dual personalities

3 Godfathers (1948) directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and a cast of Ford stalwarts is one of my very favorite Christmas movies. I always watch it with the boy, because we are the two family members who really love it. Written by Laurance Stallings and Frank S. Nugent, it is the story of three outlaws on the run who discover a dying woman and help her deliver her baby. They swear to bring the infant to safety across the desert, even at the risk of their own lives.

Frank Nugent also collaborated with Ford on such classics as Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1948), The Quiet Man (1952), Mister Roberts (1955), The Searchers (1956), Two Rode Together (1961), and Donovan’s Reef (1963). So you know what you can expect: great dialogue, a light touch with some underlying darkness, memorable characters.

John Wayne was seldom better than in this movie. He is in top form. Handsome, manly, graceful, full of repressed feeling and submerged anger. We wonder throughout the movie what has made him turn to a life of lawlessness. Why has he lost his faith? He is clearly a well-brought-up “good guy”. He is more than ably supported by Harry Carey, Jr. and the Mexican film star Pedro Armendáriz as the other two godfathers. The three of them work so well together. There is genuine affection in their verbal wrangling. Mildred Natwick, a personal favorite of mine, has a great cameo part as the doomed mother.

Because it is a Ford movie, the cinematography (by Winton Hoch), especially the outside scenes, are wonderful. The scene when they are trudging across the parched desert and the Abilene Kid lies down to die should be shown to all film students. There is nothing sentimental in this scene. It is heart-breakingly real.

In this movie Ford never resorts to the broad down-homey humor he sometimes does in order to break up what he must have seen as too much tension in a film. Ward Bond is kept in check. Hank Worden too. Jane Darwell and Jack Pennick portray remarkably observed characters that stand out in a very full line-up of characters.

And you gotta love a movie where scripture is used successfully as a plot devise. At least I do.

And, yes, it is a Christmas movie. It is a story of redemption and of three wise men who follow a star and find a baby. FELIZ NAVIDAD.