Brannigan

Chicago police lieutenant Jim Brannigan (John Wayne) arrives in London to get an American mobster extradited, but learns that he’s been kidnapped. One of Wayne’s last movies is a Dirty…

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Perhaps a certain fatigue was setting in at the time of the premiere, only a few years after another Jesus epic, King of Kings (1961). This one was targeted by…

Red River: Mutiny on the Trail

John Wayne and Joanne Dru. Photo: United Artists John Ford was the man behind the movie that made John Wayne a star, Stagecoach (1939). When he saw Red River nine…

Stagecoach: Introducing John Wayne

Photo: United Artists Today, we remember John Ford as a great director of Westerns. In 1939, that wasn’t really the case. Ford hadn’t made a Western since his days as…

Highlights from 94 Years of Oscars

The first Academy Awards were handed out back in 1929. The “show” looked decidedly different then – it was in fact a dinner, the ceremony itself took 15 minutes and…

Rio Bravo: A Sheriff Takes a Chance

John Wayne. Photo: Warner For purely political reasons, John Wayne was not a fan of High Noon (1952). In his view, that film celebrated collectivism, having Gary Cooper's sheriff come…

The Green Berets 

… or, How John Wayne went to Vietnam, showed the South Vietnamese how to fight like Americans and shamed those yellow-belly liberals who had complained about the war. Aided by…

The Searchers: A Savage Nature

John Wayne. Photo: Warner The Searchers was a box office hit in its day, but received no Academy Award nominations. Much like several Alfred Hitchcock movies, it's a typical example…