Episode 104

A Historian's Top 10 John Wayne Movies

🎙 Attention: These new shirts may cause history-inspired travel

John Wayne was in over 160 movies...we give you the best of the best.

Jenn is a Historian, Veteran, and grew up on these movies...Scott hadn't seen 9 of the 10 until now.

Video version of this podcast

Did we get the list right?

Intro: 0:00

#10: 4:11

#9: 9:37

#8: 13:58

#7: 19:31

#6: 26:06

#5: 33:47

#4: 40:50

#3: 48:19

#2: 55:12

#1: 1:00:03

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Transcript
Scott:

Real quick, before I start this podcast, I need you, if you're

Scott:

watching, to put in your favorite John Wayne movie in the comments.

Scott:

Just before we start, put your favorite John Wayne movie in the comments,

Scott:

and then feel free to comment all throughout this podcast video.

Scott:

McClintock!: If you're my father, if you love me, you'll shoot him.

Scott:

Well?

Scott:

I'm your father,

True Grit:

They tell me you're a man with true grit.

True Grit:

What do you want?

True Grit:

Speak up.

The Cowboys:

Son of a bitch.

The Cowboys:

What did you say?

The Cowboys:

You goddamn son of a bitch.

The Cowboys:

Say that again.

Big Jake:

They weren't afraid of the army, and they weren't

Big Jake:

afraid of the Texas Rangers.

Big Jake:

And they thought his grandfather, Big Jake McCandles, was dead.

Big Jake:

He wasn't.

Green Berets:

We don't go back without the General.

Green Berets:

They're elite corps commandos, nameless and faceless in a

Green Berets:

hundred newsreels and dispatches.

Green Berets:

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: That's my steak Valance.

Green Berets:

You heard him, dude.

Green Berets:

Pick it up.

Scott:

Welcome to Talk With History.

Scott:

I'm your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian, Jen.

Scott:

Hello.

Scott:

Today's podcast is part of a series we call Watch with History.

Scott:

The Watch with History series will focus on your favorite historical

Scott:

films, where Jen and I will review the Hollywood historic classics we all

Scott:

know and love, while also discussing the history behind these films,

Scott:

along with some interesting facts.

Scott:

We hope you enjoy.

Scott:

Watch with history.

Scott:

Three, two, one.

Scott:

John Wayne, the Duke, a legend of the silver screen,

Scott:

synonymous with the American West.

Scott:

But with over 160 films to his name, where do you even begin?

Scott:

Today we're tackling that very question.

Scott:

We're diving into ten iconic John Wayne movies.

Scott:

From a movie many consider genre defining to some lesser known gems.

Scott:

We'll be analyzing performances, dissecting iconic scenes,

Scott:

and sparking debate.

Scott:

Was True Grit truly John Wayne's finest hour?

Scott:

We've reviewed that one here.

Scott:

Did McClintock strike the right balance between comedy and action?

Scott:

And can one of our movies on this list hold its own against his western classics?

Scott:

So saddle up, film fans, and prepare for a critical ride

Scott:

through John Wayne's filmography.

Scott:

Let's see which movies truly stand the test of time.

Scott:

Stay tuned for our ranking and review of the top 10 John Wayne movies.

Scott:

All right, Jen, we're here.

Scott:

I was so excited.

Scott:

We have been planning this for, we've been wanting to do this for probably

Jenn:

about a year.

Jenn:

Yeah, so we visited John Wayne's birthplace.

Jenn:

Yes.

Jenn:

And I'm a huge John Wayne fan.

Jenn:

And I gave you my list of top 10.

Jenn:

Yes.

Jenn:

And told you to watch them.

Jenn:

Now you had seen some because we've seen like I'd seen like one or two.

Jenn:

We've saw the quiet man.

Jenn:

And we've been to Cong.

Jenn:

We'll talk about that.

Jenn:

But I made you watch my top 10.

Jenn:

And you didn't feel they were numbered quite how you

Scott:

felt.

Scott:

I did not.

Scott:

So this is so the order that we're going is we're going to go from 10 to one,

Scott:

we're going to start with Jen's number 10.

Scott:

And I'm gonna let you guys know kind of where I rank.

Scott:

These movies as they go through, but we're going to go Jen's from Jen's number 10

Scott:

all the way up through through number one.

Scott:

Yes.

Jenn:

And there's going to be some John Wayne movies that

Jenn:

we don't even talk about.

Jenn:

So if, if there's a top 10 of yours that we don't mention,

Jenn:

please put that in the comments.

Jenn:

I will talk a little bit about some John Wayne movies I saw at

Jenn:

Turner Classic movies that don't make the list, but I got to hear.

Jenn:

certain people talk about making those movies with him.

Jenn:

And I do love all John Wayne movies, but these are the top

Scott:

10.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

Specifically, there will be 159 that do not make this list.

Scott:

So number 10 on your list was

Green Berets:

Fighting from the sky John Wayne!

Green Berets:

Fearless men who jump and die Jim Hutton!

Green Berets:

Men who mean just what they say The brave men of the Green Beret A hundred

Green Berets:

men, you'll test today But only three win the Green Beret Patrick Wayne!

Green Berets:

---. Colonel Mike Kirby, the pro.

Green Berets:

Beckworth, the doubter.

Green Berets:

Sergeant Muldoon, the bull.

Green Berets:

Doc McGee, the dependable.

Green Berets:

Captain Nim, the hater.

Green Berets:

Sergeant Peterson, the conman.

Green Berets:

Sergeant Kowalski, the killer.

Green Berets:

Sergeant Provo, the humble.

Green Berets:

You'll know them all in the Green Berets.

Scott:

The Green Berets came out July 4th, 1968.

Scott:

So the movie is about a cynical reporter played by David . Jansen, who is

Scott:

opposed to the Vietnam Wars, sent to cover the conflict and assigned to tag

Scott:

along with a group of Green Berets.

Scott:

Led by the tough as nails Colonel Mike Kirby, played by our very own John

Scott:

Wayne, the team is given a top secret mission to sneak behind enemy lines and

Scott:

kidnap an important Viet Cong commander.

Scott:

Along the way, the reporter learns to respect why America is

Scott:

involved in the war and helps to save the life of a war orphan.

Scott:

whose life has been destroyed by the conflict.

Scott:

So, Jen, why did this kind of make it past all the other ones and, and This

Scott:

is one of the few, I think it might be the only non Western one on this list.

Jenn:

Yeah, I think it is my only non Western one.

Jenn:

Because this was a really, I think this was like, to me, John Wayne's a

Jenn:

little old to be playing this role, but to me it was his love letter

Jenn:

to America and to the war effort.

Jenn:

And it's very pro military because of the kind of criticism America

Jenn:

was getting at Vietnam at the time.

Jenn:

And so John Wayne made this movie to show there really is no winner in war.

Jenn:

And as much as people are criticizing the American soldier out there,

Jenn:

they are really trying to do good.

Jenn:

something good.

Jenn:

And they are trying to do something for the people of Vietnam.

Jenn:

And so that was kind of what he was doing here.

Jenn:

Now it is based on a book, a 1965 book.

Jenn:

You'll find John Wayne makes movies pretty quickly after books come out.

Jenn:

It seems to be his M.

Jenn:

O.

Jenn:

that if a book comes out that's really good, he tries to grab those book rights

Jenn:

and then play the lead in it pretty

Scott:

quickly.

Scott:

And I think that if I I think I remember reading that was the case for this book.

Scott:

He had purchased the book rights for this book specifically, and I actually

Scott:

even found an interesting fact.

Scott:

So he had actually reached out to the president of the United States for

Scott:

permission to use the name Green Beret.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

And

Jenn:

he got a lot of pro military permission.

Jenn:

They filmed at Fort Benning in Georgia.

Jenn:

They got use of all these military aircraft.

Jenn:

There's a C 130 in there.

Jenn:

There's a A 1 Skyraider, a Huey.

Jenn:

And so they're using military aircraft.

Jenn:

So it's one of those, the military does that even today, if it's kind of pro

Jenn:

military, they will allow the use of their

Scott:

aircraft in a movie.

Scott:

Sure.

Scott:

I mean, think Top Gun.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jenn:

And or True Lies.

Jenn:

But so that is, I really like this movie because of what John Wayne is

Jenn:

trying to do, what he's trying to say.

Jenn:

And I appreciate even though he's in his sixties, he's playing

Jenn:

this part, but to me, it just, it holds a special place in my heart.

Jenn:

I think of green berets.

Jenn:

I think of John Wayne.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

So now for me, for this one, I watched this one and it was a little bit

Scott:

of an eye roller for me, but I kind of got into it after a little while

Scott:

because it was, I took notes, you know, during my watching these movies.

Scott:

And so I noticed a couple.

Scott:

Famous actors before they were truly famous.

Scott:

So George Takai was in it, right?

Scott:

And other folks might know him as a from Star Trek.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

So I, I kind of jotted down a couple of things.

Scott:

There was a nice little helicopter crash in there.

Scott:

And I said, my notes, the notes when I took this said as a decent movie

Scott:

that shows that John Wayne can still command a screen, even in a dynamic

Scott:

war movie with constant action.

Scott:

Even as old as he is in this movie, he really could just command.

Scott:

That, that scene, whatever scene he was in.

Scott:

And I actually looked up kind of some of the box office numbers and

Scott:

it did pretty decently for 1968.

Scott:

I, it capped out I think at number 11 with about 21 million dollars

Scott:

in box office gross revenue.

Scott:

Some of the other movies that came out that year that beat

Scott:

it out in the box office.

Scott:

Number one was Funny Girl.

Scott:

I'm not familiar with that one.

Scott:

Barbra Streisand.

Scott:

Okay, Barbra Streisand.

Scott:

2001 A Space Odyssey.

Scott:

No.

Scott:

Space Odyssey.

Scott:

That was number two.

Scott:

The Odd Couple.

Scott:

Romeo and Juliet, Oliver, Planet of the Apes.

Scott:

So it was going up against some big movies.

Scott:

Rosemary's Baby.

Scott:

Oh, wow.

Scott:

Yeah, and Rosemary's Baby was number eight.

Scott:

So it wasn't that far behind.

Scott:

So there were some big movies that

Jenn:

came out that year.

Jenn:

Yeah, I mean, on a budget of seven million, it made 32.

Jenn:

So it was a success.

Jenn:

When you really think of it for the production company and

Jenn:

the box office, it's a success.

Scott:

And so for me, this actually wasn't my number ten.

Scott:

This was my number nine.

Scott:

So, from there, we can move on to, to your number nine, if you like.

Big Jake:

A story that glows with life and warms the heart.

Big Jake:

A story without time, about people.

Big Jake:

Fane and his gang raided the McCandles ranch and kidnapped little Jake McCandles.

