Having recently rediscovered old notes from a screenplay project largely lost during a hard drive failure, I'm working on getting back up to speed with it in part by watching old 1930's westerns featuring a young John Wayne (they're sort of an inspiration and a significant reference point for the work).
John was very much his own character, and never fit anything else (Lord knows he made for a horrible Genghis Khan in "The Conqueror"). Early on, a director tried to make him part of the "singing cowboy" genre, but upon discovering the man couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, they outfitted him with a guitar and dubbed in a singer's voice over his lip-syncing. It was the first and last time anyone tried to put him in that sort of role.
He was very much an icon of the western, though -- that no one can deny. He bridged the gap between the "singing cowboy" era when good guys wore white hats and bad guys wore black, and worked up until the seventies in westerns, ending his moviemaking with "The Shootist" in 1976, as increasingly graphically violent westerns rose in popularity ("spaghetti" and otherwise) like Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" and the rise of Eastwood's "Man With No Name" in "A Fistful of Dollars", "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", and "For a Few Dollars More", and while protagonists became increasingly gritty, flawed, and anti-heroic...
But Wayne famously stood his ground and fought with the director of "The Shootist" when the screenplay called for his character to shoot someone in the back.
"I've made over 250 pictures and have never shot a guy in the back. Change it." Wayne said.
And they did.
John Wayne died of cancer, eerily parallelling his character in "The Shootist" -- three years after production on the movie wrapped. It was the last film he'd ever make.
He never really fit the mold Hollywood tried to put him in as a cowboy, and that's why he succeeded, I think. Because real cowboys don't take well to molds.
I can't think "American Western Movie" without John Wayne being the first or second thought in my head, and I miss him.
John was very much his own character, and never fit anything else (Lord knows he made for a horrible Genghis Khan in "The Conqueror"). Early on, a director tried to make him part of the "singing cowboy" genre, but upon discovering the man couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, they outfitted him with a guitar and dubbed in a singer's voice over his lip-syncing. It was the first and last time anyone tried to put him in that sort of role.
He was very much an icon of the western, though -- that no one can deny. He bridged the gap between the "singing cowboy" era when good guys wore white hats and bad guys wore black, and worked up until the seventies in westerns, ending his moviemaking with "The Shootist" in 1976, as increasingly graphically violent westerns rose in popularity ("spaghetti" and otherwise) like Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" and the rise of Eastwood's "Man With No Name" in "A Fistful of Dollars", "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", and "For a Few Dollars More", and while protagonists became increasingly gritty, flawed, and anti-heroic...
But Wayne famously stood his ground and fought with the director of "The Shootist" when the screenplay called for his character to shoot someone in the back.
"I've made over 250 pictures and have never shot a guy in the back. Change it." Wayne said.
And they did.
John Wayne died of cancer, eerily parallelling his character in "The Shootist" -- three years after production on the movie wrapped. It was the last film he'd ever make.
He never really fit the mold Hollywood tried to put him in as a cowboy, and that's why he succeeded, I think. Because real cowboys don't take well to molds.
I can't think "American Western Movie" without John Wayne being the first or second thought in my head, and I miss him.
