An interesting Christmas gift. I often complain about the lack of old movies on late night tv. I received a boxed set of 1930s John Wayne cowboy movies. Are any of these likely to be good?
Probably no better than so-so. Wayne made a very large number of movies (he probably was the lead actor in more films than anyone else), and most of his 1930s films were routine oaters. They may be entertaining, but not much more.
Is Stagecoach one of the movies in the box? He made that in 1939.
We know Stagecoach is good. Was that the movie that made him a bona fide star? Or was he a big name before that?
Do you get Turner Classic Movies? Plenty of great old movies there.
If The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is there, you have a winner. One of the best westerns, probably one of the best MOVIES, ever made. Wayne plays his usual tough guy, but better than ever and with a bit of a twist, 'cause of the plot. I hate westerns. I love The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
IIRC, that box set is mostly Republic westerns. None of them is great, but for Grade-B oaters, they’re not awful.
However, there are some wonderful Duke boxes out there, including:
Lots to choose from. Enjoy!
Much too late for the time period mentioned in the OP, though it is a very good film.
And I’d be surprised if Stagecoach was included (it was the film that allowed Wayne to become a major star). Those multiple sets are usually POD or obscure films that can be bought up cheaply; Stagecoach would rate its own release.
Wayne made a lot of great films, but prior to Stagecoach the films he was in were pretty routine.
“pod”?
Yeah, John Ford made John Wayne a star with Stagecoach. John Ford discovered Wayne (along with Wayne’s football teammate, Ward Bond), and used him in small parts in like half a dozen movies in the 1920s. For the 1930s, Wayne was with a different studio, and made a bunch of (IMHO) pretty forgettable B westerns. So after like a ten year gap in their collaboration (don’t quote me, but this might also have been one of their long-running feuds; Ford was famous for holding a grudge over insignificant–often imagined–offenses), Ford cast Wayne in Stagecoach with the very clear intention of making him a star: Wayne’s entrance in Stagecoach is one of the most famous entrances in movies, and no star ever received a more starmaking entrance from a Hollywood director. Ford shot Wayne approaching the camera out of a nighttime mist–a mighty hero appearing godlike out of the night–the camera zooming to meet him for an extremely flattering closeup. The subtext of the shot (filmed by Greg Toland, who was hired by Orson Welles to shoot Citizen Kane largely due to his work on Stagecoach) is pretty much: "This is John Wayne. Remember this face, remember that name. He’s going to be a Star. Sincerely, John Ford."*
Pre *Stagecoach *(i.e., pre 1939) John Wayne movies are interesting to a completist–I found them interesting to see how much of Wayne’s screen persona was due to Ford–but none of them really stands out as a great film.
Point Of Display, I’m guessing.
Also known as POP; Point Of Purchase.
Good collections, although I’d have to place your second choice above your first by several orders of magnitude. So buy both.
Yeah don’t expect any of those 1930’s John Wayne movies to be of the caliber of the Conqueror (1956)
NoCoolUserName
I also like the “Man Who Shot Liberty Valence”. A fine movie with a tremendous Lee Marvin performance. Also great performances by Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne. And as a great many SDMB members can tell you I am no John Wayne fan. (Mainly due to his political beliefs).
I’ve under-appreciated Lee Marvin over the years. Hell, I’ve under-appreciated most actors who didn’t get star billing. I saw him in Seven Men From Now (today, TiVo’d from TCM), and he pretty much stole the movie from Randolph Scott.
Parodied by Thomas F. Wilson in Back to the Future, Part III
Stagecoach was supposedly the inspiration for Joss Whedon’s Firefly.
My local John Wayne Expert explained, "It (Stagecoach) was his first movie where he wasn’t one of “The Three Mesquiters”. "
In the commentary to Serenity, Joss says it all started with The Killer Angels, which he read during a 2 week vacation while filming Season 3 of Buffy.
I staill can’t concieve how the same guy who wrote the outstanding Firefly could write Buffy
Everyone sings in harmony
Shoot, that should have been
You could easily be right, but I assumed RealityChuck meant public domain by the context.
Here is a list of the movies:
Blue Steel
Star Packer
The Trail Beyond
Texas Terror
Lawless Range
Hell Town
Angel and the Badman
Paradise Canyon
West of the Divide
Sagebrush Trail
Winds of the Wasteland
Rand Rides Alone
'Neath Arizona Skies
McClintock
There are also a couple of documentaries at the end. So far, seems like typical Grade B Westerns, although they’re enjoyable. Very much what I’d watch at 2 in the AM.
I’ve seen enough of Angel and the Badman to want to see more – it looked like a fairly good film with a great premise: Wayne was a notorious outlaw who gets nursed by a Quaker family after an injury and has to live by their nonviolent ways. The little I saw was quite clever.
**
McClintock** was from the 60s.