Big Jake:

They held him for one million dollars in ransom.

Big Jake:

They weren't afraid of the army, and they weren't afraid of the Texas Rangers.

Big Jake:

And they thought his grandfather, Big Jake McCandles, was dead.

Big Jake:

He wasn't.

Jenn:

My number nine was Big Jake.

Jenn:

And I kind of like put Big Jake slash The Shootist, and I know you didn't watch

Jenn:

The Shootist, and I'll talk about why.

Jenn:

So for me, Big Jake is kind of like a, last love letter because it's the

Jenn:

last movie of John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, and it's filmed in 1971.

Jenn:

John Wayne is older in this he and he plays with his son and his, his two sons,

Jenn:

he has his oldest son and his younger son.

Jenn:

Now his younger son plays his grandson, right in the movie, in the movie, which

Jenn:

I think is almost like a poke at himself to say look at me I have My older son

Jenn:

who's playing my son in the movie and then my younger son who's actually

Jenn:

playing my grandson in the movie.

Jenn:

And his grandson, his son who's playing his grandson is named Ethan in real

Jenn:

life, named after his character, which we'll talk about later in another movie.

Jenn:

But it was to me, it was that nice moment of him and Maureen O'Hara sharing

Jenn:

the screen together for the last time.

Jenn:

If you see them, we'll talk about other movies that they were in together.

Jenn:

This is almost like watching them age as a couple in a movie.

Jenn:

So I really did like it for that.

Jenn:

The storyline's fine.

Jenn:

It's the same old, someone's taking the grandson.

Jenn:

He's the old gunslinger comes in and gets him back.

Jenn:

So it is that same old John Wayne hero story.

Jenn:

Now The Shootist is John Wayne's last movie filmed in 1976 with him

Jenn:

and Jimmy Stewart, Jimmy Stewart, and it is Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard.

Jenn:

And I just like that because it's his last.

Jenn:

movie, and it's a Western, and again, it's the story of an old gunslinger who's dying

Jenn:

of cancer and wants to go out, like, with

Scott:

his guns.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

One of the things, now, I will say, so this was my number 10.

Scott:

I, this is, I'm sorry, I just, I didn't enjoy this one as much as any of the other

Scott:

movies on this, on this particular list.

Scott:

I didn't watch The Shootist.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

Haven't watched that yet.

Scott:

But there, I did notice I jotted down kind of some of the themes that

Scott:

I saw throughout these movies and I noticed a similar theme across a

Scott:

couple of his movies and I think this is probably It's somewhat typical of

Scott:

Westerns, but it's that old versus new.

Scott:

And it was, I, I noticed that it was, it was pretty clear in this one and

Scott:

I jotted it down because I, I kind of watched these in reverse order.

Scott:

So I watched these in the order that we're, we're going through.

Scott:

But it was kind of just continuing contrasting comparisons

Scott:

throughout the movie, right?

Scott:

Horses versus cars and motorcycles, right?

Scott:

Cause he's coming back to his estranged family and we're, I

Scott:

think this is the one where he's working with his, his sons, right?

Scott:

And one son's like trying to ride a motorcycle, but

Scott:

can't, can't do things right.

Scott:

And here's, he's the old man coming in and he's able to, you know, be John Wayne.

Scott:

He's, he's doing everything right.

Scott:

But it, his character is a little bit of a jerk, right?

Scott:

He's a little bit of that antagonist in there.

Scott:

But obviously he'll kind of ultimately does what John Wayne does.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

you know, wins in the end.

Scott:

Yeah,

Jenn:

and it's so it's just again, it's one of those.

Jenn:

That's why it's kind of the end of the list because it's like a bookend.

Scott:

Yeah, now I coming down to box office didn't do well in the box office.

Scott:

This one was a lot lower on the list in some of his earlier movies.

Scott:

There actually wasn't really good data in this.

Scott:

But since this is the 70s, there's there's plenty of information.

Scott:

This was number 21 that year.

Scott:

I think it made a right around Yeah, seven and a half million dollars.

Scott:

But some of the top movies that year was let's see.

Scott:

Billy Jack, Phil Fiddler on the roof.

Scott:

Diamonds are forever.

Scott:

So some James Bond.

Scott:

So there's, there's some good movies that came out.

Scott:

Dirty Harry at Clockwork Orange, Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Scott:

If you get into the Disney realm.

Scott:

So there's some big ones that came out and, again, for me, this

Scott:

was, this is number 10 on, on my list compared to, to Jen's number

Jenn:

nine.

Jenn:

Yeah, we're getting into the end of John Wayne's career here.

Scott:

So number eight on your list

Scott:

Sons of Katie Elder: Yah!

Scott:

Yah!

Scott:

Yah!

Scott:

this is the Sons of Katie Elder.

Scott:

Made in 1965, four ne'er do well sons reunite in their Texas hometown

Scott:

to attend their mother's funeral.

Scott:

Led by older brothers, John, this is John Wayne, a gunfighter, and Tom,

Scott:

played by Dean Martin, a gambler, the four soon learn that their

Scott:

father gambled away the family ranch, which was the cause of his murder.

Scott:

The brothers decide to avenge their father's death and win back the ranch, a

Scott:

situation that quickly leads to trouble with the local sheriff and violent

Scott:

conflict with the rival Hastings clan.

Scott:

This one was, this one was fun.

Scott:

So I was starting to get into it with this one because Dean Martin was great.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

And some of the scenes were great.

Scott:

So talk to me about why this was your number eight.

Scott:

I

Scott:

love

Jenn:

watching The Sons of Katie Elder.

Jenn:

I will watch this anytime it's on TV.

Jenn:

I love, first of all, I love the title, right?

Jenn:

So Katie Elder, that name comes from Big Nose Kate, who would

Jenn:

hang out with Doc Holliday.

Jenn:

Oh, okay.

Jenn:

That's her name.

Scott:

It's a little, little historical tie there.

Jenn:

A little historical tie, plus it's kind of based off of these brothers a

Jenn:

1888 true story of the Marlowe brothers.

Jenn:

In Texas, same kind of thing happened to them.

Jenn:

Okay?

Jenn:

They fought back.

Jenn:

They were kind of put up into like a circumstantial thing, killing a

Jenn:

sheriff, and the town came after them and they held back the town,

Jenn:

just the brothers themselves, and were exonerated in the end.

Jenn:

So it's kind of the same premise, but I really love this

Jenn:

because John Wayne is again.

Jenn:

off character.

Jenn:

He's a gunslinger, so much so he doesn't go to the funeral.

Jenn:

He stands off in the back.

Scott:

Yeah, he's

Jenn:

not a good person.

Jenn:

He's not a good person.

Jenn:

He's wanted.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

And then Dean Martin's a gambler.

Jenn:

So he's not playing a great guy either.

Jenn:

And then another brother is kind of like a dealer, like a furniture dealer.

Jenn:

And then they have a young brother who is going to college.

Jenn:

Now that brother was supposed to be Tommy Kirk from Swiss Family Robinson, right?

Jenn:

Of Disney fame.

Jenn:

And I think to see him in it probably would have been different.

Jenn:

But he had gotten recently arrested for marijuana and it didn't look very good.

Jenn:

So he was written out of it.

Jenn:

So basically these three brothers who haven't done Well, in their lives and

Jenn:

lost their mother, who was a really good woman and the town loved her are trying

Jenn:

to do right by their mother and make sure their younger brother does something

Scott:

with his life.

Scott:

He keeps doing what younger brothers do, and he wants to be like his

Jenn:

older brothers who are not good guys, but they're But they're cool.

Jenn:

But they're fun.

Jenn:

And so John Wayne plays the oldest of them all.

Jenn:

And again, they figure out that their family farm was taken away

Jenn:

by, you know, basically a swindler.

Jenn:

And so they're trying to get the farm back.

Jenn:

And Dennis Hopper is in this again.

Jenn:

Yep.

Jenn:

So it's very interesting.

Jenn:

You're gonna see Dennis Hopper in a couple movies here.

Jenn:

He plays a good role.

Jenn:

And what's interesting about this movie is John Wayne had just been

Jenn:

diagnosed with cancer before this role.

Jenn:

And he had one of his lungs and two ribs removed.

Jenn:

Yeah, you were telling me about this.

Jenn:

And but he wanted to do his own stunts.

Jenn:

John Wayne was always big on like, he wanted to you.

Jenn:

please fans, right?

Jenn:

He really was like his fans wanted to see him do these things on the horses.

Jenn:

And at one point, you see him dragged through a river, because

Jenn:

he's being taken by the guys, and they drag him through the river.

Jenn:

And he actually got pneumonia during that, because he really he did that stunt.

Jenn:

And it was pretty dangerous for him.

Jenn:

So you see john Wayne trying to keep holding his own here.

Jenn:

This was made in 1965.

Jenn:

So john Wayne is, is entering the end of his 50s here.

Jenn:

So but I love John Wayne DeMartin.

Jenn:

This will be the second time they team up together.

Jenn:

And it is just another quintessential Western.

Jenn:

Anytime it's on, I will watch it.

Jenn:

Yeah, I

Scott:

actually had this one a little bit higher because I enjoyed it.

Scott:

So you had it, you were number eight.

Scott:

I had this one as my number seven.

Scott:

Oh, wow.

Scott:

So I had this one as my number seven because I, I did enjoy this.

Scott:

I enjoyed the brothers aspect of it, right?

Scott:

You know, I, I grew up, I had a brother and That, that dynamic was good and

Scott:

Dean Martin, I think, did a pretty good job as far as the box office goes the

Scott:

Sons of Katie Elder did pretty decently.

Scott:

There's number 14 in the box office.

Scott:

It was competing against the likes of The Sound of Music.

Scott:

Dr.

Scott:

Chivago, Thunderball The Great Race, you know, there's, there was some

Scott:

pretty big ones that were coming out that, that, that year, but it it made

Scott:

about 13 million at the box office.

Scott:

And you know, we're talking, we're still talking about it today.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

I

Jenn:

love the way this movie ends.

Jenn:

If you've ever seen it where they keep talking about Katie would sit in this

Jenn:

rocking chair and rock and rock and rock.

Jenn:

And at the very end, the brothers have gotten back the family farm.

Jenn:

They're, the younger brother has been shot, but he's going to be okay.

Jenn:

He's going to make it.

Jenn:

And John Wayne walks past the rocking chair and hits it and it starts rocking.

Scott:

That was the one once I finally got there, I was like, okay, now I'm starting

Scott:

to get into the John Wayne movies.

Scott:

I can tell I'm going to enjoy a little bit more.

Jenn:

See, it makes me cry because it's so good.

Scott:

All right.

Scott:

So we're going to move on to your number seven.

