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John Wayne

John Wayne’s Attempt To Break Out Of Westerns Nearly Killed His Career

John Wayne tried to break his Western typecasting early on in his career – which almost destroyed it. A look at Wayne’s filmography reveals he made a movie in just about every genre, from historical dramas to romantic comedies. He will forever be tied to Westerns, however, and felt uniquely suited to the genre. Wayne starred in over 80 Westerns across his 50-year career, with even his final starring role – 1976’s The Shootist – being an Oater also. Early on in his career, he made dozens of low-budget, “Poverty Row” Westerns, including his “horror” Western Haunted Gold in 1932.
During the 1930s he seemed poised for stardom, but his big break was slow arriving. He attempted to split from both Westerns and Poverty Row by moving from b-movie studio Republic to Universal in the late 1930s. According to Shooting Star: A Biography of John Wayne (via /Film), Wayne was promised by Universal producer Trem Carr that if he made the leap, Universal would pull him out of Westerns and into a variety of more contemporary projects. When Carr kept his Western promise, Wayne’s six-movie run with Universal very nearly ended his career, as they were all cheapies too.
John Wayne’s Non-Western Movies Were Terrible

john wayne in idol of the crowds

With Universal, Wayne – whose last “role” was Star Wars – starred in everything from ice hockey drama Idol Of The Crowds – where the actor had never played prior to filming – or action movies like California Straight Ahead! Carr was attempting to make low-budget films with up-and-coming stars that would rival bigger budget fare from other studios. His scheme didn’t pay off for Wayne, with all of the films being shot quickly and cheaply. None of them were hits and they did little to elevate Wayne’s career. The now-lost Adventure’s End was the final movie of his Universal deal
How Stagecoach Saved John Wayne’s Career

Stagecoach

Instead of helping his career, his move away from the genre left Wayne in a bad spot. He claimed to have “crawled” back to Republic after his Universal days, as he couldn’t find work elsewhere. He embarked on another series of b-Westerns like Red River Range, before his friend John Ford (played by David Lynch in Fablemans) cast him as the Ringo Kid in 1939’s Stagecoach. The film is now regarded as one of the most important Westerns ever, and made the careers of both Wayne and Ford; Stagecoach was one of Wayne’s favorite films of his own, too.

After toiling away in b-projects for over a decade, Stagecoach finally gave Wayne the star-making role he was seeking. He made plenty of projects outside Westerns, including Sands of Iwo Jima or The Quiet Man, but most of his biggest hits came within the genre. The Searchers – another Ford collaboration – Rio Bravo (part of an unofficial trilogy) and True Grit are just some of his biggest successes, with the latter winning Wayne his sole Academy Award. His latter career can be traced back to the success of Stagecoach, however, but who knows how his filmography may have evolved if his Universal gamble had paid off.

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John Wayne

‘True Grit’ Star Robert Duvall Spoke Highly of John Wayne

One of Robert Duvall’s early breakout roles was in True Grit. You remember Ned Pepper, don’t you?

Folks ask Duvall about his other work, like his performances in Lonesome Dove, The Godfather or Tender Mercies, which won him an Academy Award.

But Duvall also was brilliant in True Grit. John Wayne’s character Rooster Cogburn didn’t like Ned Pepper one bit. And sometimes The Duke didn’t like Duvall, off-screen, either.

“The director and I didn’t get along — I don’t get along with a lot of directors, but I do OK! ,” Duvall told a Virginia TV station in 2016. “But John Wayne was great working with. He was a good man and a very good natural actor, a lot better than a lot of people gave him credit for.

“He was an institution unto himself,” Duvall said of The Duke. “And that final film he did, The Shootist, it was wonderful what he did. So he was a good guy to work with, absolutely.”

We probably should offer a bit more history. Wayne didn’t like Duvall arguing with the True Grit director Henry Hathaway. He threatened to punch the younger Duvall if he didn’t shut up and do as the director told. Wayne also didn’t like some of the other casting choices, namely Kim Darby.

