in 1960, even John Wayne and Richard Widmark couldn't kill all of Santa Ana's men when the Mexicans attacked the Alamo...but they sure put a dent in them.
Showing posts with label John Wayne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Wayne. Show all posts
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Saturday Man Movie
in 1966, John Wayne starred in El Dorado, basically a remake of his earlier Rio Bravo. Both movies centered around a sheriff and friends battling a rich rancher who has them outnumbered and outgunned. In Rio Bravo, he's got Dean Martin, Walter Brennan and Ricky Nelson to help him. In this one, he's backing up Robert Mitchum, Arthur Hunnicutt and a young James Caan makes an appearance and then stays to help. And here's Caan's entrance, as "Mississippi".
Frankly I'm not sure which of the two I like best, because both were great. This one is special to me though because it's the last movie my father and I watched together back in September, 2012. I'd flown up to spend the week-end with him, and we watched the Tigers lose another game, then this came on, and I stayed to watch it even though it was getting late. We enjoyed this movie, and he seemed to be doing so good. We made plans for my next trip up, but it was only a couple of weeks later that I got the call and flew back again, this time for the funeral. So I guess I like this movie better than the other one, if for no reason than because watching it was the last thing I ever got to do with my father.
Another great scene:
That was a good movie, wasn't it, Pop?
Frankly I'm not sure which of the two I like best, because both were great. This one is special to me though because it's the last movie my father and I watched together back in September, 2012. I'd flown up to spend the week-end with him, and we watched the Tigers lose another game, then this came on, and I stayed to watch it even though it was getting late. We enjoyed this movie, and he seemed to be doing so good. We made plans for my next trip up, but it was only a couple of weeks later that I got the call and flew back again, this time for the funeral. So I guess I like this movie better than the other one, if for no reason than because watching it was the last thing I ever got to do with my father.
Another great scene:
That was a good movie, wasn't it, Pop?
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Saturday Man Movie
Ever have one of those days when nothing goes right and the VC take over your whole camp? This scene from The Green Berets always puts a smile on my face, and, I suspect, the face of everyone who appreciates airpower and John Wayne and America.
Saturday, February 08, 2014
Saturday Man Movie
After the Civil War, Union Veteran John Henry, played by John Wayne, tries to move a herd of three thousand horses across the country to the Mexican government. He runs into ex-Confederate James Langdon, who is leading a band of displaced Southerners to a new start in Mexico. At odds with each other, the two groups eventually have to come together to fend off bad guys and Mexican revolutionaries alike in The Undefeated (1969).
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Kinda stuck today
Can't really think of anything original to post so here--watch John Wayne knock George Kennedy into next week in The Sons of Katie Elder.
That just makes me smile every time.
That just makes me smile every time.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Saturday Man Movie
In The Green Berets (1968), some reporters get an education courtesy of some Special Forces troops under John Wayne's Command.
Yeah, it's hard to believe, but there was a time when Hollywood supported the military. And every time I see this movie, I want to go punch George Clooney in the face.
Yeah, it's hard to believe, but there was a time when Hollywood supported the military. And every time I see this movie, I want to go punch George Clooney in the face.
Tuesday, January 07, 2014
Morning Movie Review: Donovan's Reef
This morning, with no Belle to rouse us at sun-up, Murphy and I slept in a bit, only to be finally awakened by the vet calling to let me know that she's doing well and can come home this afternoon. As I hung up, it dawned on me that she's not even here and she still managed to get me out of bed in the morning, albeit indirectly through the vet.
So Murphy and I turned to and made breakfast, and then I watched a movie while he played with two Wubba toys all by himself.
The movie: Donovan's Reef, a 1963 movie starring John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Jack Warden, Cesar Romero, Elizabeth Allen, and Dorothy Lamour. There was also a minor role played by Edgar Buchanan, best known to most as Uncle Joe from Petticoat Junction. He was a great character actor back in the day and you can't not love the guy even if he's only paying a sleazy corporate lawyer for two minutes.
