John Wayne Centenary: The '50s - Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, Hondo, The Searchers and Rio Bravo - Page 4

Cinematographer Winton C. Hoch, who did such a great job of bringing Ford’s vision of the west to the screen in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, here captures the director's idyllic vision of the Emerald Isle and that vision is further enhanced by Victor Young’s score which captures the film's spirit perfectly.

This may not be Ford’s best film but it is his most perfectly realised and heartfelt. It’s both ironic and fitting that a film that had so much trouble finding financial backing should end up winning the director the last of his Oscars.

Hondo (1953)

Not so much a classic as a personal favourite, although it’s a damn fine western by any standards.

Based on the Louis L’Amour novel, it tells the story of an army scout named Hondo and the woman and child he finds alone on a ranch in the heart of Indian country. Hondo had an Indian “wife” but she died and since then he’s been close to no one, not even Sam, his canine companion. He comes to care for the woman and her son, treating them like a surrogate family.

The film highlights what a good physical actor Wayne was; at one point he’s shoeing a horse and he seems perfectly at home with the blacksmith's tools, going about the business at hand while delivering his lines. He makes the scene look natural and the playing of it easy and it’s that ease that led people to believe he wasn’t a great actor. He had originally only planned to produce the film, with Glen Ford the intended star. The part would have suited Ford well but I doubt he’d have been better than Wayne.

Geraldine Page was Oscar nominated for her role as the lonely frontier woman although Wayne reportedly didn’t get on well with her. Duke regulars Ward Bond and James Arness are on hand as a couple of army scouts and Michael Pate shows a more human side to the Indians as Apache Chief Vittorio. In fact the film, like Fort Apache and to a lesser extent She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, is sympathetic to the Indians' plight, with Hondo, himself part Indian, having a fondness for their way of life.

The film's best performance, however, comes from the four-legged member of the cast. Sam the dog was either played by or related to the dog that played Lassie (I can’t find confirmation one way or the other) but Sam is a million miles away from that canine hero, even sporting an ugly looking scar. As Wayne says at one point “That dog don't take to pettin', son” and the animal is as fiercely independent as his human traveling companion (the dog doesn’t have an “owner”). Interesting fact - Wayne, so the story goes, won the dog in a drunken poker game after the film wrapped only to give it back the next day.

Article Author: Ian Woolstencroft

Ian Woolstencroft was brought up on a diet of John Wayne movies and Marvel Comics and still has a passion for both. Now as a blogcritic he finally understands what Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben meant when he said ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ …

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