Shall we gather at the river? - (Roger Ebert and John Wayne)

Chicago Sun Times ^ | May 26, 2012 | Roger Ebert

[re_tail20]

The first time I saw him, he was striding toward me out of the burning Georgia sun, as helicopters landed behind him. His face was tanned a deep brown. He was wearing a combat helmet, an ammo belt, carrying a rifle, had a canteen on his hip, stood six feet four inches. He stuck out his hand and said, "John Wayne." That was not necessary.

Wayne died on June 11, 1979. Stomach cancer. "The Big C," he called it. He had lived for quite a while on one lung, and then the Big C came back. He was near death and he knew it when he walked out on stage at the 1979 Academy Awards to present Best Picture to "The Deer Hunter," a film he wouldn't have made. He looked frail, but he planted himself there and sounded like John Wayne.

John Wayne. When I was a kid, we said it as one word: Johnwayne. Like Marilynmonroe. His name was shorthand for heroism. All of his movies could have been titled "Walking Tall." Yet he wasn't a cruel and violent action hero. He was almost always a man doing his duty. Sometimes he was other than that, and he could be gentle, as in "The Quiet Man," or vulnerable, as in "The Shootist," or lonely and obsessed, as in "The Searchers," or tender with a baby, as in "3 Godfathers."

He worked all the time. In the 1930s alone, he made 69 movies. Between 1928 and 1963, he made 21 films with John Ford, the man he called "Pappy." He had an effect on people that few other actors ever had. Gene Siskel was interviewing him in the middle of the night during a Chicago location shoot. The Duke had been doing some drinking, to keep warm...

[Cicero]

I would certainly agree that “The Searchers” is one of the best. Someone made a list of the twelve best westerns ever made, and both were on it. I have that one, too.

Winchester 73, Four Faces West, Rio Bravo. And I really like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

[navymom1]

Yes, The Searchers is on a rung all to itself. Another great film Wayne made was Stagecoach. Loved that one. And I’ll stay up any night to watch him and Maureen O’Hara paired together in a movie. Now that’s acting, that’s star power.

[bravo whiskey]

I love all of his flicks. But of the later ones...I’ll never forgive Bruce Dern for shooting him (The Cowboys) and I will stay up and watch True Grit every stinkin’ time to see him put the reigns in his teeth and ride.

i think bruce dern gave an interview about being on the set. iirc right before the scene the duke looked at dern and said “uou are about to become the most hated man in america.” why? “because you are going to shoot john wayne in the back.”

[berdie]

Well, like I said..I never got over it,lol.

But I will say that Dern plays one of the best bad guys in the industry. I guess someone has to do it.

(BTW, I love your very true tagline:))

[Bodleian_Girl]

Wow, that was a good article, especially considering the source!

[Borges]

What’s with the shock about how good this article is? Ebert is a terrific film writer.

[Liberty Valance]

"What’s with the shock about how good this article is?"

It's been a while since Ebert wrote anything memorable about a conservative ... and this one is about a conservative icon. "Well written" is a fair criticism. Keep'em coming Roger.

[Viking2002]

"They keep bringing up the fact that America's for the downtrodden. But this new thing of genuflecting to the downtrodden, I don't go along with that. We ought to go back to praising the kids who get good grades, instead of making excuses for the ones who shoot the neighborhood grocery man."

Man, did he ever have that pegged, even 35 years ago........!

"We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power..... the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave."

--Patrick Henry, to the Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775

[wafflehouse]

bookmark

[Bodleian_Girl]

I think he could have been great. But as is so often the case with those types, they let their political persuasions get in the way of just writing a good story.

[Rummyfan]

Red River, The Searchers, and They Were Expendable are my three favorite John Wayne flicks. Two John Ford's and a Howard Hawks'.

[PghBaldy]

John Wayne on list of favorite movie stars, by Harris Interactive:

Forget the youthquake. What America really loves is... old. Whatever Wayne represents — the Old Testament God, a Mount Rushmore face with a permanent scowl, the craggy soul of Frontier or Sunbelt America — he has made the list in each of the Harris poll's 13 years, and he's figured in the top three slots eight times. It's as if the People's Choice Awards kept picking Elvis as favorite singer.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1580564,00.html

[PghBaldy]

From 1994 until the latest, 2011, John Wayne in Top 10 of Harris Interactive. Only dead star to be there, in any of the years:

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/mid/1508/articleId/946/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/Default.aspx

[Cincinatus]

Top five John Wayne westerns, in order of importance and quality:

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Fort Apache
Rio Bravo
True Grit
The Shootist

[Pagey]

bttt

[Borges]

I recall Ebert recently saying that he was a big fan of Mark Steyn’s writing.

[Liberty Valance]

I went back over my comment and was probably wrong. Watched a documentary about Sam Peckinpah a few days ago and Ebert had glowing reviews of most of his films - even BMTHOAlfredo Garcia. I’m a big Warren Oates fan. I guess my doubts about Ebert can be traced back to his thumbs up reviews of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9-11. I do miss Siskel.