1970 - CHISUM, an average if entertaining western film.

Towards the end of John Wayne's film career the "Duke" was basically keeping the traditional western genre film alive by himself after it had died out.  Chisum will never go down as one of the great western films but it entertains in it's weird old fashioned way.  John Wayne was at the icon phase of his long film career and there's no arguing that he had his "John Wayne" character down.

Chisum is set during the Lincoln County War which was an actual range war that was fought over land in New Mexico.  The film does feature a number of iconic characters that were involved.  Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Henry Tunsell, Lawrence Murphy and Wayne playing prominent rancher and land owner John Chisum.  As with all these "based on a true story" films the details and actual facts tend to get a little fuzzy. But when did a movie let facts get in the way.  I doubt John Chisum was the straight shooting  patriotic tough guy that Wayne portrayed him as.

 

The film was directed by Andrew V. McLaglen a charter member of this blog.  As I've said before McLaglen had been an assistant director for John Ford, Budd Boetticher and William Wellman so he was definitely familiar with working in the western film genre.  When he moved over to directing,  McLaglen while competent never seemed to have that special touch that a Ford or a Wellman could bring to a  film.  Chisum is fairly typical of his non style. McLaglen gets the job done even if there isn't a whole lot of artistry that he brings to a film.

As with any late period John Wayne film .  It’s loaded up with a lot of his old cronies.  Bruce Cabot, Forrest Tucker, Ben Johnson, Glen Corbett, John Agar and Hank Worden to name a few. These actors would frequently turn up in his 60's and 70's films.  A lot of them were drinking buddies of his.  It's rather comforting to know that these over the hill actors were still getting work thanks to the Duke.

Chisum is what you could call comfort food in movie watching.  There is nothing special about this story or the way it's told but it goes through the motions with it's  familiar fist fights, gun fights and cattle stampedes all of which are strangely entertaining in an odd mellow way. 

The film was written by Andrew J. Fenady, the running time is 111 minutes.

1986 - ON WINGS OF EAGLES, clunky retelling of a true story

The supposed true story of businessman Ross Perot and his efforts to free some of his executives detained in Iran just as the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power.  Perot was the president of EDS (Electronic Data Systems) which had a contract with Iran to set up data processing systems.  Two of his executives were detained by the Iranian government in a contract dispute with EDS. 

Burt Lancaster plays the ex military officer, Bull Simmons who Perot hires to lead a team of company executives who travel to Iran to plan an escape.  Simmons was a legendary special forces operative who knew Perot.  The miniseries revolves around the efforts of Perot and Simmons to escape from Iran and travel cross country into Turkey and safety.

 

The miniseries was filmed in Mexico and also features Richard Crenna hilariously miscast as Ross Perot and the usual bunch of TV actors that rotated from one series to another.  Andrew V McLaglen directed and for him the film has a little more pace and verve then usual.  Lancaster was 73 years old and was definitely in the the twilight of his career.  Television was kind of a last stop for aging Hollywood superstar actors.

 

Ken Folliet the author of the book and Sam Rolfe adapted the book into a screenplay and the story seems a little clunky and frankly kind of unbelievable.  The miniseries runs 241 minutes.

1980- THE SEA WOLVES, old time World War 2 film

 This throwback to a war film was already dated when it came out in 1980 to put it mildly.

The film has the usual disclaimer that it is based on a true story.  A quick search of the internet confirms it.  The film is sort of a Guns of Navarone except with old guys.  The Sea Wolves even has one of the stars of Navarone in the person of Gregory Peck.

The plot is about a bunch of retired army officers recruited to destroy a German ship providing information to a Nazi submarine for the purpose of sinking British cargo ships during World War 2.  I really don't have to rehash the plot because anyone who has seen a war movie or two knows how this thing is going to go

 

 The amazing cast is like a who's who of old British stars.  David Niven, Trevor Howard, Patrick Macnee and Roger Moore, probably the youngest guy in the group and he wasn't exactly a spring chicken when they made this.  In addition there is a whole bunch of British character actors in minor parts whose names I don't know, but trust me I have seen in a lot of British films through the years.  

 

The film was directed by amiable hack Andrew V. McLaglen whose style will never be confused with that of Francois Truffaut.  Another old timer Reginald Rose wrote the screenplay.  

With all that said, the film is actually kind of enjoyable in a tired sort of way.  Roger Moore plays his part like he's in a James Bond movie.  Gregory Peck struggles with his accent and David Niven plays the gentlemanly British character he made a career out of.

120 minutes.