The Cowboys:

In the summer of 78, Will Anderson lost all his cow hands just at

The Cowboys:

the time he was to start his cattle drive.

The Cowboys:

Miserable.

The Cowboys:

Did you ever think of hiring boys?

The Cowboys:

What boys?

The Cowboys:

School boys.

The Cowboys:

Oh, sure, and women.

The Cowboys:

How about my mom in Cedar City?

The Cowboys:

She's only 92.

The Cowboys:

Well, you ain't got a lot of choices.

The Cowboys:

Who's first?

The Cowboys:

I'll go first.

Scott:

And your number seven is The Cowboys.

Scott:

Oh, so good.

Scott:

So The Cowboys was made in 1972, and it's about a grizzled veteran rancher,

Scott:

Will Anderson, played by John Wayne.

Scott:

It's almost, he's almost ready to embark on a big cow drive when his crew

Scott:

abruptly quits to join in a gold rush.

Scott:

Left with no alternative, Anderson enlists the help of a group of local schoolboys.

Scott:

Training the youngsters to be cowboys, Anderson manages to get the drive

Scott:

underway, but their long journey is placed in jeopardy when the devious

Scott:

bandit Longhair, played by Bruce Dern, being very famous in this movie,

Scott:

sets his sights on stealing the herd.

Scott:

So this movie was, was one of my favorites.

Scott:

I love

Jenn:

it, and we watched it with our boys, and our boys loved it.

Jenn:

I saw this at Turner Classic Movies.

Jenn:

Robert Carradine, it's his first movie.

Jenn:

We think about, Revenge of the Nerds.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

It was his first movie.

Scott:

One of the things I appreciated about this movie was Again, we focus

Scott:

on a lot of history stuff, kind of everything that goes into like herding

Scott:

cattle from one state, one ranch down to another, and, and kind of

Scott:

everything that it took and the men who had to know what they were doing.

Scott:

And so you kind of saw a little peek behind that curtain of what it

Scott:

used to be like back then to teach someone how to do all of this stuff.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

It's

Jenn:

supposed to be a 400 mile.

Jenn:

Cattle drive.

Jenn:

Yeah, it's supposed to be from Bozeman, Montana down to South Dakota and The men

Jenn:

who normally are his ranch hands have left for the gold rush So that's kind of giving

Jenn:

you like a time frame of what's happening.

Jenn:

And again, this is a 1971 novel movies made in 1972 So again, John Wayne is

Jenn:

getting this novel It's by William Dale Jennings and buying the rights early and

Jenn:

then wanting to play the part It's one of the very few movies with John Wayne dies.

Jenn:

Yes Spoiler alert.

Jenn:

So,

Scott:

so, I, I, I sure hope you've seen that.

Scott:

So that's what Bruce Dern, I remember, I mean, in interviews

Scott:

and he said soon after, he became known as the man who killed John

Jenn:

Wayne.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

And cause he does it in a horrible way.

Jenn:

He, he shoots him in the back.

Jenn:

He beats him up beforehand.

Jenn:

And so, and this is like, he's a new actor, Bruce Dern, he's younger.

Jenn:

So he said it's like, it followed his career around for years.

Jenn:

because everyone loves John Wayne.

Jenn:

And John Wayne in this movie, he's taking these young boys on

Jenn:

this cattle drive because all the men have left for the gold rush.

Jenn:

So he's almost like a big father figure to them.

Jenn:

He's teaching them how to overcome fears.

Jenn:

He's teaching them how to work hard.

Jenn:

And he, he hires an African American chuck wagon.

Jenn:

Yeah, Runner, and in real life Roscoe Lee Brown was a strong Democrat where John

Jenn:

Wayne's a strong Republican, but he said he got along very well with John Wayne.

Jenn:

Oh, interesting.

Jenn:

They, he, John Wayne would, they would talk poetry together.

Jenn:

He was

Scott:

incredibly eloquent, very well spoken as far as his

Scott:

character went on the movie.

Scott:

And he played, I actually really enjoyed his role.

Scott:

With the boys and with John like I really enjoyed his role.

Scott:

I

Jenn:

thought it was so authentic with race Because the boys being questioning

Jenn:

race and questioning what it's like to be an African American man and Roscoe really

Jenn:

answering or his, his character really answering their questions are really

Jenn:

like digging into their stereotypes.

Jenn:

So, he plays Jebediah Nightlinger, but he runs the truck wagon, but

Jenn:

really between him and John Wayne's character, Will Anderson, they're like

Jenn:

the two father figures for these boys.

Jenn:

They really do raise these boys.

Jenn:

And so then when John Wayne's killed, it's Roscoe, it's it's

Jenn:

It's Jebediah Nightlinger who helps the boys seek revenge.

Scott:

I'm glad you brought up kind of like the raising of the boys because

Scott:

one of the things I noted down was not only like how well those the two

Scott:

adult actors played off of each other.

Scott:

But that they they identified all these firsts with the boys, right?

Scott:

So the first time that they are drinking the first time they're seeing, you

Scott:

know, ladies of the night, right?

Scott:

Soil doves.

Scott:

So you see these, you see these first and as a.

Scott:

grown man, it kind of, it's very nostalgic.

Scott:

It was very nostalgic for me, just kind of seeing young boys in their childhood,

Scott:

you know, growing up before your eyes.

Scott:

And then by the end of the movie, there's so much more adult like in

Scott:

how they're handling situations.

Jenn:

And I think it's great that John Wayne's character

Jenn:

tells them not to fight back.

Jenn:

Even he preempts that I might.

Jenn:

Get killed.

Jenn:

Yeah, don't fight back because they see you as boys But if you fight back they

Jenn:

won't and I think he gives a great lesson there in the end And so then after they

Jenn:

bring the cattle in they get all the money They make that tombstone and they

Jenn:

have it your beloved husband and father And then when they can't find his body

Jenn:

on the way back and they just leave it because he's part of the land I just

Jenn:

really love that I wanted Shout out that Colleen Dewhurst is also in this.

Jenn:

Slim Pickings is in this as well.

Jenn:

Colleen Dewhurst plays the madam of the soil devs.

Scott:

As the box office goes, the Cowboys didn't kind of raise too high.

Scott:

It was actually kind of number 20 in the box office that year,

Scott:

making around seven and a half million dollars, but it was, it.

Scott:

The Godfather came out that year.

Scott:

The Poseidon adventure.

Scott:

Oh, that's good.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

There's some other movies that folks would recognize on here.

Scott:

This one right here, I'm actually not going to say on film because

Scott:

that is not an appropriate movie, but it's very famous.

Scott:

But

Jenn:

I think that Cowboys is one of those movies that maybe didn't do well when

Jenn:

it first came out, but has since really grown in the love of John Wayne fans.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

I, I would agree with that.

Scott:

So for me, this was actually my number five, so this was number seven for you.

Scott:

This was number five for me.

Scott:

So this was in the, in the top five for me because I really enjoyed the

Scott:

watching these young boys having their first growing up and really seeing that.

Scott:

So that to me, I just really touched me.

Scott:

It's a lot of fun.

Scott:

So number six on your list, which I was surprised this was number six,

True Grit:

Says Life Magazine.

True Grit:

True Grit is good enough for me.

True Grit:

It's good enough for you.

True Grit:

And if it isn't good enough for some movie company, then the free enterprise

True Grit:

system is really going to hell.

True Grit:

Move along!

True Grit:

They tell me you're a man with true grit.

True Grit:

What do you want?

True Grit:

Speak up.

True Grit:

Says the New York Times.

True Grit:

As touching as it is irreverently amusing.

True Grit:

Marshall Rooster Cogburn and I are going after the murderer, Tom Chaney.

True Grit:

How did you light on that greasy vagabond?

True Grit:

And now, Paramount Pictures presents The Hal Wallis Production True Grit

True Grit:

Starring John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn The most colorful character he's

True Grit:

ever played If I smelled as bad as you, I wouldn't live near people.

True Grit:

Kim Darby as Matty Ross Hey!

True Grit:

Get out of here!

True Grit:

My God!

True Grit:

She reminds me of me.

True Grit:

Glenn Campbell, in his first big screen role.

True Grit:

A little earlier I gave some thought to stealing a kiss from you.

True Grit:

Although you are very young.

True Grit:

And you're unattractive to boot.

True Grit:

But now I'm of a mind to give you five or six good licks with my belt.

Scott:

was True Grit.

Scott:

Now if you have watched our channel before, you may be watching this because

Scott:

you watched our True Grit review comparing the 1969 version to the 2010 version.

Scott:

If you haven't seen True

Jenn:

Grit Yeah, stop watching right now and go watch it because

Jenn:

There's so much we cover in that.

Jenn:

There's,

Scott:

there's a lot we, we cover in that.

Scott:

And it's a very, one of our more popular videos.

Scott:

So True Grit came out in 1969 and it's about a hired hand, Tom Chaney,

Scott:

who murders the father of 14 year old Maddie Ross played by Kim Darby.

Scott:

She seeks vengeance and hires U.

Scott:

S.

Scott:

Marshal Rooster Cogburn, John Wayne, a man of quote unquote, true grit to

Scott:

track Chaney into Indian territory as to begin their pursuit to Texas Ranger.

Scott:

who goes by the played by Glenn Campbell, joins the manhunt in hopes of capturing

Scott:

Cheney for the murder of a Texas senator and collecting a substantial reward.

Scott:

The three clash on their quest of bringing justice to the same man.

Scott:

So this, this one was pretty fun.

Scott:

Now tell me why it was number six.

Scott:

on your list.

Jenn:

Well, I love true grit, but it just doesn't hit the other five for me.

Jenn:

Yeah, we're getting

Scott:

we're getting into like the ultra classics here.

Jenn:

There's like I tell people like there are movie moments

Jenn:

that get ingrained on your brain.

Jenn:

And for me true grit will always be John Wayne is Rooster Cogburn, on the

Jenn:

horse, swinging the Winchester with one hand as he cocks it and fires.

True Grit:

Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!

Jenn:

puts the reins in his mouth.

Jenn:

He has a revolver in one hand, a rifle in the other.

Jenn:

I will say Jeff Bridges only has two revolvers and then

Jenn:

he swings like to do that.

Jenn:

I was trying to practice that the other day in Bass Pro Shop.

Jenn:

Oh, really?

Jenn:

Yeah, to swing a rifle and cock it as you swing it like you've got to be

Jenn:

pretty strong and have good awareness of where you're where the rifle is.

Jenn:

On a horse with reins in your mouth and one eye like to me, that's true grit.

Jenn:

Like that

Scott:

was definitely this, this movie was definitely much higher on my list.

Scott:

And one of the, we actually learned quite a bit from all of our viewers of

Scott:

our true grit video, lots of stuff in the comments about, you know, reading

Scott:

the book and this, that, and the other.

