Classic Movie Reviews: John Wayne

An Article By Mark O'Hara

On a clear and chilly October night, my family and I experienced two American traditions, drive-in movies and John Wayne. The occasion was a GI Joe collector’s convention, and the Holiday Drive-In, in its 51st season, was showing a triple-feature. We didn’t stay for the third picture, but we did see FLYING LEATHERNECKS and SANDS OF IWO JIMA. Some things were different from the first-run showings of these films nearly a half-century ago. For one, we tuned in the soundtracks with our Plymouth’s FM radio, instead of clipping that heavy metal box on the driver’s window. But the refreshments were the same, right down to the cornball dancing hot dogs and whitebread American family featured in the intermission ads. And best of all, John Wayne was the same. Though he died before either of our children was born, Wayne introduced himself well. Our son and daughter saw the original American ideal in tough guys, a man who smoked and used politically incorrect epithets onscreen. We all loved it.

Whether you get a chance to visit a reopened drive-in or merely rent the videos, these reviews might make your viewing more pleasureable.

Flying Leathernecks (1951)

It’s hard to watch John Wayne without remembering it’s John Wayne. He’s not a bad actor; it’s just that he’s so famous that his face is an icon. The face and the booming voice and the swaying gait. And most of all, the toughness. In FLYING LEATHERNECKS Wayne plays Major Dan Kirby, an officer called in to command a squadron of American pilots just before the Battle of Guadalcanal. Wayne plays Kirby with classic American stoicism. He has a job to do and cannot waste time on sentiment or guilt over giving orders. When his squadron loses men, Kirby cannot let it get to him.

It’s Kirby’s second in command, Capt. Griffin, who is a bit too sensitive in the line of battle. That’s why "Griff" was not recommended for the command post in the first place – why the brass imported Kirby. As Griffin, Robert Ryan delivers a performance at least as strong as Wayne’s. No, you cannot have an interesting story without conflict, and one conflict in LEATHERNECKS is Griffin’s resentment of Kirby’s by-the-book attitude. At one point a pilot peels off to pursue, and eventually destroy, a small Japanese plane. But the American loses his plane in the process. When the pilot returns to base, everyone except Major Kirby is ecstatic to see him. Kirby orders his arrest pending court-martial. Clearly the men are disgruntled with the discipline, especially because qualified pilots are scarce.

Griffin and Kirby have many run-ins. But eventually we see Kirby was using the tough façade to work his men into condition. He cancels the court-martial. We also watch as Kirby plays a recording he received, as a Christmas gift, from his young son back in the States. So Kirby is human after all! Eventually, Griffin completes the formula by paying his respect to Kirby. Kirby, of course, earns this respect through several command decisions and successful missions. We see more of the human side of Kirby when, between assignments, he makes an unannounced visit home. His wife is overwhelmed, of course, and his son receives both his father’s love and a Japanese sword he can show off to his friends.

What’s fascinating about the script is that it portrays the historical controversy over strategic bombing. In the film, Kirby is a staunch advocate of low-flying support: you receive precise coordinates from officers on the ground, and then send your Wildcats in to bomb enemy positions, which are just yards away from friendly troops. During the Second World War, this type of support had not been developed, and crediting officers like Kirby adds interest as well as historical value to the story.

Also of historical interest are the scenes of actual battle. Compared to modern films, with special effects and huge budgets, LEATHERNECKS does not supply viewers with extended and breath-taking dogfights; but what we see is pieces of real air combat, even shot in color to match the color of the movie – tracer bullets hitting their targets, Zeros spinning to crash into the ground. Considering that directors in the 1990s still intersperse real footage with their fictionalized narrative, the makers of LEATHERNECKS were ahead of their time.

First-rate comic relief is supplied by Jay C. Flippen, the character actor’s character actor. He plays a figure similar to Jamie Farr’s Corporal Klinger from MASH – a finagler, a petty thief who looks after his men and keeps the squadron’s planes in the air. When an amused Major Kirby looks the other way at Clancy’s pilfering, we witness another endearing point of characterization. And it’s funny as hell when Clancy is busted to PFC.

Released six years after the Second World War ended, FLYING LEATHERNECKS does not contain the all-out, gung-ho heroism of movies made during the war. But it certainly praises the American armed forces, and men like Kirby and Griffin who were among its front-line fighters. It makes no mistake about its patriotism. Having John Wayne, the reddest-blooded American film hero, as its star does not hurt its impact. For a film of its time, it’s a winner.

Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)

SANDS OF IWO JIMA ranks as one of John Wayne’s finest films, including his Westerns. Its story follows a tough platoon commander and his men through some of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific theater, including Tarawa and Iwo Jima.

Wayne’s performance is a classic. I’m fairly sure it was my 10 year-old daughter’s first exposure to Wayne, and I’m glad she saw him in a representative role. When you first see Wayne, he should be doing his best tough-guy act, like he does with Sergeant John M. Stryker. What a hard-as-nails name! (Isn’t there a professional wrestler named Sergeant Striker?) To give a fictional character a middle initial is another nod to realism. Anyway, your first time seeing "The Duke" should be when he’s unsentimental, doing a difficult job and shunning credit, all the while using his one-of-a-kind talk and walk.

Here his character was more challenging than many of his typical roles. Stryker is hard-nosed almost beyond tolerance, to the point that many of his men complain and begin the rumblings of mutiny. But when we find out that Stryker’s wife has left him and taken their child, and that the boy does not write to his father, we see some of the motivation behind his behaviors. We understand better – though not completely – why he goes on drunken binges. Although the subplot concerning Stryker’s personal life follows the formula of many war films, it certainly makes for good psychological study, and contributes a freshness to the film.

Two of Stryker’s men take his treatment personally. As Corporal Thomas, Forrest Tucker hates Stryker’s guts because Stryker beat him in a divisional boxing match some time earlier. The old grudge surfaces until they are, once again, engaged in fisticuffs. Only this time a colonel spots the sergeant beating up on his own man, and we watch one Marine show his loyalty to another Marine, when Thomas claims Stryker was only instructing him in combat judo. In Thomas’ confession to Stryker just after their make-up, we see the effects of a very sticky moral situation, a scene that would hold its own with any ethical dilemma I can think of in movies. Pfc. Peter Conway’s hatred of Stryker is more complicated. He is a Harvard-educated businessman, an amateur soldier here to fight the war and then return home. When Conway marries and later receives a letter from his wife, telling of their newborn baby, we see Stryker’s jealousy. The only question at this point is how will Conway (played by John Agar) come to terms with his sergeant?

Real footage from Pacific campaigns is used convincingly in the film. When we see flame-throwing tanks igniting the battle-scarred hills of the islands, we form at least an idea of how devastating war can be. The smoothness of the film clips is pleasing too: the battlefields of the movie set match the real battlefields closely. And the difference in film quality is not much. Most remarkable is the planting of the flag atop Mount Suribachi. Director Alan Dwan uses an almost corny method of drawing our attention to the scene immortalized in the Iwo Jima Memorial – Marines struggling to raise the Stars and Stripes. But the effect caps the film nicely.

A recent trend in movie-making takes another look at standard genres and revises their supposed agendas. Clint Eastwood’s UNFORGIVEN showed us a Western whose hero was a gun-toting murderer. Steven Spielberg made perhaps the finest war movie ever in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. My point is that RYAN has been advertised not as a war movie, but an "anti-war" movie. Taking a look at John Wayne’s efforts in SANDS OF IWO JIMA, I cannot see how he or the film praises war. I cannot see, especially with the anti-climatic ending, how this narrative uses war for the mindless support of political causes.

I would recommend this John Wayne film to anyone. And if you are watching with Wayne first-timers, withhold your comments about this grand old actor, and let them form their own opinions. The man is impressive enough to leave his mark on many generations.

True Grit

I first saw 'True Grit' at the Westmont Theater in Westmont, New Jersey in the summer of 1969. I was ten years old. My father got caught in traffic on the way there, and we entered the theater ten minutes late, a situation the both of us hated. This was before ushers ejected you if you tried to sit through more than one showing, so we stayed for the down time and for the cartoon and finally for the first part of the film, finding out that Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey), the man who killed Mattie's father Frank, worked for the family. We left during the rooming house dinner, just when La Boeuf (Glen Campbell) meets Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) and commences to flirt with her.

That's how big an impression this film left on me. I've carried the story around for nearly 30 years. Of course I have a talent for recalling rather unimportant details, such as some of the finer points of the viewing experience. Heck, the old Westmont Theater on Haddon Avenue was still much more impressive than any of the multiplexes that were beginning to pop up in the nearest malls, which were then all the way in Cherry Hill and up in Moorestown.

But now 'True Grit.' Based on a novel by a very solid American novelist, Charles Portis (also author of 'Norwood' and 'Gringoes'), the movie is a close and successful adaptation. The screenplay is by Marguerite Roberts.