1968 - BANDOLERO, a mighty lame western

Mediocrity reigns supreme in this stupid western.  First, lets consider the cast.  Dean Martin and James Stewart are outlaws brothers.  That throws most of your credibility out the window to begin with.  Since this film was made at 20th Century Fox, the studios contract sex symbol who never could act Raquel Welch is cast as the female lead.  Finish off the fun with everyone's favorite character actor George Kennedy who at least is trying to give a credible performance.

The script is by one of John Wayne's favorite hack writers, James Lee Barrett who had credits on The Green Berets, Something Big and the Cheyenne Social Club.  The director is the poor man's John Ford, Andrew McLaglen.  For a guy who was an assistant director to John Ford and William Wellman he sure didn't absorb much in the way of directing films competently from those gentlemen.

Raquel Welch is used about the way you would expect she would be used, as a tease.  Her love story with Dean Martin is completely ridiculous and never even remotely believable.  Martin and Stewart fallback on their charm and movie star charisma but even that is in short supply.

McLaglen directs the shootouts and action scenes in such a pedestrian manner, he manages to squeeze all of the excitement out of them.  The whole movie is forgettable.

106 minutes.

1969 - THE UNDEFEATED, the western heads into the sunset...again

Everyone says that The Wild Bunch and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance signaled the end of the  western has a film genre.  However John Wayne pretty much kept this genre going in a series of rather mediocre westerns. 

The Undefeated is based on an actual historic event.  After the Civil War, a Confederate General led a group of ex soldiers down to South America to reestablish a Confederate State.  In this film Rock Hudson plays a confederate Colonel leading a group of southerners to Mexico who meets up with John Wayne's former Union Colonel. 

As with a lot of his late career films, Wayne at times seems to be sleepwalking through the story.  At other times he seems completely disengaged from what is actually going on.  Rock Hudson was always a light talent sort of like a light beer.  Not a lot of substance as an actor.  However Hudson at least attempts a southern accent and does bring a little conviction to his role.  Also in the cast are a couple of John Ford regulars, Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr..  These guys had been kicking around the film business since the 1940's.  Apparently macho actor Wayne got along very well with closeted gay actor Hudson.

The Undefeated was directed by Andrew McLaglen.  McLaglen had been an assistant director under John Ford, but he certainly didn't have Ford's flair with composition or even handling actors.  It's well known Wayne liked to boss him around on set.  Wayne pretty much directed himself towards the end of his career.  McLaglen is actually a big favorite of this blog, he was a working director.

This film is at best a time killer with enough humor, action and old fashioned star power to keep it interesting.

119 minutes, written by James Lee Barrett.

1979 - NORTH SEA HIJACK or FFOLKES or ASSAULT FORCE

North Sea Hijack or whatever it's called is a real old school film.  The director Andrew V, McLaglen was an old TV director who ended up being John Wayne's go to guy towards the end of his film career.  Roger Moore, James Mason and Anthony Perkins were products of the old studio system and the whole production had a distinctly old fashioned feeling to it.

The film is actually kind of entertaining.   Anthony Perkins is the head of a gang attempting to extort money from the British government by threatening to blow up a couple of their North Sea oil platforms.  Roger Moore is the leader of a group of commandos assigned to stop them. 

Roger Moore is playing against his usual suave leading man type i.e. James Bond.  He's supposed to be an eccentric misogynist who only loves cats however Roger really doesn't have the acting chops to make that kind of character likable much less credible.

 

Andrew McLaglen shoots the film like every other film he's worked on, straightforward and with no imagination.  He barely gets the job done but he does get it done.

100 minutes, written by Jack Davis.

1967 - THE WAY WEST, crummy epic Western.

The same year as, Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, The Dirty Dozen and You Only Live Twice were released came this completely out of it western,  The Way West.  The director was Andrew McLaglen the very low rent John Ford wanna be.  The film had three sort of past their prime stars, Kirk Douglas, Richard Widmark and an either inebriated or just didn't care Robert Mitchum.   The female leads were Lola Albright a kind of sexy lady who isn't very sexy in this film and Sally Field playing some kind of western teenage slutty version of "Gidget".

The story is about a wagon train on the hazardous journey from Missouri to Oregon.  The wagon train has a number of typical wagon train adventures.  Indians mess with them because they want some "firewater" a pretty offensive stereotype. There is a crossing the river sequence which seems to be a standard troupe in this kind of film and the usual baby being born on the journey bit.  In fact I think it's safe to say the whole film is just a bunch of rehashed situations from previous wagon train films and TV shows.

If the film has anything going for it at all it's the spectacular cinematography of William H. Clothier who had worked with John Ford and McLaglen.  The western vistas of the wagon train are impressive but in a film like this how many western vistas can you watch after a while especially with all the nonsense going on in the story.

It would be easy to call this film "old fashioned" entertainment but I've seen silent film westerns that are more contemporary than The Way West.