Remember That ‘One-Eyed Fat Man’ Scene?

However, there’s at least one famous scene, one famous line from True Grit that everyone remembers decades after the movie first hit the screens. Ned Pepper was an infamous outlaw. He added Tom Chaney, who killed Mattie’s father, to his gang of criminals. Mattie (Kim Darby) went to Fort Smith, Arkansas and hired Cogburn, the aging U.S. Marshal, to capture Chaney. Pepper, along with Chaney and the rest of the thugs, were hanging out in Indian Territory in what is now in Oklahoma, just west of Arkansas.

Now, about that True Grit scene and dialogue. Let’s refresh the memory:

Ned Pepper : “What’s your intention? Do you think one on four is a dogfall?”

Rooster Cogburn : “I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned. Or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker’s convenience. Which’ll it be?”

Ned Pepper : “I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.”

Rooster Cogburn : “Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!”

Pepper ends up killing Cogburn’s horse. But Cogburn wounds Pepper and shoots most of his men. Glen Campbell’s La Boeuf ends up killing Pepper.

The Duke earned an Academy Award for Best Actor for Rooster Cogburn. In his acceptance speech, he told the crowd “Wow. If I’d have known that, I’d have put that patch on 35 years earlier.” Cogburn’s eye patch was very much part of his character, which is my Pepper described him as a “one-eyed fat man.”

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John Wayne

John Wayne Let ‘Liberty Valance’ Director John Ford Bully Him for 1 Reason

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, John Wayne helps James Stewart stand up to the title outlaw. Wayne was the ultimate tough guy in movies but in real life, there was one man who always kept him in his place. It just so happened that Wayne made 14 movies with that man, director John Ford. Their last was the classic Liberty Valance, and Wayne was still taking Ford’s bullying then.

Paramount Home Entertainment released The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance on 4K UHD on May 17. The 4K edition of the film is so clear you would think the world was really black and white in 1962 and they just captured it on film. The home video release also includes a new interview with Leonard Maltin explaining Wayne’s relationship with Ford, and some archival material with his co-star James Stewart backing it up.

John Wayne was in good company taking John Ford’s abuse in ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ or any film

Maltin explained that Wayne was hardly singled out by Ford. It was Ford’s reputation. 

“John Ford is the only filmmaker to have four Academy Awards for Best Director so he was held in the highest esteem by critics, pundits, and the audience too because he made films for the people,” Maltin said. “John Wayne’s eldest son Michael once told me he thought John Ford was a great director between action and cut. Aside from that, he was an absolutely quixotic, cantankerous, sometimes outright mean-spirited guy. He teased and goaded everyone on the set and he was especially nasty to his protege, John Wayne.”

According to Maltin, Wayne just took it because he credited his whole career to Ford. Wayne became the king of westerns after that.

“But Wayne was eternally grateful to Ford for giving him his first great opportunity in this film Stagecoach so he never talked back,” Maltin said

Bullying might have gotten the best performance out of John Wayne in ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’

Ford’s grandson, Dan Ford, is also in the bonus features. He explained how his grandfather’s bullying behind the scenes may have helped Wayne’s performance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

“Ford would use anything he could to get what he wanted out of an actor,” Dan said. “If he wanted to put him down, which is basically where John Wayne is in this movie the whole way through, he’s put down. He’s the guy who doesn’t get the girl, he’s the guy that plays the drunk, he’s the guy who only has one function. That’s to kill Liberty Valance. He’s an action hero but he’s not really the lead. Jimmy Stewart’s the hero. Ford would probably work on Wayne to keep him in that frame of mind.”

The late director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich is also included on the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 4K UHD. Bogdanovich reminds fans that Ford would have wanted to take Wayne down a peg.

“People wonder why he was so tough on John Wayne,” Bogdanovich said. “Well, John Wayne was a huge star so it was Ford’s way of showing his control by attacking him and by minimizing him.”