La Boeuf is a Texas Ranger who, just like Mattie, has set out to catch the murderer Tom Chaney - one of several apparent aliases adopted by the powder-burned, shifty-eyed man who gunned down his boss, Frank Ross, outside a saloon. The gutsy Mattie comes into the town a few days later with another ranch hand, and they claim the body. But Mattie inquires about lawmen who might do some bounty hunting for her, and ends up walking into the life of one Federal Marshall Reuben J. Cogburn, "Rooster" (John Wayne). Even though no one in the town can say a kind word about Rooster, Mattie has heard he has 'true grit,' and pays him $25 retainer to plan the hunting down of the scoundrel Tom Chaney. Meanwhile, Mattie runs up against La Boeuf, a Ranger paid to bring Chaney back to Texas for the killing of a state senator and his dog. The Ranger doesn't care for Mattie's honest but "saucy" tongue, just like she doesn't care for his bragging and intended waylaying of her father's killer. After various complications, the unlikely trio sets out to find Chaney, who has allegedly joined up with a gang led by Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall). They enter a lawless part of the territory, where Rooster's toughness and several weapons take hold of the plot.

One strength the film has is its range of conflicts. Portis knows how to structure a conflict so that his readers don't want any part of putting down the book. In fact he builds many conflicts within the main one. Wherever Mattie goes she raises people's hackles, especially those of Gen. G. Stonehill (Strother Martin, the quintessential character actor who immortalized the line, "What we have here is a failure to communicate," in 'Cool Hand Luke'). Stonehill is the horse dealer, and he is clearly hornswaggled by the waif-like Mattie. She not only gets from him the money for the ponies purchased by her father just before
his death, but she threatens him into paying restitution for her father's horse, which was stolen by Chaney out of Stonehill's very stable. Needless to say, the teenager Mattie Ross leaves many characters nonplused when she walks out of a scene, their brows knit in consternation.

So the film is driven as much by character as it is by action and conflict. We see sonething of Cogburn's personal life, his home the back room of a Chinaman's store, his companion an orange tabby named General Sterling Price. Cogburn lost an eye in a Civil War skirmish, and he is a heavy drinker. Indeed he falls from his horse once and, unable to climb to his feet, orders Mattie and La Boeuf to camp right on the spot for the night. The 60-ish Wayne plays Cogburn naturally; no one else could own the part. (He did a reprise in "Rooster Cogburn,' in which the character meets his match in an irascible female played by Katherine Hepburn.) Because of his long experience, Wayne has no trouble commanding our attention in any scene he's in. Wayne is also a master of the subtle glance, as when he furtively looks at Mattie as he tends her snakebite, to see if the incision bothered her. Always larger than life, Wayne shows here that his acting transcends Westerns and would qualify him in any genre.

I'm not sure where the casting director conceived the idea of a country singer for the part of the ornery Texan, but Glen Campbell works well in the part. His youth and attitude make him a good foil for Wayne, sort of in the same way as David Bowie was a good foil for Bing Crosby in their duet of "The Little Drummer Boy." Kim Darby looks much younger than her age, a fact that makes her perfect for Portis' strong-willed teenager. She delivers most of her lines with a flavor that mixes old-fashioned formalism with Quaker plainness. Not many contractions appear in her conversation. She occasionally comes across as very stiff, though, making it seem as if the characters around her are not reacting quite properly to her lines. In a small but key role, Robert Duvall plays a straight-talking outlaw, the gang leader Ned Pepper. "I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man," is a line of dialogue I remember every time I see characters facing off in a movie. Who hasn't Duvall worked with during his illustrious career?

A quarrel I have with the film is the soundtrack. OK - the song playing over the opening credits is sung by Campbell (who is the seventh son of a seventh son, but that's only part of my trivial memory!) and it's fine, though no Frankie Laine. Much of the background music accompanying the scenes smacks of 1960's and 1970's television schmaltz, stuff rejected by 'Gunsmoke' or 'Bonanza.' And a lot of dialogue has no doubt been cut from the novel, causing the film to seem in some places minimalistic. The ending scene, for instance, could be more fleshed out before getting anywhere near the danger line for wordiness.

If you are a John Wayne fan, you need to watch this movie again. It's not as strong as 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' or 'Stagecoach' perhaps, but I believe it better than his last film, the strong 'The Shootist.' If you are not a Wayne buff, you should still watch it and give the old man a second chance. He has aged well. As with great writers like Hemingway, actors are often regarded differently by different decades of viewers. I hope John Wayne does not go unwatched by us and our children.

Related Links:

• IMDB's Flying Leathernecks Site
• The IMDB's Sands of Iwo Jima Site
• John Wayne: An American Treasure