Scott:

So again, another book.

Scott:

That came out, he made the movie very quickly

Jenn:

thereafter.

Jenn:

Bought the rights, so the novel came out in 1968.

Jenn:

And Wayne liked it so much he bought the movie rights right away.

Jenn:

And then he went about filling the roles.

Jenn:

And remember we talked about trying to get Elvis Presley.

Jenn:

And then him and his daughter actually approached Glen Campbell.

Jenn:

We make the mistake.

Jenn:

of not knowing who Glenn Campbell was in the original comparison.

Jenn:

In our first video.

Jenn:

Oh, we heard it, you guys.

Jenn:

And you know what, Sensei?

Jenn:

We have listened to Glenn Campbell.

Jenn:

We've listened to Glenn Campbell.

Jenn:

We like Glenn Campbell.

Scott:

I actually recognize in, in our audience, if you're watching

Scott:

this, you may, may laugh at this and understand my, my age.

Scott:

I knew one of his songs from being on one of the soundtracks of one of

Scott:

the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

Scott:

So that's how I, that's how I knew some, some of his, but, you know, apparently

Scott:

he was a, Very, very well known.

Scott:

Very good

Jenn:

musician.

Jenn:

He reminds me a lot of like Johnny Cash.

Jenn:

He's telling like stories.

Jenn:

He's doing like country stories He does Wichita linemen, which I really like

Jenn:

but he plays that part and again All three of them are showing true grit

Jenn:

You know the girl the beef and Mr.

Jenn:

Cogburn all showing true grit.

Jenn:

This is John Wayne's Oscar.

Jenn:

So this is the movie.

Jenn:

John Wayne is going to win an Oscar for he's going to receive

Jenn:

it from Barbra Streisand.

Jenn:

He's going to whisper in her ear beginners luck, which I think is the cutest thing.

Jenn:

And then he gets a tear in his eyes.

Jenn:

He accepts it like it to me.

Jenn:

This is just a really great part for John Wayne to play.

Jenn:

He is.

Jenn:

acting in this.

Jenn:

It's a little more of a comical kind

Scott:

of.

Scott:

Yeah, he has, he has more of a comedic take to the part.

Scott:

Comedic

Jenn:

take.

Jenn:

And then, but he has some really great scenes with Matty talking

Jenn:

about his life before he becomes a U.

Jenn:

S.

Jenn:

Marshal.

Jenn:

This is supposed to be based in the 1880s, Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Jenn:

They're going to be going into American Indian territory.

Jenn:

LaBeef is a Texas Ranger and Robert Duvall plays Ned Pepper and you got

Jenn:

Dennis Hopper again who plays one of the bad guys running with Ned

Jenn:

Pepper, Dennis Duvall's Bad guys.

Jenn:

Yeah,

Scott:

so one, one interesting fact that I actually noticed at the

Scott:

very end of the movie, you, in the 1969 version, you finally get to

Scott:

see and hear from Lawyer Daggett.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

Because Maddie Ross is talking about Laurel Daggett all, all throughout.

Scott:

She's kind of threatening, she's kind of, you know, the horse trader.

True Grit:

I'll take it up with my attorney.

True Grit:

I will take it up with mine, Lawyer Daggett.

True Grit:

And he will make money, and I will make money, and your lawyer will make money.

True Grit:

And you, Mr.

True Grit:

licensed auctioneer, you will foot the bill.

True Grit:

You are a damn nuisance.

Jenn:

Strother Martin is the horse trader who he's in a couple

Jenn:

of other movies too, right?

Jenn:

People

Scott:

love him.

Scott:

And so lawyer Daggett at the very end of the movie was actually the

Scott:

voice of piglet from Winnie the Pooh.

Scott:

And he was the train conductor.

Scott:

in the movie, The White Christmas, one of my all time favorite movies and

Scott:

probably my favorite Christmas movie.

Jenn:

Well, and I have people who will argue with me about this,

Jenn:

but I am 100 percent correct.

Jenn:

John Wayne does the jump at the end of that movie and the stunt man will

Jenn:

say that John Wayne does it again.

Jenn:

John Wayne trying to prove to his fans that he still has it.

Jenn:

I want you to know that it wasn't as high as it looks in

Jenn:

the movie, but it, he does do it.

Jenn:

For

Scott:

me, again, this was your number six.

Scott:

Yes.

Scott:

For me, this was my number four.

Scott:

Oh, you really liked it.

Scott:

I really, really enjoyed true grit.

Scott:

Just the, the characters interacting and the dialogue

Jenn:

is great.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

And I love the names.

Jenn:

Rooster Cogburn, like how can you beat that name?

Jenn:

And then, just the way he looks.

Jenn:

If you look at the movie poster for True Grit, just how gruff and gritty he looks.

Jenn:

I don't know, if I was going after somebody.

Jenn:

I think I'd want Rooster Cogburn with me

Scott:

as well.

Scott:

And he, he was probably the right man for the job.

Scott:

Alright, so moving on from there is your number five.

Scott:

--! ...... Rio Bravo: be another like Rio Bravo, with its thundering story of raw

Scott:

courage against overwhelming odds, and its once in a lifetime combination

Scott:

of today's hottest star names.

Scott:

You've seen nothing like them together, and here at Rio Bravo,

Scott:

nothing can tear them apart.

Scott:

Where are you going?

Scott:

Get your hands off me.

Scott:

I said, where are you going?

Scott:

You got no use for a man you can't depend on.

Scott:

One bad night and I'm done for.

Scott:

So Rio Bravo, so Rio Bravo for you is number five.

Scott:

For me it's number eight.

Scott:

Oh, Scotty.

Scott:

Yeah, this is I did not enjoy this one nearly as

Jenn:

much as I did And you know, it's so funny about that is so many people

Jenn:

compare you to Ricky Nelson I hear it you walk up to people like you look like

Jenn:

Ricky Nelson and you even know who that is and you're like I know who that is

Jenn:

because people tell me all the time.

Jenn:

I

Scott:

so throughout my life.

Scott:

I've had just random strangers, you know cashiers You know, and people who

Scott:

would know who Ricky Nelson is say, like, you look just like Ricky Nelson.

Scott:

And as a kid, I figured out who that was really fast because people kept saying it

Jenn:

to me.

Jenn:

So this is number five for me for a lot of reasons.

Jenn:

One, it's directed by Howard Hawks, who's considered one of the

Jenn:

greatest directors of all time.

Jenn:

Quentin Tarantino is very influenced by

Scott:

Howard Hawks.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

And I think Quentin Tarantino thinks this is like one of the best movies.

Scott:

Yes.

Jenn:

It has a full long opening dialogue, opening sequence of

Jenn:

the movie with no dialogue.

Jenn:

And that to me is, is artistic.

Scott:

So, so I, so I actually, that's one of the big notes that I, things

Scott:

that I noted right along with kind of, you know, if, if you're not familiar

Scott:

with the movie, you know, definitely go look kind of in our show notes.

Scott:

But this movie came out in 1959.

Scott:

And.

Scott:

Basically, there's a gunslinger, Joe Burdett, played by Claude

Scott:

Atkins, who kills a man in a saloon.

Scott:

And the sheriff, who's played by John Wayne, arrests him with the aid of

Scott:

the town drunk, played by Dean Martin.

Scott:

Alright, so there's Dean Martin again.

Scott:

This is their first movie together.

Scott:

This is their first time.

Scott:

And before long, Burdett's brother, who's played by John Russell, comes

Scott:

around, indicating he's prepared to get his brother out of jail if necessary.

Scott:

And it kind of goes on from there.

Scott:

So again, I enjoyed.

Scott:

Dean Martin in his role and seeing Ricky Nelson just kind of made

Scott:

me, made me laugh because people have told me that I look like him.

Scott:

Well, they're

Jenn:

capitalizing on, on Ricky Nelson's, I think, popularity at the time, right?

Jenn:

This is 1959.

Jenn:

This is like, Ozzie and Harriet is like, hitting it big.

Jenn:

Ricky Nelson is also putting out a lot of hits, right?

Jenn:

So him and Dean Martin actually sing together in this.

Jenn:

So John Wayne is the sheriff of the town.

Jenn:

He's arresting this brother of this big rancher.

Jenn:

And this rancher is kind of a bad guy and he has a full posse.

Jenn:

And so he knows to arrest this brother and to keep him in jail is

Jenn:

going to be difficult because his brother is going to come after him.

Jenn:

And so he He has kind of like an elderly deputy that works with him.

Jenn:

He has this drunk old deputy who's trying to get sober.

Jenn:

So he asks for the help of this young gunslinger who's Ricky Nelson.

Jenn:

And so it's really like the hodgepodge group of the four

Jenn:

of them who stand off this.

Jenn:

gang coming to get this brother.

Jenn:

And so that's the whole kind of premise of the movie.

Jenn:

And what I appreciate about Howard Hawks is he has like this called Huck

Jenn:

Huck say it Huck saying women, where he makes these strong, tough women.

Jenn:

So Angie Dickinson, in this movie, she almost makes me blush.

Jenn:

Like she's very forward with John Wayne, and she's very like demanding

Jenn:

and she's wearing like these cute little bits and stuff and I was like, Whoa.

Jenn:

Now, Angie Dickinson is also a big actress at the time, but how would Hawks like to

Jenn:

give women these strong, powerful roles?

Jenn:

And and even to the point, like In the credits it says story created by B.

Jenn:

H.

Jenn:

McCampbell and that is Howard Hawks's daughter.

Jenn:

Oh, interesting.

Jenn:

McCampbell is her married name and it's because she comes up

Jenn:

with the idea to use dynamite in the last sequence of the movie.

Scott:

Yeah, there was some things I can see, like the notes that I took, I can

Scott:

see why this was higher on your list, why it's a favorite of someone like

Scott:

Quentin Tarantino, because some of the things that you already noted, right?

Scott:

No dialogue in that opening scene.

Scott:

That is a very artistic, very specific choice, and it was incredibly

Scott:

noticeable, hard to pull off, right?

Scott:

And from a filmmaking perspective I felt, I wrote down that I felt like

Scott:

music played a very specific role.

Scott:

Whenever certain music started, there was like some, some, like this ominous Mexican

Scott:

song, or it was very clear that music played a very, like it was almost its own

Scott:

character, you know, kind of leading you into that, which is normal of a movie, but

Scott:

it was much more noticeable here in this

Jenn:

Well, and it's based on a short story That was written as well.

Jenn:

But what's this song that Dean Martin sings in it something my pony and me

Jenn:

my yeah I'm not I don't but he sings out with Ricky Nelson and he sings

Jenn:

and John Wayne gets to like watch and smile Yeah, cuz it's kind of like here

Jenn:

are these two big stars at the time singing together In 2014, actually, the

Jenn:

Library of Congress deemed this movie culturally and historically significant.

