The Complete Filmography of John Wayne

One of John Wayne's very few "singing cowboy" pictures. Seriously, out of nowhere, he just bursts into song! And the truly hilarious part is that it's not even Duke singing! It's some other guy singing while Duke moves his lips to the words and pretends to play the guitar! And you know what a distinctive, recognizable voice John Wayne has, right? Well, let's just say that the result is about as convincing as James Earl Jones lip syncing to Clay Aiken!

Duke gives a particularly impressive dramatic performance in this early film of his. People don't often give Duke his due for being much more than just a big, tough action hero. The fact is that he was always a much better actor than most people gave him credit for being.

John Wayne's first war movie, and also one of his best.

A rare glimpse at the normally heroic John Wayne as a less than scrupulous character, although he does make good in the end.

Well-made, but kind of dull.

Unquestionably the Duke's greatest non-western.

Nothing but a propaganda film promoting the agenda of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the time of McCarthyism. Now, I'm about as pro-America and anti-communist as a person can get, but even I found this film to be laughable, cheesy, and extremely heavy-handed with its political message, portraying communism as something like satanism (communism is bad, but it's not quite THAT bad), and casting the HUAC (often bad for America in its own way) in a downright heroic light.

Of course, having said all that, it's not fair to condemn this film without taking fully into account the time in which it was made. At the time of this movie's release, the Korean War was raging, America had lost its nuclear supremacy, Russia and China were being assholes, and all kinds of organizations within America itself (the ACLU, for instance) were hoping to see the White House painted red someday soon. All that doesn't change the fact that "Big Jim McLain" is a terrible movie, but it does help to put it into perspective somewhat.

Compelling, but relentlessly cheesy by today's standards.

I love John Wayne, but this movie is a hopeless clunker. Very dull and very cheesy. The only thing that saves it from a dreaded half-star rating is the presence of the Duke.

This is undoubtedly one of John Wayne's greatest films. Action, pathos, and emotion all run high. The only thing preventing me from giving it a full five-star rating is the ending. The abrupt, whiplash-inducing changes of heart experienced by the characters played by John Wayne and Natalie Wood are without basis, and seem downright contrived. After vowing bitterly to put Wood down like a sick dog, the hard-hearted Wayne...doesn't. And after Wood declares to the heroes that she has settled into a niche as a fully converted member of the Indian tribe, she is eager to leave with the heroes upon her very next meeting with them. While all of this makes for a happier ending, I have the distinct feeling that we, the viewers, were cheated out of a much more complex and pathos-laden resolution.

I'm a huge John Wayne fan, but I'm afraid this movie is kind of a clunker. It's waaaaay too long (nearly three and a half hours), with much of the movie focusing on things that have nothing to do with the Battle of the Alamo. The three-hour build-up to the actual battle is just too much, and when the battle finally arrives, there's no satisfaction in it, as you're forced to watch all the film's heroes (including the immortal John Wayne) get massacred by the Mexicans.

A good movie, but definitely a product of an earlier time. I doubt that today's audiences would be able to sympathize with a group of hunters capturing animals in Africa with the intent of putting them in zoos.

A very amusing comedy western. The climactic scene, in which John Wayne chases a nearly naked Maureen O'Hara through the streets and ends up spanking her, is a bit uncomfortable to watch by today's standards, but it's all in good fun. After all, there's no malice in it.

The finest retelling of Jesus' story ever committed to film. Max Von Sydow turns in an excellent performance as Jesus Christ.

In the company of films like "The Searchers" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", "El Dorado" tends to be overlooked, but it shouldn't be. It doesn't have quite the scope of Duke's more famous westerns, but it's damn good all the same. Duke is at his shootin', drawlin' best, and is supported by an outstanding cast that includes Robert Mitchum, James Caan, and a sexy Charlene Holt. Lots of action and humor, and some pretty decent drama too.

The anti-war sentiment and social discontent pervading throughout the nation at the time inspired John Wayne to make this movie, which glorifies American involvement in Vietnam. Unfortunately, it is far from being included on his list of career triumphs. The pro-war rhetoric comes off as heavy-handed and cheesy, even to a Republican, patriot, and Duke fan like me. However, even to this day, "The Green Berets" remains virtually the sole Vietnam War movie that doesn't ask Americans to bow their heads in shame. While anti-American liberals like Jane Fonda and Walter Cronkite were busy sympathizing with the enemy and declaring the war "unwinnable", John Wayne - the perennial American hero - stood up for what was right and tried to rally his country and his people to a cause, which is more than can be said for any other celebrity of the time.

John Wayne won the Academy Award For Best Actor for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn here, and while his competition that year (Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman for "Midnight Cowboy" and Peter O'Toole for "The Lion in Winter") might have been more deserving on the merits of their performances, I'm glad that Duke received the honor. By this time in his career, he'd spent about fifty years entertaining the world with great movies, and he deserved to be acknowledged for that. He deserved the immense joy and satisfaction that it brought him. And if he was to win an Oscar for any of his movies, it was most fitting indeed for "True Grit" to be the one to bring him that singular honor.

This is a great movie, partly because it provides such an apt and wonderful performance for the great John Wayne to go out on. If he had to go out at all, it was most fitting that he go out with "The Shootist". From the opening montage of clips from previous Duke movies, to Duke's struggle to come to terms with and cope with the cancer that is killing him, to the glorious shoot-out in which we see him expire definitively on-screen, "The Shootist" is 50% fantasy, 50% John Wayne biography, and 100% quality, pathos, and emotion. Few stars are given the opportunity to take their final bow with such dignity, grace, and personal triumph. Bravo, Duke.