The Well of Lost Hopes

Robert N. Bradbury's dirt-cheap Western The Lawless Frontier includes a chase scene with John Wayne's generic cowboy of the month chasing the seedy villain Zanti. Unfortunately for the Duke, Zanti is on horseback while Wayne's cowboy is on foot. The chase appears hopeless for Wayne until Zanti needlessly and hilariously handicaps himself by smacking his head on a low-hanging branch while riding under a tree, knocking himself silly and losing his horse. Zanti, dazed, stumbles across the desert while John Wayne follows at a leisurely walking pace. Wayne catches up to Zanti just as the villain is trying to regain his strength and senses by drinking from a pool of water. 

The Duke: "Drink all you want. It's poison."

Camera cuts to a crude sign: "Do Not Drink. Poison." With a badly drawn skull.

Bad guy looks utterly stunned, then dies in the puddle of poison.

It was a beautiful moment in an otherwise forgettable film.  

Quick Takes: Angel and the Badman

There's a lot to love about Republic B-western Angel and the Badman (James Edward Grant, 1947). John Wayne delivers a pretty nuanced and more likeable than usual performance, and he's part of a sincere love story with the charming Gail Russell, part of a delightfully wholesome Quaker family Wayne's character takes refuge with after a gunfight. Their romance has real stakes and believable twists and turns, and their happy ending feels earned. Both the Quaker religion and atheism are treated as valuable and respectable viewpoints.

What impressed me most viscerally, though, was a third-act stunt that actually made me gasp in shock and feel genuine fear for the characters onscreen and the stunt people who performed the feat. Physical responses like that are rare for me; it was a real, if scary, pleasure to be surprised by a such a superbly-crafted, hair-raising stunt.

SPOILERS for the stunt:




Wayne and Russell are driving a horse-drawn wagon next to a canyon, trying to get away from some pursuing bad guys. Without warning, the horses break free of the wagon, and in one unbroken shot, the wagon goes out of control and plunges off a cliff, wagon and riders plummeting perhaps 70 or 80 feet into the river below. The stunt is executed so seamlessly that the director and editor made the wise decision to show the whole thing uncut the most crucial part of the stunt in just a couple of cuts to really show off the drama and excitement generated by what looks to have been a pretty dark risky stunt. Amazing stuff.

*Corrected after a second look prompted by Mike.  

Something New Every Day

Tonight I watched Hatari!, the Howard Hawks safari comedy starring John Wayne. During the opening credits, I noted that Henry Mancini scored the film, and yet I was still surprised when his "Baby Elephant Walk" accompanied a scene of Elsa Martinelli's character walking a trio of baby elephants to a watering hole. I hadn't realized that Mancini's hit had been composed for a soundtrack, nor that the instrumental's title was so literal. As a fan of Mancini and Hawks, this was a real treat. And it even helped me feel a bit better - I've been fighting a bad head cold over the last couple of days. Thanks, Howard and Henry! 

The Light between the Lines

Quick Take: The Train Robbers

The Train Robbers (Burt Kennedy, 1973) is pretty fine late-period John Wayne with good performances from a stable of veterans; the film also features really gorgeous cinematography. The opening sequence is moody and a bit out of step with the tone of the lighthearted actioner that follows, but it's welcome nonetheless, and the ending is one of those cheesy surprises that you can't help but roll your eyes but love anyway. Better than I expected.

McQuestionable

John Sturges made some great movies, including The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, Bad Day at Black Rock, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, The Eagle Has Landed, and The Satan Bug, among others. But 1974's McQ, starring John Wayne as a Dirty Harry-esque rogue cop seeking revenge for the death of his partner, is as limp and by-the-numbers an affair as I've seen in quite some time. As police detective and then private eye McQ, Wayne does his best to embody the spirit of the times, which rightly or wrongly seemed to assume the United States was slipping into a maelstrom of urban crime and corruption that couldn't be stopped. In the end it turns out that practically everyone has betrayed McQ, a twist that could have been interesting but instead just seems tired and overly cynical.

Still, if you want to see how Dirty Harry might have turned out had John Wayne accepted the role instead of passing it on to Clint Eastwood, this is worth a watch for curiosity's sake.