Jenn:

Really?

Jenn:

Yep.

Jenn:

That's interesting.

Jenn:

So it's, it's saved now in the archives.

Scott:

Everybody's kind of got their own taste, but this, for me specifically, this

Scott:

was number eight on my list, even though it was number five on yours, as far as the

Scott:

box office goes, this, it did decently.

Scott:

You know, actually I think true grit was one of his most

Scott:

successful box office movies.

Scott:

This one, this came out again in 1959, kind of came in at number 13, about

Scott:

five and a half, almost 6 million other movies that year, Ben, Hur.

Scott:

Some like it hot.

Scott:

So some pretty, pretty big movies.

Scott:

It was going up, going up

Jenn:

against.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

And so that song was my rifle, my pony and me.

Jenn:

Okay.

Jenn:

And they also sing a brief version of get along Cindy, but there's kind of

Jenn:

a debate around this movie that it was made in response to high noon, which.

Jenn:

was sometimes thought to be an allegory for blacklisting in

Jenn:

Hollywood as well as McCarthyism.

Jenn:

So Wayne used to always call High Noon Un American.

Jenn:

Oh, interesting.

Jenn:

And if you know, that's Gary Cooper meeting in the town square.

Jenn:

And so this was kind of like his response to that movie.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Scott:

Interesting.

Scott:

It was, it was good, but not, not high on my list, but I can see

Scott:

why it was high, high on others.

Scott:

So your number four,

Scott:

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: That's my steak Valance You heard him, dude.

Scott:

Pick it up.

Scott:

No.

Scott:

Pilgrim, hold it.

Scott:

I said you, Valance.

Scott:

You pick it up.

Scott:

Three against one, Donovan.

Scott:

and you have already mentioned it, I think, briefly before, is

Scott:

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Scott:

I love this movie.

Scott:

Now, if you don't know this movie this came out in 1962 as a Western film

Scott:

starring John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart.

Scott:

So this movie's about a senator who returns to a small town in the Old West

Scott:

to attend the funeral of an old friend.

Scott:

He begins to recount the story of his arrival in the town when he was

Scott:

a young lawyer who stood up to a notorious outlaw named Liberty Valance.

Scott:

The movie explores the themes of law and order, justice,

Scott:

and the power of myth making.

Scott:

The film is considered a classic of the Western genre and is known

Scott:

for its memorable lines such as,

Scott:

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: This is the West, sir.

Scott:

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

Scott:

When the legend becomes fact.

Scott:

Print the legend.

Scott:

So for you, this is number four.

Scott:

For me, this is number six.

Scott:

I enjoyed this.

Scott:

Didn't enjoy it quite as much as the Cowboys.

Scott:

The Cowboys kind of edged this one out for me, but this was, this is a great one.

Scott:

I

Jenn:

love this movie because of what it means.

Jenn:

in the bigger picture.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

That the West is settled, that even law is settled.

Jenn:

Disputes are settled with a mixture of both old versus new,

Jenn:

that you need to have a toughness.

Jenn:

You need to have grit.

Jenn:

You need to be physical and mental, that you do have to be smart.

Jenn:

But there are some times when It's being smart is not enough.

Jenn:

Sometimes, you know, got to know when to fight.

Jenn:

And I appreciated that so much because John Wayne's character recognizes

Jenn:

that he recognizes that in Jimmy Stewart, that that is what's going

Jenn:

to really progress the state forward.

Jenn:

But someone needs to stop liberty balance.

Jenn:

Again,

Scott:

it's that theme of John Wayne's character.

Scott:

Not not welcoming in the new but recognizing the new and

Scott:

that it's kind of inevitable.

Scott:

Yeah, right and that change Can be for the better Even though his characters

Scott:

typically fall on the the old side of of getting things done, right?

Scott:

Yeah John Wayne always winning the fight and always doing

Jenn:

all that stuff and I like that he's teamed up with Jimmy

Jenn:

Stewart here That they're kind of at these two sides of the coin.

Jenn:

It's shot in black and white.

Jenn:

It's done by John Ford, who I love.

Jenn:

We're going to do a couple more John Fords after this.

Jenn:

It's done in black and white to really show this grittiness and this kind

Jenn:

of old, the, the mythic old west.

Jenn:

And it also helps that the fact that John Wayne's 54 and Jimmy

Jenn:

Stewart's 53 when they felt so it makes them look a little younger.

Jenn:

in it.

Jenn:

And so the black and white is helping with that.

Jenn:

But I always say, Lee Marvin really holds his own as a bad guy in this.

Jenn:

And we, we visit Lee Marvin's grave in Arlington.

Jenn:

Lee Marvin was always proud to be a Marine.

Jenn:

There's very few people who can hold their own against John Wayne as a bad

Scott:

guy.

Scott:

And he's, he's amazing, right?

Scott:

That, that scene.

Scott:

Where it's the three of them right in, in the restaurant bar.

Scott:

That

Jenn:

is my favorite line.

Jenn:

When he, John Wayne fills the screen, turns towards him and says,

Jenn:

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: That's my steak Valance

Jenn:

I've never seen John Wayne look more John Wayne like, and that's, I think when,

Jenn:

Lee Marvin's character is like, Oh, crap.

Jenn:

That's his like, that's his stake that I and and then he

Jenn:

tells someone else to pick it up.

Jenn:

And John Wayne says, you pick it up balance.

Jenn:

And that's when Jimmy Stewart even knows this is it, something's going to happen.

Jenn:

So Jimmy Stewart tries to stop the whole thing.

Jenn:

But that to me, was John Wayne being so John Wayne and I love

Jenn:

that line I also love when he tells him the story at the end

Jenn:

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: Valance couldn't make you run away.

Jenn:

What is it now, Pilgrim?

Jenn:

Your conscience?

Jenn:

Isn't it enough to kill a man without without trying to build a life on it?

Jenn:

You talk too much.

Jenn:

Think too much.

Jenn:

Besides, you didn't kill Liberty Valance.

Jenn:

What?

Jenn:

Think back, Pilgrim.

Jenn:

Like you didn't shoot him, right and then you

Scott:

know, and he didn't even realize it till then he didn't realize

Jenn:

his character because Liberty Valance has shot, you know, Jimmy

Jenn:

Stewart's character twice and in the wrist and he really like what is he going

Jenn:

to do and now he says right between the eyes like, you know, he's going to kill

Jenn:

him and then he just gets shot and at the same time that Jimmy Stewart fires a

Jenn:

gun and this is where this whole legend becomes and in the West, this legend

Jenn:

drives so much of people to follow into statehood to elect him to become a

Jenn:

senator to represent them that even at the end of the movie, he says anything

Jenn:

for the man who shot Liberty Valance.

Jenn:

Remember?

Jenn:

And so it's like, no matter who he is politically, he

Jenn:

will always be that legend.

Jenn:

And that holds more weight with the people than your office.

Scott:

Yeah, this, this was definitely a good movie and having those three

Scott:

actors, those three actors were just, were kind of, it's that movie magic.

Scott:

It really was.

Scott:

One of the things, the little notes that I wrote down, the town marshal, who's like,

Scott:

plays this coward, keeps running away.

Scott:

He's also the voice of Friar Tuck in the original Disney cartoon Robin Hood.

Scott:

I've got For some reason, I've got an ear for those voices.

Scott:

If I hear a voice, I can be like, okay, I know where that voice

Scott:

from my childhood comes from.

Scott:

So, so I noticed that and I just thought that was kind of a fun little fact.

Scott:

In the box office, it did pretty decently.

Scott:

15, number 15 that year, about 8 million.

Scott:

Some other movies that were competing against that year is Lawrence of Arabia.

Scott:

That's a pretty well known movie.

Scott:

That's a pretty well known movie.

Scott:

The Longest Day.

Scott:

The Music Man.

Scott:

One of my favorites.

Scott:

To Kill a Mockingbird.

Scott:

So there's some pretty big movies that, that came out that year.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

Its budget was only 3.

Jenn:

2 million.

Jenn:

And Vera Miles, who plays the love interest in this, we'll, we'll

Jenn:

revisit her in another movie.

Jenn:

But she's kind of known for this as well.

Jenn:

And then.

Jenn:

So, Strother Martin is also in this again.

Jenn:

He's the lawyer from True Grit, or he's the horse salesman from True Grit.

Jenn:

He's in

Scott:

this again.

Scott:

And you see this with modern day films too.

Scott:

You know, you get directors, you get big name actors, and they

Scott:

tend to hire the same actors because they work well together.

Scott:

And so I noticed that all throughout these films, like the sheriff in

Scott:

one was the priest in another.

Scott:

Yes.

Scott:

So you, I noticed that pretty often.

Scott:

Yes.

Scott:

Yes.

Jenn:

Yes.

Jenn:

And this movie in 2007.

Jenn:

It was put on the National Registry by the Library of Congress as culturally,

Jenn:

historically, and aesthetically

Scott:

significant.

Scott:

Oh, wow.

Scott:

Well, there you go.

Scott:

So we'll move on from the man who shot Liberty Valance, the Western

Scott:

legend, to your number three.

Scott:

McClintock!: Are you longing to see a movie with good, clean fun?

Scott:

Does a tender story of family devotion get you right here?

Scott:

If you're my father, if you love me, you'll shoot him.

Scott:

Well?

Scott:

I'm your father, and I sure love ya.

Scott:

So Oh!

Scott:

Oh, you shot him!

Scott:

like a story of inspiring restraint and self control?

Scott:

Now, we'll all calm down.

Scott:

Boss, he's just a little excited.

Scott:

I know, I know.

Scott:

I'm gonna use good judgment.

Scott:

I haven't lost my temper in 40 years.

Scott:

But Pilgrim, you caused a lot of trouble this morning.

Scott:

Might have got somebody killed.

Scott:

And somebody ought to belt you in the mouth.

Scott:

But I won't.

Scott:

I won't.

Scott:

The hell I won't!

Scott:

Your number one.

Scott:

This is my number one.

Scott:

And you'll, you'll, you'll start understanding why.

Scott:

My top three are where they are.

Scott:

And this is McClintock.

Scott:

McClintock.

Scott:

I love McClintock.

Scott:

So, so McClintock came out in 1963.

Scott:

It's a film about a wealthy rancher, G.

Scott:

W.

Scott:

McClintock.

Scott:

He juggles personal and professional chaos.

Scott:

His strange wife, Catherine, who's.

Scott:

Played by Maureen O'Hara, one of our favorites, returns seeking

Scott:

their daughter's custody.