122 minutes, screenplay by Ben Maddow and Mitch Lindemann.

1963 - MCLINTOCK! John Wayne's comedy western

John Wayne's western remake of The Taming of the Shrew has lots of broad comedy, slapstick, speechifying about American values and some really sexist stuff.

McLintock! is the kind of film that audiences preferred John Wayne in, light weight entertainments with out all the heavy handed jingoist patriotism that the Duke could inflict on his audiences at times.  Wayne sometimes had trouble figuring that out but McLintock! is a painless time killer.

The film is a who's who of early 60's actors with people like Maureen O'Hara, Yvonne de Carlo, Stefanie Powers,  Jack Kruschen,  Chill Wills,  Jerry Van Dyke,  Edgar Buchanan,  Bruce Cabot,  Perry Lopez,  Michael Pate,  Strother Martin,  Leo Gordon,  Hank Worden and Bob Steele.  All these actors showed up in film after film during the 1960's.

McClintock! is an odd film in some ways.  For a film from the conservative Wayne, it has an interesting liberal viewpoint about the exploitation of the native American.  The film also has yet another slapstick mud fight similar to the one in North to Alaska.  In fact the whole idea of John Wayne in a comedy is odd to begin with.

A film where men are men and women better do what they're told and like it damnit!

127 overlong minutes, written by one of Wayne's cronies,  James Edward Grant.

1978 - THE WILD GEESE is the Dirty Dozen with old guys

Patronized by film critics as an old fashioned film at the time it came out,  (I remember Siskel and Ebert really sticking it to this film).  The Wild Geese is a decent entertaining action adventure film about mercenaries in South Africa.  There was a lot of criticism about the cast being too old, but the critics missed the point, the mercenaries were supposed to be an over the hill gang of soldiers fighting for a paycheck.

 

The Wild Geese has two of the British cinema's greatest functional alcoholics, Richard Burton and Richard Harris in the cast.  It also has Roger Moore who as usual struggles to show a little acting ability.

 

Directed by film making hack Andrew V McLaglen who had an amazing career working with John Ford as an assistant director on The Quiet Man among other films.  McLaglen's  creative high point was directing something like over 200 episodes of the very good Have Gun Will Travel TV series.

McLaglen was John Wayne's director of choice late in his career mostly because the Duke could push him around while they were filming.  Still, McLaglen did have an amazing working career as a director and certainly knew a thing about working with temperamental actors.

The real creative force behind The Wild Geese, was the producer Euan Lloyd.  Lloyd found the story developed it and took a chance on Burton and Harris who were uninsurable.  Lloyd was able to keep them sober throughout the shooting of the picture which was impressive accomplishment. 

Richard Burton looks old and puffy throughout the picture, but he is a commanding presence throughout the film and after all he is supposed to be playing a drunk.  Richard Harris the idealist of the group comes off pretty well and he's sober.  Roger Moore looks well groomed as usual.  

The Wild Geese isn't a completely empty action film, it actually raises some interesting ideas about the politics of Africa and the exploitation of the African people by greedy white industrialists.   The film has good action sequences and decent performances, it gets the job done.

Written by Reginald Rose, the running time is 134 minutes.

1968 - HELLFIGHTERS, Crappy John Wayne Production

Looking over the list of late career movies with John Wayne, this is probably one of the worst. As Wayne got older and westerns were declining, he would occasionally look for more contemporary subjects to appear in. This worthless movie about firefighters putting out spectacular oil rig fires probably seemed like a good one at first, but the screenplay was just terrible. The story is a mix of fire sequences followed by some lame soap opera stuff about Wayne's domestic life. The audience endures  lots and lots of "honey don't go and put out that oil well fire tonight, I'm worried you might get hurt" scenes. This stuff is just murder to sit through. It looks like Wayne was trying to make a Howard Hawk's type of film with action and drama mixed together.

 

  

 

Frankly, even the fire fighting highlights are boring after a while, if you've seen one oil rig go up in flames you've seen them all. The settings don't help, the film is supposed to be about Wayne's team flying all over the world putting out fires, but every scene was clearly shot at Universal Studios.

By this point in his career Wayne should have been able to tell a good script from a bad script, but he has only himself to blame, the film was made by his production company. This film is the one that Katherine Ross made after The Graduate and it's certainly a contrast between the old Hollywood and New Hollywood film making styles.

  

Probably the only interesting thing about the film is the appearance of Bruce Cabot, Wayne's boozing buddy. Apparently a hard living kind of guy, Cabot was the star of the original King Kong with Fay Wray. His final film appearance was in the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever.

Wayne's next film was True Grit.

Written by Clair Huffaker, the running time is 121 minutes.