John Wayne Centenary: The '50s - Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, Hondo, The Searchers and Rio Bravo - Page 6

This is without doubt Wayne’s finest performance, he’s not just playing himself, as he was often accused of, and even said himself on occasion. He’s inhabiting the skin of another person in the same way as Brando or De Niro are acclaimed for and it’s a performance that deserves to be compared to the best.

Eastwood’s Dollars character sprang from Ethan Edwards, and he’d have felt at home with The Wild Bunch’s Pike Bishop. Wayne may not have liked those characters and the films they appeared in, but the character he created would have recognised kindred spirits. And, while he disturbed me as a boy (has anyone ever had scarier eyes than Duke in this?), as an adult I understand what made him the way he was. The little nuances that a child would miss, hints that he was in love with his brother's wife and it was this that led to his self-imposed exile seem obvious to me know.

The climax may seem like a cop-out to some (and was the biggest change from the novel) but it at least provides some hope for Edwards’ redemption. As the credits roll he is still an outsider facing an uncertain future alone once more, and how (or if) he’s been changed by the film's events is up to the individual viewer to decide.

Rio Bravo (1959)

Even though he accepted Gary Cooper’s Oscar for High Noon on behalf of the absent star, he was not a fan of the film and considered it un-American. Seven years later he got to tell the lone (well, almost) lawman facing insurmountable odds story the way he thought it should be told. Director Hawks felt the same way as Wayne about High Noon and this shared outlook no doubt helped the film.

Wayne plays John T. Chance, a small-town sheriff who finds himself at odds with a powerful rancher when he arrests his brother for murder. Holed up in the jail awaiting the arrival of the marshal, Chance must fend off the rancher’s hired guns with only a drunk, an old cripple, and a young gunslinger for help.

There are three things that make Rio Bravo a western classic – its cast, its script, and its director. Dean Martin plays the drunk, typecasting you may think, but this is no comedy drunk. Dude was once a respected gunman until a woman (it’s always a woman) led him to seek solace in the bottle and it’s the characters struggle to regain his sense of self-worth that provides much of the film's emotional core, its heart and soul. It’s probably Martin’s finest performance and shows that he really could act when given a role that required it, he just got too few of them.

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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