Who would’ve guessed that, in the last decade of his life, a lung lost to cancer, John “Duke” Wayne would star in a dozen films, three of...
I Killed John Wayne
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Henry C. Parke
In Theaters: The Hero
Lee Hayden (played by Sam Elliott), once a Western movie icon, now uses his golden voice to narrate barbecue-sauce ads. He receives bad news and...
The Screen’s Greatest Horse Stuntman
The most memorable action sequence in Stagecoach comes near the end of the 1939 film. Shortly after the river crossing, the passengers expect a...
Slim Pickens
Show me a magazine cover with a pretty girl, a baby or a dog...and I’ll show you a magazine that sells,” publishing legend William Randolph Hearst...
Rustled for Hollywood
In the 1950s, Universal Pictures hit on an absurd premise that would delight millions and make millions: the Francis the Talking Mule military...
The Son Rises on AMC
On April 8, a new series, The Son, will premiere on AMC. Starring Pierce Brosnan, the four-time James Bond who rode West in 2006’s Seraphim Falls,...
DVD Review: THE MARK OF ZORRO
DVD Review: THE MARK OF ZORRO (Kino Lorber; $29.95) In this Blu-ray release of the 1940 classic, Tyrone Power stars as Diego, outwardly the effete...
Sink or Swim
Nobody could overstate the impact of 1939’s Stagecoach on film in general and on the Western in particular. It rescued the genre from the...
DVD Review: One-Eyed Jacks
After languishing in unwatchable 99-cent copies, 1961’s One-Eyed Jacks (Criterion Collection; $29.95), the last Vista Vision movie, has been...
Frontier Justice For Sale
For nearly 40 years, film distributors and filmmakers from around the world have annually converged in Santa Monica, California, to buy and...
A Divided America
The story of the Underground Railroad, the antebellum, sub-rosa conspiracy to lead escaped slaves from Southern plantations to freedom in the North,...
Remembering The Horse Soldiers
Lovely Constance Towers became a star when she played the female lead in two John Ford Westerns back-to-back: 1959’s The Horse Soldiers and 1960’s...