Jimmy Stewart finally got it on ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’

Stewart tells this story of working on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Wayne marveled that Stewart had made it through most of the shoot without getting on Ford’s bad side. 

“Remember in Liberty Valance, Duke came up to me and said, ‘Jesus, here we are, we’ve got three more days on the picture and you’ve never been in the barrel. Everybody else gets it and everything and you come out of it clear. What are you doing? Are you bucking for something?’” Stewart said. “I said, ‘I don’t know.’”

Stewart’s tenure as golden boy on the set of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was about to come to an end anyway. 

Well, that very day, he came up and Woody Strode, at the end with the funeral, Woody Strode had on a blue overalls. He came up to me and said, ‘What do you think of Woody’s outfit?” For some reason, I’ll never know why. I said, ‘It looks a little like Uncle Remus, doesn’t it?’ That’s all. He said, ‘Oh?’ He called everybody together, called the whole company together, and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, what do you think of Woody’s outfit?’ They all said fine, fine. He said, ‘Well, there’s an actor in the company that doesn’t like it. I wanted to point him out to you. Now that you know this actor doesn’t approve of Woody’s costume, now we can all go back to work, thank you very much.’ This lasted until the end of the picture with me. 

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John Wayne

A John Wayne Movie Classic Actually Reduced His Role From the Story It’s Based On

The John Wayne movie classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has many memorable moments. The most noteworthy is the whole theme of “print the legend.” Wayne makes an impression as Shinbone cowboy Tom Doniphon, who played a pivotal role in the life of Senator Ransom (James Stewart). It turns out the adaptation of Dorothy M. Johnson’s short story gave Doniphon even less to do in the movie, but Wayne still made those moments count.

[Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.]

Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance on 4K UHD on May 19. The 4K edition makes the black and white movie so sharp that the shadows in the title shooting scene are extra dark and moody. In the bonus features, historian Scott Eyman explains how the adaptation reduced Wayne’s role. 

‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ story became a John Wayne’s movie

Adapting a short story into a two hour film often requires embellishing the source material. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance actually streamlined it. Scott Eyman wrote a biography of director John Ford, so he knew all about the differences between the story and the film. 

“The point of the story is basically the same point as the film,” Eyman said. “The execution is quite different. Ford and his writers altered one crucial aspect. In the story, the John Wayne character is kind of the fairy godfather to the Jimmy Stewart character, keeps nudging him along on the road from frontier lawyer to United States senator, constantly showing him the way and helping him out.”

‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ isn’t completely a John Wayne movie

The western begins with Ransom attending the funeral of Doniphon. When reporters ask how he knew Doniphon, the story flashes back to Ransom’s arrival in Shinbone. Outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) roughed him up and terrorized the town. 

When Doniphon was around, that was enough to keep Valance in line. Doniphon tried to convince Ransom to pick up a gun to defend himself, but Ransom wanted to use the law to address Valance. Finally, Valance confronted Ransom in the street. Ransom pulled the trigger of his gun and shot Valance dead, or so it seemed.

At the end of the film, Doniphon reveals he was standing in the shadows and fired his gun at the same time. Now, it makes much more sense that experienced gunslinger Doniphon hit his target than amateur shooter Ransom. But, Doniphon let Ransom have the credit, and the heroic act set him on a course for political success. When the reporters heard the truth, they killed the story, stating, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is both a Wayne movie and a Stewart movie. Both have equal parts, though the story centers around Stewart’s character with Wayne’s coming in for backup.

‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ made its point 

The film adaptation made its point without making Doniphon directly involved in every aspect of Ransom’s life. It proved to be a signature role for Wayne, too.

“That doesn’t happen in the film,” Eyman said. “Basically, the John Wayne character in the film commits two acts that alter Ransom Stoddard’s life and that’s all and that’s enough. So it made the Wayne character a little less proactive in the film as opposed to the story.”

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