John Wayne's finest film??

[bergie]

After reading a review on TV Guide.com, I started wondering what do the "real experts" say Wayne's best film are? The review is on "Rio Bravo" and to be honest without the article I wouldn't have sat down and watched it again...what a great film. If anyone has forgotten about "RB" spend the 2 minutes and read the review.

[Ricky Retardo]

I vote The Cowboys 'cause "The Puke" got shot in the back by my personal hero Bruce Dern. F! the John Wayne/Ronald Reagan/George W Bush state of mind!!!!

[bergie]

didn't mean to ruffle you up so much....just a question...I'm not a Wayne fan personally but I can appriciate his films, I geuss that was what I was on about with the question

[Ricky Retardo]

I always hated John Wayne because I always felt he represented a small minded, "kill th' injuns" type of mentality. AND my personal favorite JW flick IS in fact The Cowboys. But mainly I was just being a smart-ass and referencing an old song by a band called MDC. If I actually had to pick an "artful" movie he made, I'd probably go with The Searchers. But I don't like John Wayne.

[Furious D]

John Wayne's best movies were almost always done with either John Ford or Howard Hawkes.

Now Ford's THE SEARCHERS was already mentioned, so was Hawkes's RIO BRAVO. But what about RED RIVER (Hawkes) where he plays a nasty martinet on a cattle drive, or FORT APACHE (Ford) where he's the one trying to prevent a war with indians that's being pushed for by a glory hungry officer played by Henry Fonda. There's also THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALLANCE (Ford) with Jimmy Stewart & an early appearance by Lee Marvin as Vallance. A neat dissection of the West as a place of legends instead of truth.

Sadly John Wayne was also saddled with dozens of real crapfests because of his contract to RKO and Republic Studios during the first half of his career.