industry.”The good old days

Wayne, without mentioning the Hays Code, pointed out that Hollywood was always good about making movies that appealed to families, implying that sex and violence were usually relegated to fringe productions. He felt that a rating system only stood to make parents afraid of taking their kids to see movies, and would ultimately make cinemas a less habitual past time. Concern about content was, to the actor’s eyes, anathema to cinematic enjoyment.He then began to look back to a time in the industry — Hollywood’s Golden Age — prior to the enacting of the Paramount Consent Decrees in 1948. Before 1948, studios were permitted to own their own theaters, leading to complete control over every aspect of production. Thanks to the system in place, smaller studios had trouble finding screens and theaters were beholden to studio contracts. In 2020, the decrees were officially overturned.Wayne recalled when powerful producers and studios ran everything, and felt that it served him just fine. He said:“All the real motion picture people have always made family pictures. But the downbeats and the so-called intelligentsia got in when the government stupidly split up the production companies and the theaters. The old giants — Mayer, Thalberg, even Harry Cohn, despite the fact that personally I couldn’t stand him — were good for this industry. Now the goddamned stock manipulators have taken over.” A lack of studio control and an unbinding of family-friendly content irk Wayne further. He grumpily intoned:“They don’t know a goddamned thing about making movies. They make something dirty, and it makes money, and they say, ‘Jesus, let’s make one a little dirtier, maybe it’ll make more money.’ And now even the bankers are getting their noses into it.”Star!

Wayne didn’t mention “Midnight Cowboy” in his complaints about “dirty” movies. It’s notable, however, that “Midnight Cowboy” was the first X-Rated film to win Best Picture. Audiences were in the mood for more adult fare, it seemed, and Wayne saw the production of stories about sex and sexuality to be the mere capitulation of studios to a sex-starved audience. He does mention the notorious box office bomb “Star!” the Gertrude Lawrence biopic starring Julie Andrews. Wayne’s specific gripes with “Star!” go unsaid, but he objected to Andrews playing the part. He said:“I’ll give you an example. Take that girl, Julie Andrews, a refreshing, openhearted girl, a wonderful performer. Her stint was ‘Mary Poppins’ and ‘The Sound of Music.’ But she wanted to be a Theda Bara. And they went along with her, and the picture fell on its face. A Goldwyn would have told her, ‘Look, dear, you can’t change your sweet and lovely image…’”Of course, what Wayne fails to acknowledge is that the world was changing as was Hollywood. Thanks to the stripping away of the strict, anti-sex purview of the Hays code, complex adult stories could now make their way to theaters. Previously taboo subjects could be seen on the screen. Wayne preferred the Good Old Days of restriction and the glorification of … well, of characters like John Wayne.Wayne, of course, wasn’t known for his gentleness, open-mindedness, or racial sensitivity (he allegedly tried to attack Sacheen Littlefeather at the 1973 Oscars). In a 1971 interview with Playboy, he admitted to being openly racist, homophobic, and a white supremacist. He longed for a racist world that society was endeavoring to leave behind. That he felt left behind reflects more on him than on Hollywood.

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John Wayne doesn’t want to be an actor and likes a director . – My Blog

He became one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, but John Wayne once saw acting as just ‘a brief detour’. His real dream was to become a film director.Cinema’s most iconic cowboy could have spent his days behind the camera had he not inadvertently stepped in front of one on a John Ford set, allow the director to see his potential.

The disclosure is in a memoir he was working on that lay undiscovered among family papers. It said Wayne, who ԁıеԁ in 1979, was working at 20th Century Fox in the 1920s simply to pay the bills.It added: ‘I had no thoughts of becoming an actor. Acting was a kind of apprenticeship toward becoming a director. It was also a source of petty cash…

‘I was ԁеаԁ-set on becoming a director.Elsewhere, he adds: ‘If need be, I would take a brief detour into acting or whatever else was necessary to accomplish my goal.’The memoir was found by Michael Goldman in inquire his book, John Wayne: The Genuine Article, published this month. Even Wayne’s family did not know of its existence in their archives.

Its 72 typed pages paint a portrait of an ordinary man who became the Oscar-winning star of True Grit and The Searchers, a larger-than-life icon nicknamed the Duke.Wayne was working on it shortly before his ԁеаtһ in 1979, having repeatedly rejected requests for an autobiography.He wrote about the 1920s, when he headed for Twentieth Century Fox’s studio and found menial jobs in props and stunt-work, learning his for horse-riding, roping, ɡսոѕ and fighting.

he memory of being desperate for money never left him and in the memoir he writes: ‘The big Depression was still two years away, but my one personal depression was staring at me from the bottom of my empty soup bowl.’I needed a job .’He describes working as an extra – kicked off John Ford’s set for inadvertently stepping in front of a camera – and, like some star-struck teenager, was overwhelmed by the excitement of seeing his own movie heroes.On encountering Tom Mix, a silent Western star, Wayne writes of trying ‘to figure out how to make the best impression possible on the greatest cowboy star in the world’.
He records Mix ignoring him on his attempt to ingratiate himself.Mr Goldman notes the irony of Wayne idolising Mix: ‘The man who would become “the most iconic cinematic cowboy in history” was racking himself over how to make an impression on “the most Cinematic cowboy in history”.’The biographer says of Wayne’s ‘brief detour’ in front of the camera: ‘It was a detour that lasted until his ԁеаtһ.’Wayne would ultimately direct just four films, including The Alamo and The Green Berets , “passion projects” for him. But directing was not what he became known for.Wayne does not elaborate in the manuscript on why he never made directing a priority in subsequent years.

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Secrets John Wayne Revealed to Ron Howard About Filmmaking . – My Blog

Although they were celebrities for different reasons, Ron Howard worked with John Wayne on one of The Duke’s late-period movies. Howard said Wayne gave him some interesting advice. In addition, Howard revealed what made Wayne a little different from other actors.

As an actor, Howard is most known for his appearing in the sitcoms The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days as well as George Lucas’ American Graffiti. However, he also appeared in Wayne’s final Western, The Shootist. The film also included James Stewart, Lauren Bacall, and John Carridine. With that cast, the film was almost like a roll call of Old Hollywood actors. Howard’s appearance in the film almost feels like a passing of the torch from one generation to the next.

In an interview with Men’s Journal, Sean Woods asked Howard if working with Wayne and Stewart taught him anything about manhood. “John Wayne used a phrase, which he later attributed to [film director] John Ford, for scenes that were going to be difficult: ‘This is a job of work,’ he’d say,” Howard recalled. “If there was a common thread with these folks – Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Glenn Ford – it was the work ethic. It was still driving them. To cheat the project was an insult. To cheat the audience was damnable.”

What Ron Howard said John Wayne, Bette Davis, and Jimmy Stewart had in common : In a separate interview with the HuffPost, Howard also praised Wayne’s work ethic. “I always admired him as a movie star, but I thought of him as a total naturalist,” Howard said. “Even those pauses were probably him forgetting his line and then remembering it again, because, man, he’s The Duke.

But he’s working on this scene and he’s like, ‘Let me try this again.’ And he put the little hitch in and he’d find the Wayne rhythm, and you’d realize that it changed the performance each and every time. I’ve worked with Bette Davis, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda. Here’s the thing they all have in common: They all, even in their 70s, worked a little harder than everyone else.”

How critics and audiences responded to ‘The Shootist’ : Howard obviously admired Wayne’s methods as an actor. This raises an interesting question: Did the public embrace The Shootist? According to Box Office Mojo, the film earned over $8 million. That’s not a huge haul for a film from 1976. However, the film is widely regarded as a classic among 1970s Westerns.

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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.