Scott:

Tensions rise with corrupt officials and land grabbers and

Scott:

Comanche tribes demanding justice.

Scott:

As McClintock navigates these conflicts, he rediscovers love, faces

Scott:

past mistakes, and uses his influence to maintain peace in this frontier

Scott:

town, all with a healthy dose of humor and trademark John Wayne charm.

Jenn:

So this is an off John Wayne because it's so much

Scott:

comedy.

Scott:

Yes.

Scott:

And that's honestly, that's why it kind of rose up to number one for me.

Jenn:

And John Wayne is pretty good with comedy.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

He does well.

Jenn:

I love this movie.

Jenn:

It reminds me a lot of my father.

Jenn:

So the dynamic of him and his daughter, it reminds me with me and my dad.

Jenn:

John Wayne's character is George Washington McClintock, GW.

Jenn:

And of course me and O'Hara, he's estranged from her.

Jenn:

But Stephanie Powers plays his daughter, Becky.

Jenn:

And then his real life son.

Jenn:

Patrick Wayne plays like a homesteader son, Devlin, and there's a couple

Jenn:

of like themes through this.

Jenn:

One of them is spanking.

Jenn:

Absolutely.

Jenn:

So Becky gets upset with something that Devlin has said to her and tells

Jenn:

her dad to shoot him and she tells her dad, if you love me, you'll shoot him.

Jenn:

So he doesn't even know John Wayne's character what happened, but he says,

Jenn:

well, I love you and you're my daughter.

Jenn:

So he shoots him with a blank.

Jenn:

She's like, you really shot him.

Jenn:

I can't believe you did that.

Jenn:

So Devlin gets upset and spanks her for, for acting that way.

Jenn:

And so you're kind of going to see this with Marina O'Hara is she's kind of

Jenn:

been upset with John Wayne's character.

Jenn:

George W.

Jenn:

McClintock for the way he's acted for these past two years, and he will spank

Jenn:

her for the way she has acted towards him.

Jenn:

That's a big scene at the end of the movie.

Jenn:

Big scene.

Jenn:

And it's kind of, all of this is kind of based on the taming of the shrew.

Jenn:

Oh, okay.

Jenn:

So that's kind of where you're getting this.

Jenn:

Yeah,

Scott:

I definitely wrote down in my notes, right?

Scott:

It starts with a lighter tone.

Scott:

One of the things that I noticed very early on, very early on,

Scott:

they kept referring to the hats that he throws on the roof.

Scott:

Yeah, he does on the weathervane.

Scott:

And the indication of his mood.

Scott:

And I wrote down that they, you don't really.

Scott:

get an example of kind of what that really means.

Scott:

But I just, I, I noted that.

Scott:

Yeah, it's

Jenn:

like if he's coming in and he swings his hat and it hits the weather

Jenn:

vane on the top of the house, he's going to have a good, have a good day.

Jenn:

Good day.

Jenn:

But how What kind of arm strength would you need to throw

Scott:

a hat?

Scott:

I think he said it was like, however many

Jenn:

Stetsons, like on the top of a weathervane of a house.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Scott:

And there was, there was just some, some great one liners throughout

Scott:

this movie that I fully enjoyed.

Scott:

One of them I wrote down was Maureen O'Hara, who kind of plays that,

Scott:

that conflicted wife, very well.

Scott:

Somebody asked John Wayne that.

Scott:

He's they said what does this word mean that kind of came up a couple

Scott:

times and one of them she had called somebody on Unprepossessing.

Scott:

Yeah, unprepossessing.

Scott:

I said, what does unprepossessing mean?

Scott:

John Wayne says, I looked that up in a dictionary once.

Scott:

It's best you don't know it.

Scott:

And then a guy just says, yes, sir.

Scott:

And he just keeps walking on.

Scott:

So it, I think the comedy in this was just so good that that's why

Scott:

it was, it was my number one.

Scott:

Well, and

Jenn:

it has a lot of good messages in it.

Jenn:

And that's what John Wayne really wanted.

Jenn:

He, he said, I don't give jobs.

Jenn:

I hire men.

Jenn:

Yeah, and he also really wanted to positively represent the American Indian.

Jenn:

And that was something important to him to do in this movie as well.

Jenn:

One of the things in this movie that people will talk about, though,

Jenn:

is is red face in this movie.

Jenn:

So there are white people who are playing American Indians and they're

Jenn:

painting their faces red for the camera.

Jenn:

It has something that has to be addressed because it does happen in this movie.

Jenn:

The big scene.

Jenn:

is when they all slide down into the mud pit.

Jenn:

And that is a famous line.

Jenn:

It's like, you know, you made me almost lose my temper today, you know, and

Jenn:

I haven't lost my temper in 40 years.

Jenn:

And he goes, and someone should belch in the face.

Jenn:

I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, and the hell I won't.

Jenn:

And he punches him in the face.

Jenn:

And so then everyone's like sliding down.

Jenn:

But that's another famous line from this.

Scott:

One of the things that, one of the last things that I kind of jotted

Scott:

down that I really enjoyed, partly because I have a daughter, was the

Scott:

father daughter scene by the river.

Scott:

It was just so touching, and I really so appreciated that in this kind of

Scott:

comedic movie, to show that he wasn't there just to kind of give his wife a

Scott:

hard time, or he wasn't doing things just to kind of be antagonistic towards

Scott:

Maureen O'Hara, but he really was trying to like, Help, help his daughter, right?

Scott:

And truly help her grow and really give her some real life advice.

Scott:

And I wrote that down because to me that that scene was so impactful.

Scott:

Yes.

Scott:

For this movie.

Scott:

It was I wouldn't call it out of place in the movie.

Scott:

I would say it was just the right amount of kind of Kind of character

Jenn:

building.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

No, it really was a good representation of family And like and you know,

Jenn:

patrick wayne is really in it.

Jenn:

So it's another one of the movies where John, wayne has his

Jenn:

real son in the movie with him.

Jenn:

You also see the Housekeeper is from the Munsters.

Jenn:

She's the, the wife on the Munsters.

Jenn:

Her husband had just been injured in How the West was Won.

Jenn:

So John Wayne made sure to hire her for this movie.

Jenn:

So they had some money.

Jenn:

Oh, that's cool.

Jenn:

So he always was doing stuff like that.

Jenn:

And I appreciate that

Scott:

about John Wayne.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

No, it was, it's a very, very fun movie.

Scott:

All right.

Scott:

So we're on to our number two here.

Scott:

And our number two, we actually tied, this is number two for both of us,

Scott:

The Quiet Man: It's the story of Sean Thornton, a right intended

Scott:

man who came from America to forget his past in Innisfree.

Scott:

There he met a fiery red headed lass, and the village marriage broker went to work.

Scott:

Have the good manners not to hit the man until he's your husband,

Scott:

and until he'll hit you back.

Scott:

Then her bully of a brother, Red Will Danaher, refused

Scott:

to pay her rightful dowry.

Scott:

There'll be no locks or bolts between us, Mary Kate.

Scott:

Except those in your own mercenary little heart.

Scott:

and that is The Quiet Man.

Scott:

Such a great movie.

Scott:

So The Quiet Man comes out in, came out in 1952.

Scott:

This is one of those few movies I've probably watched.

Scott:

a dozen times at least.

Scott:

We've, we've watched it quite a few times over the years.

Scott:

So it's about a retired American boxer, Sean Thornton, returning

Scott:

to his Irish homeland, seeking, seeking peace in his family's farm.

Scott:

He falls for the fiery Mary Kate.

Scott:

Played again by Maureen O'Hara, but her brother Will despises Sean

Scott:

and withholds her dowry, refusing to acknowledge their marriage.

Scott:

Driven by tradition and pride, Mary Kate refuses to consummate the marriage

Scott:

until Sean retrieves the money.

Scott:

Despite his vow to avoid fighting, Sean must navigate comical brawls, clashes

Scott:

with Will, and cultural misunderstandings to win Mary Kate's heart and find

Scott:

peace in the land that he calls home.

Scott:

This is One of my absolute favorites.

Scott:

We

Jenn:

usually watch this every St.

Jenn:

Patrick's Day because it is so Irish and filmed in Ireland.

Jenn:

And we have actually been there.

Jenn:

And this is

Scott:

one of the earliest movies.

Scott:

Is this the earliest movie that I think we have on the list?

Scott:

Yeah,

Jenn:

1952.

Jenn:

John Wayne's 45 in this.

Jenn:

So he looks really good.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

He looks young.

Jenn:

He's young.

Jenn:

Young buck.

Jenn:

And so we've been to Kong.

Jenn:

We went in 2006.

Jenn:

We stayed in Ashford Castle.

Jenn:

That's where everybody stayed while filming John Ford,

Jenn:

John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara.

Jenn:

Marina Harris just had a baby John Wayne's family was there, Ward

Jenn:

Bond is in this, Ward Bond is in a couple movies with John Wayne.

Jenn:

He's also plays the cop in It's a Wonderful Life.

Jenn:

So everyone's kind of staying in this castle and then filming in this

Jenn:

little Irish town, Kong, Ireland.

Jenn:

It's a family affair.

Jenn:

John Wayne's kids are in this movie.

Jenn:

The old man who gets out of the bed and watches the fight.

Jenn:

That's John Ford's brother.

Jenn:

Oh, I didn't know that.

Scott:

Oh, well, Maureen O'Hara, the old man who's like, yeah, that's

Jenn:

John Ford's older brother.

Jenn:

There's two Marueen O'Hara's brothers are in this as well.

Jenn:

So it's a real family

Scott:

feeling.

Scott:

Well, and I even again, the top two movies for me on this list are kind of

Scott:

More have a more comedic tone to them, but from the very beginning right?

Scott:

I wrote down the line You see that road over there?

Scott:

Yes Don't take that.

Scott:

That's starting right off in the beginning of the movie, you know, with

Scott:

them trying to give him directions from the train station to the town.

Scott:

It starts right off.

Scott:

It was just, it's classic.

Scott:

And again, it's John

Jenn:

Ford.

Jenn:

It's John Ford.

Jenn:

And he won best director for this movie.

Jenn:

Oh, I didn't know that.

Jenn:

Yes.

Jenn:

It also won best cinematography.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

So when the Oscar for both and it's based on a 1933 Saturday

Jenn:

evening post short story.

Jenn:

From an Irish author and it tells this story of someone who has, was

Jenn:

born in Ireland, came to America.

Jenn:

He's from Pittsburgh, which I also love, and then he's coming back to

Jenn:

his family roots to buy his home and to settle back to where he was born.

Jenn:

And like you said, there's a lot of cultural differences and the big one is

Jenn:

the dowry and Maureen O'Hara is really.

Jenn:

Her character, Mary Kate Danaher, is really tied to this dowry.