In this picture, three old World War Two Navy buddies (Wayne, Marvin and Warden) now live on a South Polynesian island paradise. All is going well until Warden's grown daughter from Boston shows up to meet the father that she'd never met before, the idea being to prove that he's living a life of poor character (by Boston standards) so that she can divest him of his shares in the family's vast shipping business. Warden, the island doctor and builder of the local hospital, is away when she arrives but she's attended to quite well by Wayne, who starts out by dropping her into the lagoon while trying to help her depart the ship that brought her. She is, of course, as severe and dowdy as any upper-crust society woman from Boston would be expected to be and she doesn't take kindly to her reception or some of the islanders' ways. However she soon encounters three precocious "half caste" children (remember, this movie was made in the early 60's) who, she is told, belong to Wayne. They're really her father's children by a native princess that he'd married shortly after the war but everyone conspires to keep that a secret as they fear that she won't understand. The movie is light, fun and predictable, and of course she figures out that the kids are really her sisters and brother in the end, but by then she's come to respect and admire her father so much that she insists that he keep his shares in the family business. He of course refuses to go back to Boston and in the end, so does she as she remains on the island to marry Wayne, who tames her properly by taking her over his knee and giving her a good spanking followed by a kiss that makes her submit totally. (remember: 1960's...) Cesar Romero plays the island's scheming Governor who tries without success to woo Allen away from Wayne, and Dorothy Lamour plays a nightclub singer who is chasing Lee Marvin and of course she gets him in the end.
There's no real drama and nothing heavier than a few fistfights between Wayne and Marvin, both of whom share the same birthday and slug it out every year "as kind of a tradition" even though neither remembers what the original fight was about. They also slug it out with the Australian Navy on Christmas morning for no real reason, but what they hey--it's just a fun movie like they don't make any more.
Meanwhile, it's 4 degrees outside, and Murphy's enjoying the radiant warmth of the wood stove.
I guess that he's giving the movie four paws up.
Hope your day is going well, too.
So Murphy and I turned to and made breakfast, and then I watched a movie while he played with two Wubba toys all by himself.
The movie: Donovan's Reef, a 1963 movie starring John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Jack Warden, Cesar Romero, Elizabeth Allen, and Dorothy Lamour. There was also a minor role played by Edgar Buchanan, best known to most as Uncle Joe from Petticoat Junction. He was a great character actor back in the day and you can't not love the guy even if he's only paying a sleazy corporate lawyer for two minutes.
In this picture, three old World War Two Navy buddies (Wayne, Marvin and Warden) now live on a South Polynesian island paradise. All is going well until Warden's grown daughter from Boston shows up to meet the father that she'd never met before, the idea being to prove that he's living a life of poor character (by Boston standards) so that she can divest him of his shares in the family's vast shipping business. Warden, the island doctor and builder of the local hospital, is away when she arrives but she's attended to quite well by Wayne, who starts out by dropping her into the lagoon while trying to help her depart the ship that brought her. She is, of course, as severe and dowdy as any upper-crust society woman from Boston would be expected to be and she doesn't take kindly to her reception or some of the islanders' ways. However she soon encounters three precocious "half caste" children (remember, this movie was made in the early 60's) who, she is told, belong to Wayne. They're really her father's children by a native princess that he'd married shortly after the war but everyone conspires to keep that a secret as they fear that she won't understand. The movie is light, fun and predictable, and of course she figures out that the kids are really her sisters and brother in the end, but by then she's come to respect and admire her father so much that she insists that he keep his shares in the family business. He of course refuses to go back to Boston and in the end, so does she as she remains on the island to marry Wayne, who tames her properly by taking her over his knee and giving her a good spanking followed by a kiss that makes her submit totally. (remember: 1960's...) Cesar Romero plays the island's scheming Governor who tries without success to woo Allen away from Wayne, and Dorothy Lamour plays a nightclub singer who is chasing Lee Marvin and of course she gets him in the end.
There's no real drama and nothing heavier than a few fistfights between Wayne and Marvin, both of whom share the same birthday and slug it out every year "as kind of a tradition" even though neither remembers what the original fight was about. They also slug it out with the Australian Navy on Christmas morning for no real reason, but what they hey--it's just a fun movie like they don't make any more.
Meanwhile, it's 4 degrees outside, and Murphy's enjoying the radiant warmth of the wood stove.
Hope your day is going well, too.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Saturday Man Movie
In the 1962 movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, tenderfoot lawyer Ransome Stoddard, played by James Stewart, runs afoul of the local desperado bully, Liberty Valance played by Lee Marvin. Determined to stick it out, he eventually buys a gun to protect himself but has no idea how to use it. Here, gunfighter Tom Donophon played by John Wayne offers him a bit of instruction.
It's a great movie with an all-star cast. Valance's two henchmen are played by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Van_Cleef and Strother Martin. Donophon's right hand man was played by Woody Strode, a then-famous athlete-turned-actor. Other stars of the day such as Andy Devine, Edmund O'Brien, John Carradine and Denver Pyle can be seen in this one, too, along with a then-hot Vera Miles as the lady that Donophon pursued but Stoddard won.
