John Wayne Westerns Films Collection (1948–1973) — PICK

 

Multi-film collections generally bundle famous films with forgettable ones, and the five-disc Blu-ray John Wayne Westerns Films Collection is no exception — but if you’re a fan of the Duke and just happen not to own the first three films in this collection,

this one just might be worth your while.

The first three films are all classics. Two were directed by John Ford: Fort Apache (1948), also starring Henry Fonda and Shirley Temple, and The Searchers (1956), also starring Jeffrey Hunter and Vera Miles.

The third, Rio Bravo (1959), was directed by Howard Hawks and co-starred Dean Martin and Angie Dickinson. (Frequent Wayne co-star Ward Bond is in all three.)

Fort Apache is the first of Ford’s “calvary trilogy,” which also included She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950). Inspired by the ignominious massacre of Custer’s troops at Little Bighorn, the film casts Fonda against type as an arrogant, glory-seeking officer named Thursday whose contempt for his American-Indian adversaries and indifference to his savvier subordinate named York (Wayne), who knows and respects the Indians, leads to the unnecessary slaughter of his troops.

The Searchers, often regarded as one of the greatest Westerns and certainly one of the most discussed and debated, stars Wayne as a Civil War veteran named Ethan Edwards who combines York’s knowledge of the Indians with Thursday’s contempt for them, in particular for the Comanche. The film tells the story of Ethan’s obsessive pursuit of a band of Comanche who raided a settler household and kidnapped Ethan’s niece.

Rio Bravo is often regarded as a reassuringly heroic response to Fred Zinnemann’s unsettling classic High Noon, in which Gary Cooper’s sheriff, left high and dry when the whole town refuses to support him, must take on a vengeful convict with no support but his Quaker wife (Grace Kelly). In Rio Bravo, Wayne’s fearless hero is surrounded by allies, even those whom he has turned down.

Then there are the two ringers, The Train Robbers and Cahill, U.S. Marshall, both made in 1973, toward the end of his career and his life (Wayne died in 1979). I’ve seen neither, but both are considered among Wayne’s worst films (though, in fairness, Roger Ebert liked The Train Robbers).