Jenn:

It means a lot to her.

Jenn:

She is proud of it.

Jenn:

She's proud to bring that into her marriage.

Jenn:

And he doesn't care about it.

Jenn:

He doesn't need it.

Jenn:

And because the brother is holding it back, thinking that's going to

Jenn:

be the big thing and he doesn't care she feels insecure and she

Jenn:

feels kind of like she shouldn't.

Jenn:

be in this marriage.

Jenn:

And that's, that's what he tries to learn.

Jenn:

If it's important to her, it's important to him.

Jenn:

And there's some things in here where he's dragging her through the field.

Jenn:

He really did drag her in real life.

Jenn:

I also want to say he really did spank her in McClintock.

Jenn:

She said she was black and blue.

Jenn:

I'm like, he should, she said he pulled no punches.

Jenn:

And so he really is dragging her through like, The sheep poop, and in the end,

Jenn:

the very last line, when she whispers something in his ear and he looks at her,

Jenn:

to this day, no one knows what she said.

Jenn:

She took it to her grave.

Jenn:

Oh, wow.

Jenn:

No one knows.

Jenn:

John Ford said, say something to him that's going to

Jenn:

make him like, look at you.

Jenn:

And no one knows.

Jenn:

What she said, but her and John,

Scott:

that's crazy.

Scott:

So, so there's a couple of things that I noted down, right?

Scott:

There's that classic first kiss scene when they're in the house, when it's

Scott:

still kind of a little more rundown with the wind blowing and the, and the

Scott:

door kind of blows up with the wind and kind of cleaned it up for him.

Scott:

She's kind of cleaned it up for him.

Scott:

Like it's, and I think it's actually kind of what they based one of

Scott:

those, the movie posters off of.

Scott:

It's just this ultra classic scene.

Scott:

Like.

Scott:

That is, that is a classic Hollywood big movie star first kind of kiss scene.

Scott:

I just noted that because cinematically and, and just for the movie and just

Scott:

Hollywood in general, that's one of those scenes that you kind of see in your

Scott:

head when you're thinking of, you know, the leading characters, you know, first

Scott:

connecting you know, and then obviously all the cultural differences, like

Scott:

the whole town watching when they're, they're having their first date, the

Jenn:

matchmaker having to be with them, right?

Jenn:

They're not allowed.

Jenn:

No patty fingers, please.

Jenn:

Not allowed to touch each other.

Scott:

Yeah, but this is, this is one of those ones.

Scott:

It actually did pretty well the year that it came out.

Scott:

So, and, and as far as kind of box office, you know, and again, this is

Scott:

1952, so it's actually really hard.

Scott:

It's getting harder.

Scott:

They didn't have as much data.

Scott:

For, for this, the website, I tried to use one single website when I was pulling

Scott:

all this, this box office information from the seventies on, it's pretty

Scott:

good when you start getting back in the fifties and sixties, a little bit tougher.

Scott:

But according to, to the website that I was using this came

Scott:

in at number four that year.

Scott:

So seven and a half million dollars, but that's 1952 other shows that came

Scott:

out was the greatest show on earth.

Scott:

That was number one.

Scott:

We have the script.

Scott:

We have a little family tie here.

Scott:

The snows of Kilimanjaro high noon.

Scott:

Ah, we just talked about that.

Scott:

High Noon came out in 1952.

Scott:

And this one actually beat out Singing in the Rain.

Scott:

So that's very interesting.

Scott:

And Snow White and the Seven

Jenn:

Dwarfs.

Jenn:

I mean, it's a beautiful movie.

Jenn:

It's gorgeous.

Jenn:

Even when we stayed in Ashford Castle, they play it.

Jenn:

Like you can, you can play it on demand nonstop.

Jenn:

And when you walk around Cong, Ireland, you're walking through

Jenn:

the scenes of the movie.

Jenn:

You're walking by

Scott:

the church.

Scott:

We went to those bars and we went down cause they had, they had kind

Scott:

of redone a lot of the stuff down

Jenn:

there.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

We walked by the cottage.

Jenn:

We walked by the pub where they go in and have their break while

Jenn:

they're fighting and drink a.

Jenn:

drink a pint of beer.

Jenn:

We walk by the church where he meets Mary Kate outside of the church.

Jenn:

It's right by Ashford Castle, and it still looks just as

Jenn:

picturesque and just as beautiful.

Jenn:

Maureen O'Hara is just the epitome of Irish

Scott:

beauty in this.

Scott:

Well, and she's even speaking she speaks in the Irish, yeah, in the Gaelic, in

Scott:

Gaelic, and I don't know what she says.

Scott:

If you know what she says in Gaelic, please put that in the comments.

Scott:

Yeah, and she

Jenn:

talks to Ward Bond.

Jenn:

So there is a big religion component here because he's catholic and the

Jenn:

protestant pastor is in town and no one's going to the protestant

Jenn:

services right so they don't know if they want to keep them but they're

Scott:

trying to help them out

Jenn:

and so that was really cool too so you're getting a lot of this

Jenn:

irish influence it's a little bit of the irish state they have a couple of

Jenn:

toasts to being a free republic and there's a couple of little nuances

Jenn:

about the Irish state and the political climate of Ireland at the time.

Jenn:

But other than that, it really is just a old school Irish story with

Jenn:

an American coming in and figuring it

Scott:

out, fantastic characters.

Scott:

And I don't know, I can't remember the character's name, the one who's kind of.

Scott:

the chaperone of the town drunk or whatever like that, but he's hilarious.

Jenn:

It really is a great movie to watch with St.

Jenn:

Patrick's Day.

Jenn:

So

Scott:

that, that was my, my very close.

Scott:

And honestly, for me, it was a, that practically tied at number

Scott:

one and number two for between McClintock and the Quiet Man for me.

Scott:

So you like comedy?

Scott:

Yeah, I do.

Scott:

Those, those kind of tend to rise to my favorites.

Scott:

Now for your number one,

The Searchers:

Welcome home, Ethan.

The Searchers:

When'd you get back?

The Searchers:

I ain't seen you since the surrender.

The Searchers:

Don't believe in surrenders.

The Searchers:

Figure a man's only good for one oath at a time.

The Searchers:

I took mine to the Confederate States of America.

The Searchers:

Don't call me uncle.

The Searchers:

I ain't your uncle.

The Searchers:

Yes, sir.

The Searchers:

No need to call me sir, either.

The Searchers:

What do you want me to call you?

The Searchers:

Name's Ethan.

Scott:

and we are going to do a whole separate video.

Scott:

about this movie specifically.

Scott:

So if you want to hear us kind of go more in depth on more of the history,

Scott:

we're going to talk a lot more about the history on a separate video about Jen's

Scott:

number one, and that is the searchers.

Scott:

It

Jenn:

is the best Western of all time.

Jenn:

In my opinion, it is John Wayne's.

Jenn:

Best movie of all time, in my opinion.

Scott:

Yeah, and for me this came in at number three on this list.

Scott:

But again, you kind of saw that I favor the comedies a little bit more.

Scott:

But it was, it was number three and it's very close to the other two because

Scott:

This was, you know, in my intro I talked about a genre defining movie.

Scott:

Mm-Hmm.

Scott:

. This is one of those movies.

Scott:

Yeah.

Jenn:

I mean, this is 1956.

Jenn:

John Wayne is 49 years old, but it is to me his best acting, and it is the true

Jenn:

arc of a character who's going through.

Jenn:

A huge change and that it is John Ford again as director and that is

Jenn:

the story John Ford loved to tell.

Jenn:

Another thing about this movie is cinema, cinemagraphically it's filmed

Jenn:

in Monument Valley, Utah, and it's just

Scott:

beautiful.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

So it's funny because I hadn't seen this movie really until, you know, I don't

Scott:

know, it's like maybe four months ago, six months ago that I, that I'd seen it.

Scott:

But I, I was a climber.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

And I've grown up in my 20s and 30s and I had watched, you know, just

Scott:

like, you know, if you've ever heard of people watching surfing movies,

Scott:

they have climbing movies out there.

Scott:

And I was in kind of the early era of that.

Scott:

And I had seen.

Scott:

Monument Valley, where there was lots of climbing out there.

Scott:

So I've wanted to go there for other reasons for quite some time.

Scott:

We almost made a trip out there about

Jenn:

six months ago.

Jenn:

We're going to do it.

Jenn:

The walk with history.

Jenn:

We'll do a searchers video.

Jenn:

Yeah, we'll,

Scott:

we'll, we'll get out there.

Scott:

But this movie came out in 1956 and as many of, if you're watching.

Scott:

this video and you got this far, then you probably know The Searchers.

Scott:

It's about Ethan Edwards, a Civil War veteran scarred by both battle and

Scott:

personal loss, returns home to find his brother's family massacred by

Scott:

Comanche and his niece Debbie abducted.

Scott:

Driven by vengeance and prejudice, Ethan embarks on a years long

Scott:

quest to find Debbie, blurring the lines between rescue and revenge.

Scott:

His journey forces him to confront the darkness within himself, grapple

Scott:

with changing landscapes and values, and ultimately choose between hatred

Scott:

and a fragile hope for redemption.

Scott:

So some of the things I wrote down, obviously you mentioned the

Scott:

cinematic, the cinematography.

Scott:

It's, it's, it's another level, right?

Scott:

That's a bar that's been set so high.

Scott:

There's, there's lots of films that try to, to reach that bar.

Scott:

That's what John Ford and John Wayne did.

Scott:

Yes.

Scott:

In this, in this movie.

Scott:

You know, he, he plays not a typical John Wayne

Jenn:

character.

Jenn:

That's why I think his acting is the best in this.

Jenn:

He is, I think, the quintessential anti hero.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

Now, in the book, his name is Amos.

Jenn:

It's Ethan Edwards in the movie, he names his, in real

Jenn:

life, he'll name his son Ethan.

Jenn:

And that's what we talked about in Big Jake.

Jenn:

But Ethan Edwards character is a confederate.

Jenn:

And this is supposed to be 1868.

Jenn:

So it's three years after the end of the Civil War, and they

Jenn:

haven't seen him in eight years.

Jenn:

So he gets back to his family, but you can tell how much he is beloved by his family.

Jenn:

Everyone's walking in with open arms.

Jenn:

He gives a medal to Debbie.

Jenn:

His his sister in law takes care of his jacket for him.

Jenn:

Like he is a beloved member and you can tell him and his brother

Jenn:

have a very strong connection.

Jenn:

So when he's away, the Comanche have basically stolen cattle, killed cattle

Jenn:

far enough away so they can raid the homestead, Ethan's brother's homestead,

Jenn:

and they can't get back to them in time.

Jenn:

When he's away and he finally makes it back and he's the first one to

Jenn:

encounter this, the book is much more graphic about what he's encountering.

