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John Wayne: Roles
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The archetypal western hero that John Wayne evoked was a loner, hardhearted, decisive, quick to act, inflexible but righteous. His characters might not always be "right" but they were always heroic and larger than life. The mantle of western hero was shed for a series of war films Wayne made during the U.S. involvement in World War II during the 40s, and in between the westerns and the war films, there were some other roles in different genres, but by the end of the decade of the 40s. Wayne's "cowboy", epitomized by Tom Dunson in Howard Hawk's "Red River" in 1948, became an iconic figure for most of the country.
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John Wayne repeats his "True Grit" role as the feisty marshal. Here he meets his match: a bible-thumping missionary, portrayed by the great Katharine Hepburn. 108 min. Widescreen; Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital mono, Spanish Dolby Digital mono, French Dolby Digital mono; Subtitles: Spanish; biographies; theatrical trailer.
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Eventually the line between his [John Wayne's] personal views and his screen image blurred beyond recognition. His active membership in organizations like the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals allowed him to use his celebrity to further causes he deemed worthy. In the 1950s, Wayne joined Walt Disney, Clark Gable, and other entertainers to assist U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee in exposing Communists working in the film industry. He began hand-picking roles and financing the production of certain films, like the heavy-handed Big Jim McLain (1952), which made overt anti-Communist statements. These "message films" would often cost him, both personally and professionally; Wayne lost a small fortune on the Vietnam War film The Green Berets (1968), allowing an errant sense of patriotism to oversimplify the story of soldiers conducting covert military actions in Southeast Asia. As television images exposed the horrors of battle to Americans, the films romantic portrait of "gung-ho" optimism was often cited as an example of how completely out of touch Wayne and many of his conservative contemporaries were with the complexities of the conflict.
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Wayne is at his most turbulent in these roles, where his strength is ... his weakness. He shows flashes of this pathology in Tycoon (1947), a kind of dress rehearsal for Dunson also written by Borden Chase; as Captain Ralls in The Wake of the Red Witch (1948); as Sgt. Stryker in Sands of Iwo Jima. It was as if the older he got, the more double-edged his heroes became. Their values were too rigid to live by; too rigid to live with.
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Darryl F. Zanuck was quoted in an interview as saying that he didn't think much of actors forming their own production companies, citing John 'Wayne's THE ALAMO (1960) project as a failure of such ventures. Wayne found out about this interview before being approached by Zanuck, and refused to accept to be in this movie unless he was paid $250,000 for his role (when the other famous actors were being paid $25,000 for the same movie). Wayne got his requested salary for THE LONGEST DAY (1962).
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One of Wayne's most popular roles was in The High and the Mighty (1954), directed by William Wellman and based on a novel by Ernest K. Gann. His portrayal of a heroic airman won widespread acclaim.
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