1971 - BIG JAKE, John Wayne Movie Pro

64 year old John Wayne has to do all the work in this western.   Bad guys have kidnapped Duke's grandson. Duke's got to get him back. Along with his estranged sons and his trusty Indian sidekick they take off after the bad guys. 

Will Duke succeed?   Get real.

Criticized at the time of release for having a lot of excessive violence in it. This was kind of surprising for a John Wayne movie. The final shootout actually had a Friday the 13th type of unstoppable killer chasing the little kid around. The film did not do particularly well with audiences.

Big Jake was the last appearance of Maureen O'Hara with Wayne, they had only one small scene together which was another disappointment. This movie has run on cable TV so many times that it seems better than it actually is. By this point in his career Wayne was pretty much going through the motions, but he was a pretty strong presence even in a mediocre film like this.

This is probably the type of movie that people think of when they think "John Wayne movie" but he really made better films than this.