John Wayne

The Conqueror

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The Conqueror. RKO Radio Pictures 1956.

Before watching the movie:

This movie was probably forgotten for a while except as a strange footnote in John Wayne’s career. However, it’s been seized on due to the fact that it was filmed downwind from nuclear bomb testing, which leads more and more people to discover the bafflingly bad idea of casting Hollywood’s most famous Cowboy to lead in an epic on the origins of Genghis Khan.

On paper, it sounds bad, but hardly any movie deserves to have this much ridicule heaped on it. Most of the people mocking it haven’t even seen it. One thing I like to do with this blog is give movies a chance at the minor redemption of pleasantly surprising one hobbyist critic on the internet, so this was an irresistible pick.

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The Quiet Man

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The Quiet Man. Republic Pictures 1952.
The Quiet Man. Republic Pictures 1952.

Before watching the movie:

John Wayne is remembered as playing cowboys or other heroes of the American West. So it always surprises me to learn that some of his most praised movies cast him as something else. Here, he’s an Irishman who spent some time as a boxer in America, but has come home to court a wife.

The main conflict appears to be that his lover’s brother doesn’t approve of the match, and the argument gets physical. Boy is that a mistake to let an argument come to blows with a professional boxer. I really hope that conflict is exaggerated by the synopsis I’m seeing and it’s mostly just courtship in the Irish countryside. I’m also curious to see if Wayne bothers with an Irish accent.

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