Jenn:

And so then they're burying the family.

Jenn:

And then it's this revenge.

Jenn:

This, this to get Debbie back.

Jenn:

It's, and it's Lucy and Debbie at first, and then Lucy will die.

Jenn:

And so it's really Debbie and what it takes for him to search.

Jenn:

And I know people come sometimes think this movie is boring because

Jenn:

it's just like, Oh, well, and that's the point is that he doesn't stop.

Jenn:

He just keeps going.

Jenn:

He keeps going.

Jenn:

It's not easy.

Jenn:

He doesn't find her right away.

Jenn:

He loses the trail.

Jenn:

And he gets right back on it.

Jenn:

He takes any clue he can get and he keeps going.

Jenn:

He doesn't stop.

Jenn:

He's relentless in his search.

Jenn:

And so it's like.

Jenn:

You love him and you hate him because he is very racist and he's supposed

Jenn:

to be this is the one thing I get mad about Turner classic movies who Really

Jenn:

don't want to culturally touch this movie because of the racism, but he's

Jenn:

supposed to be that's the point of the movie It's the point of the movie

Jenn:

is he is a terrible racist person he is so mad at what has happened to his

Jenn:

family that he's stereotyping them and Making them a group of people to hate

Jenn:

them so he can keep motivation and

Scott:

so much so that Spoiler alert so much so that by the end of the movie.

Scott:

I mean he almost doesn't bring he wants to kill Debbie

Jenn:

So he's encountering real life situations.

Jenn:

I mean this novel written by Alan LeMay was based on real life.

Jenn:

He had, he had searched like 25 different cases.

Jenn:

The biggest one was a man named Britton Johnson, who was an African American

Jenn:

teamster who ransomed his captured wife and children from the Comanches in 1865.

Jenn:

Then he went back out to search for a girl, Millie Duncan who He never

Jenn:

found cause he was killed in 1871, but there was 25 cases of young girls

Jenn:

being abducted by the Comanches.

Jenn:

Now this is a time in Texas.

Jenn:

This is supposed to be Texas filmed in Utah.

Jenn:

It's supposed to be Texas.

Jenn:

It's called the Texas Comanche Wars.

Jenn:

Sometimes you'll hear the Texas Native American wars.

Jenn:

They happened between 1820 and 1875 and this was really wars.

Jenn:

Think of Mexico, Texas, the U S on one side.

Jenn:

And then the Comanche tribe on another side.

Jenn:

And it really was fight over the land.

Jenn:

And I want to stress, people were massacring each other.

Jenn:

It wasn't just the Comanche massacring homesteads.

Jenn:

It was both.

Jenn:

You'll see depictions in the searchers of the Calvary soldiers

Jenn:

massacring whole Indian villages.

Jenn:

And so that was, that was this back and forth that was happening at this time.

Jenn:

It's not made, John Ford made a point, it's not made to make anybody look good.

Jenn:

It's not made to make anyone look bad.

Jenn:

It's made to look like the truth of what

Scott:

happened.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

And I think that's, you know, when I was doing my little bit of research, and

Scott:

again, we've done a lot more research that we'll do in a separate video here,

Scott:

but that was one of the things that a lot of even the critics and even today

Scott:

people will call out that how close it is when the movie is to the book and

Scott:

the book is right based on historical

Jenn:

research.

Jenn:

Yes, but you're going to get like big characters.

Jenn:

Word bond is in this again.

Jenn:

Vera Miles, the same love interest in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Jenn:

will play the love interest to Jeffrey Hunter's character, who is a.

Jenn:

Fourth or an eighth Comanche, but he's the one who searches with John Wayne Yeah

Jenn:

And so the premise is there were these three families who homesteaded in Texas

Jenn:

and one of them was John Wayne's brother's family One family was massacred years

Jenn:

ago and their only son survived And that was the family the son that they took in

Jenn:

and that's the one who searches with John Wayne He thinks of Debbie as his sister.

Jenn:

He tries to call him uncle Ethan You think it's mad.

Jenn:

I'm not your uncle, but he's been raised by this family because

Jenn:

their family was massacred.

Jenn:

And then the other family, which is Vera Miles's family, who's who they eventually

Jenn:

bring Debbie back to is the third family.

Jenn:

So it's basically these three families who tried to homestead together.

Jenn:

Basically only one makes it.

Jenn:

And you see the arc where the Calvary have.

Jenn:

basically massacred an Indian village and taken back some of the white women

Jenn:

who were kidnapped, but have been Integrated into the Comanche way of life.

Jenn:

You see Ethan encounter these women and they're very much now

Jenn:

Brainwashed into being a Comanche squaw

Scott:

Yeah What one thing that I noted down was the scene where Debbie

Scott:

is the one to show them the scalps?

Scott:

Yeah, the first time I see I, I, I like, I, I literally put in my

Scott:

notes, I put OMG, like the scene where she shows him the scalps.

Scott:

I was like, oh, I, I was so.

Scott:

Caught off

Jenn:

guard.

Jenn:

So they look at her.

Jenn:

Yeah, so it's been about six years.

Jenn:

She's kidnapped at age.

Jenn:

She's about 14 now She's a wife of the chief scar scar is wearing the medal that

Jenn:

Ethan gave Debbie gave to her It's Ethan's

Scott:

metal.

Scott:

Yeah the tension.

Scott:

Yeah, so,

Jenn:

you know, Ethan knows so now Ethan Wants to know how much is

Jenn:

Debbie still left in there, right?

Jenn:

and so that's where you see him get more and more aggressive and just bitter and

Jenn:

Scar is also the actor is in red face.

Jenn:

So it's a white actor Australian actor who's pretending to be American Indian.

Jenn:

So that is something that Turner Classic Movies hits on as well.

Jenn:

But again, something that happened at the time.

Jenn:

Now you're going to see a lot of American Indian actors.

Jenn:

I saw the same actors from McClintock who are actually in

Scott:

this as well.

Scott:

I noted that, right?

Scott:

The, I think the sheriff or something like that or what the marshal,

Scott:

he played, he was the priest.

Scott:

Oh yeah, Ward

Jenn:

Bond is in it again too, but I, some of the American Indians who are in

Jenn:

McClintock are also the American Indians.

Jenn:

Yep.

Jenn:

I

Scott:

noted that across a couple of movies.

Scott:

As far as the box office went, it, this one did okay.

Scott:

So in the box office, it said it did about four and a half million

Scott:

dollars, which would have tied it for around number 13, number 12 that year.

Scott:

Yeah.

Scott:

Other movies that came out that year, the 10 commandments, pretty big movie around

Scott:

the world in 80 days, the king and I.

Scott:

Those are some of the big ones, Moby Dick,

Jenn:

well, this movie, in 1989, it was picked to be culturally

Jenn:

significant by the Library of Congress.

Jenn:

This movie is also a huge influence, there's some amazing directors,

Jenn:

Scorsese says this movie is It just inspired him to be a director.

Jenn:

Yeah.

Jenn:

Spielberg will say this movie, it has inspired him so much in the

Jenn:

scenes and what he likes to do.

Jenn:

Like, it's so much of this movie has influenced culture.

Jenn:

Ethan Edwards likes to say, That'll be the day.

Jenn:

When somebody like challenges him, he says, That'll be the day.

Jenn:

Buddy Holly wrote a whole song about that one line.

Jenn:

Oh, yeah, that's right.

Jenn:

So this movie was such an influence culturally at the

Jenn:

time for a lot of people.

Jenn:

But for me, it's that final scene.

Jenn:

So you got Natalie Wood, young actress at the time, her sister plays her at eight.

Jenn:

She plays herself at 14.

Jenn:

And you think he's chasing her at the very end of the movie.

Jenn:

This is an exhausting movie.

Jenn:

It's two hours long.

Jenn:

You're like, finally, he gets her.

Jenn:

Is he going to kill her?

Jenn:

because he's pretty much said he's going to, he gets her, he grabs her

Jenn:

and he says, let's go home, Debbie.

Jenn:

And in that moment, she wants to go home.

Jenn:

She, it's her again.

Jenn:

And to me, it's the perfect arc of a character.

Jenn:

And that to me is.

Jenn:

John Dwayne's greatest performance.

Jenn:

You see him that that's the climax.

Jenn:

He'll bring her back to the other family.

Jenn:

And then he slowly walks away very lonely and

Scott:

isolated.

Scott:

Even that final scene again for, for movie makers cinematically

Scott:

is incredibly iconic, right?

Scott:

Him being framed by that doorway as he walks away and the rest of the family goes

Scott:

into the house and he's standing there in this very vulnerable, very vulnerable

Scott:

pose and turns around and walks away.

Scott:

I mean, that is.

Scott:

That is an incredibly iconic shot right there.

Scott:

So quintessential Western quintessential Western.

Scott:

This is again, genre defining movie.

Jenn:

And that is my favorite John Wayne movie.

Scott:

So we want to hear if you guys agree with our list.

Scott:

And I'll put the, I'll put our top, our top 10 and I'll compare them.

Scott:

I'll put them up on the screen.

Scott:

So you guys can see what Jen's top 10 are in my version of Jen's

Scott:

top 10 for, for me specifically.

Scott:

So I want to hear from you guys.

Scott:

If you made it this far in the video, please let us know what you're, if you

Scott:

agree with us, if you disagree with us and what's your favorite John Wayne movie is.

Scott:

Well, partners, we've wrangled our way through the top ten John Wayne

Scott:

movies and hopefully sparked some lively discussions along the way.

Scott:

Remember, this list is just our take and the beauty of film is its subjectivity.

Scott:

So head out there, watch these classics or rediscover them.

Scott:

And form your own opinions.

Scott:

Share your thoughts with us in the comments and who knows, maybe we'll have

Scott:

another western showdown in the future.

Scott:

And a huge thank you to all of you who joined us on this cinematic adventure

Scott:

through some of the John Wayne classic and a huge thank you to all of you

Scott:

who joined us on this cinematic adventure through some John Wayne

Scott:

classics We'll talk to you next time.

Scott:

Thank

Jenn:

you.

Jenn:

I love John Wayne

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Talk With History
A Historian and Navy Veteran talk about traveling to historic locations

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About your hosts

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Scott B

Host of the Talk With History podcast, Producer over at Walk with History on YouTube, Editor of HistoryNewsletter.com
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Jennifer B

Former Naval Aviator turned Historian and a loyal Penn Stater. (WE ARE!) I earned my Masters in American History and graduate certificate in Museum Studies, from the University of Memphis.

The Talk with History podcast gives Scott and me a chance to go deeper into the details of our Walk with History YouTube videos and gives you a behind-the-scenes look at our history-inspired adventures.

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