# Help me identify a John Wayne movie. Please **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [May 25, 2024, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057 "2024-05-25T15:07:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2024, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/21 "2024-06-06T03:32:07Z")
107 is a ripe old age. Or is that a joke I never heard? ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2024, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/22 "2024-06-06T13:19:33Z")
They’re quoting lines from the movie. “I thought you were dead.” “Dead? The next person who says that I’m gonna shoot, so help me.” ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2024, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/23 "2024-06-06T16:58:17Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Favorite Duke movie is Big Jake. It also starred the great Richard Boone as the villian. Along with Maureen O’Hara and Bruce Cabot, who passed away the following year. Mine too. Patrick Wayne as one son, Chris Mitchum (Robert’s son) as another, and young Ethan Wayne playing the kidnapped grandson little Jake. Maureen O’Hara and John always made a good on screen pair, they were very close freinds in real life. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Burden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Jack\_Burden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Burden)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2024, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/24 "2024-06-06T18:09:28Z")
Chris Mitchum was great in Rio Lobo as well. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2024, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/25 "2024-06-06T18:16:50Z")
[His daughter Toni appeared with him in The Alamo](https://m.whosdatedwho.com/dating/toni-wayne) She’d been friends with my dad in middle school. John Wayne was friendly but usually just coming and going. My dad was a good-looking young blond guy, resembling Richard Widmark, and auditioned for a part as Widmark’s son, until he got into trouble and was packed off to military school. After my mom died my dad was telling me how unhappy he’d been in their marriage, so of course I said “why didn’t you marry Toni Wayne?” ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2024, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/26 "2024-06-07T22:23:05Z")
Loved his cameo in “The Beverly Hillbillies”. “Where was you when I needed you, John?” ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2024, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/27 "2024-06-07T22:33:08Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I thought it was the _The Fighting Seabees_. I’m impressed that you know that movie. While every Seabee is very familiar with it (pretty much required viewing, and John Wayne was an honorary Seabee), most people have never heard of it. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2024, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/28 "2024-06-07T22:44:55Z")
IIRC, Fighting Seabees, Sands of Iwo Jima, and the Shootist are the only ones where Wayne gets killed. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2024, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/29 "2024-06-07T23:10:32Z")
_The Fighting Seabees_ is mentioned over the PA system as a movie going to be shown at the camp in _MASH_. I thought at first it was in the movie, but upon reflection I guess it was the TV show. References like this is pretty much all I know of it. I don’t recall it being on TV back-when unlike, for example, _The Sands of Iwo Jima._ ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2024, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/30 "2024-06-07T23:16:54Z")
He was killed in nine movies, apparently, but yeah he was taken out by a sniper in The Fighting Seabees. > [@ftg](#): > > I don’t recall it being on TV back-when unlike, for example, _The Sands of Iwo Jima._ Not one of his better-known movies, for sure, and pretty corny, to boot. Also, at one point in the film he refers to “Tojo’s bug-eyed monkeys”, which wouldn’t play well in todays world. The Japanese stereotype in wartime movies was a buck-toothed, evil-looking man with thick glasses. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2024, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/31 "2024-06-07T23:27:25Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I’m impressed that you know that movie. While every Seabee is very familiar with it (pretty much required viewing, and John Wayne was an honorary Seabee), most people have never heard of it. I spent a lot of nights watching old movies with my grandmother. John Wayne and and other star’s movies used to air frequently. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2024, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/32 "2024-06-07T23:34:41Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > Maureen O’Hara and John always made a good on screen pair, they were very close freinds in real life. Makes sense since I think they’re both hammy actors. I really only like Maureen O’Hara in one movie – _Only the Lonely._ ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2024, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/33 "2024-06-08T00:22:23Z")
Read somewhere that scenes w/ Wayne were usually filmed in the morning. This was because he liked to start drinking around noon time, and his acting performance would be sub-par when afternoon came around. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2024, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057/34 "2024-06-09T05:26:48Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Awesome. Thank you. 😀 > > I’m going to watch it this evening. I haven’t seen _Wings of Eagles_ since junior high school. I used to watch old movies with my grandmother. She introduced me to Clark Gable, John Wayne. and Cary Grant’s movies. My grandmother loved Loretta Young’s movies. _Wings of Eagles_ was the true story of Frank Wead. Of course with some poetic license. Wead was an influential figure in early Naval Aviation. He really did break his neck falling down the stairs in his house. Somehow he was able to return to active duty during WWII. He was also a screenwriter in Hollywood. Wayne and John Ford knew him. He wrote the screenplay for _They Were Expendable._ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-identify-a-john-wayne-movie-please/1002057.md?page=1)