And here's the epic gunfight from the showdown between Stoddard and Valance.
I won't spoil a great movie by giving too much away, but if you haven't seen it, you need to.
It's a great movie with an all-star cast. Valance's two henchmen are played by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Van_Cleef and Strother Martin. Donophon's right hand man was played by Woody Strode, a then-famous athlete-turned-actor. Other stars of the day such as Andy Devine, Edmund O'Brien, John Carradine and Denver Pyle can be seen in this one, too, along with a then-hot Vera Miles as the lady that Donophon pursued but Stoddard won.
And here's the epic gunfight from the showdown between Stoddard and Valance.
I won't spoil a great movie by giving too much away, but if you haven't seen it, you need to.
Saturday, November 02, 2013
Saturday Man Movie
In "Big Jake", John Wayne is reunited with his estranged son, a young fella who seems to have a bit of an attitude problem.
John Wayne cures attitude problems.
John Wayne cures attitude problems.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Saturday Man Movie
Rooster Cogburn--the REAL Rooster Cogburn, played by John Wayne, shows us how to handle four armed bad guys on horseback in 1969's True Grit.
OK, Glen Campbell helped out a little. But still...
OK, Glen Campbell helped out a little. But still...
Saturday, July 06, 2013
Man Movie Fight
In this scene from Pittsburgh (1942), John Wayne and Randolph Scott slug it out in a coal mine...in suits. Among other things, they were fighting over Marlene Dietrich.
Guess they needn't have bothered.
Guess they needn't have bothered.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Saturday, June 01, 2013
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Saturday Man Movie
In The Comancheros, Texas Ranger Jake Cutter (John Wayne) is working a deal to get inside a gunrunning gang by stringing along drunken killer Tully Crow (Lee Marvin). But as he and Crow sit down at a card table, he comes face to face with Paul Regret(Stuart Whitman), a man who'd escaped from him following a prior arrest. And Crow's a sore loser.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Saturday Man Movie
In this epic fight from The Spoilers (1942), tough guys John Wayne and Randolph Scott go to blows over Marlene Dietrich.
And that, kids, is how men settled disputes back in the day. No drive-by shootings, no lawsuits...just good old brawling in a convenient neighborhood bar or sporting house.
And that, kids, is how men settled disputes back in the day. No drive-by shootings, no lawsuits...just good old brawling in a convenient neighborhood bar or sporting house.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Saturday Man Movie
John Wayne carries the day as an American boxer in Ireland in The Quiet Man.
This one's dedicated to my father.
This one's dedicated to my father.
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Saturday man movie
In Rio Bravo(1959), Sheriff John T. Chance (played by John Wayne) is holding the rich evil villain's brother Joe (played by Claude Akins) in jail. The rich evil villain kidnaps Chance's deputy Dude, (played by Dean Martin) and Chance and Colorado (played by Ricky Martin Nelson) go to a swap, intended to trade Joe for Dude. well Dude has other ideas and a gunfight breaks out. Fortunately Stumpy (played by Walter Brennan) shows up to lend a hand.
And the remaining bad guys surrender, leaving Sheriff Chance free to go back and take care of business with his new girl Feathers, (played by an impossibly young Angie Dickinson).
A great movie, with some good action and even some decent singing, blogged previously here and here.
Brought to you from a time when men were men. No Clooneys or DiCaprios allowed.
And the remaining bad guys surrender, leaving Sheriff Chance free to go back and take care of business with his new girl Feathers, (played by an impossibly young Angie Dickinson).
A great movie, with some good action and even some decent singing, blogged previously here and here.
Brought to you from a time when men were men. No Clooneys or DiCaprios allowed.
Saturday, September 03, 2011
Saturday Morning Western
In this clip from 1962's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, villain Valance, played by Lee Marvin, messes with James Stewart but incurs the wrath of John Wayne.
This movie also starred Lee Van Cleef, Denver Pyle, John Carradine and Andy Devine. Seldom have such greats shared the screen in the same flick. They really don't make 'em like this one any more.
This movie also starred Lee Van Cleef, Denver Pyle, John Carradine and Andy Devine. Seldom have such greats shared the screen in the same flick. They really don't make 'em like this one any more.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Saturday Western (man movie)
The year was 1967. The movie: The War Wagon. Here, enemies turned allies John Wayne and Kirk Douglas narrowly avoid a shootout due to a fortuitous bar fight of the sort which always used to break out in bars back in them days.
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