dual personalities

As I mentioned earlier, daughter #2 sent me two Josh Ritter CDs to get me all set for the concert I am going to in February. I have been listening to them non-stop for a week or so and the song that has stuck with me is “Make Me Down”.

All that talk of making me down a pallet on your floor, has also given me an idea for this week’s movie pick: Hondo (1953) with John Wayne. You will recall that the Duke makes a pallet on Angie Lowe’s floor and, well, you can guess what happens.

John Wayne in the iconic Hondo pose with Dog

This is a movie that would have benefited mightily from a better director, but it is still a good western, based on a solid story by Louis L’Amour. Directed frenetically in 3-D by John Farrow with a sometimes snicker-inducing screenplay by James Edward Grant, it is carried forward by the inestimable effort of the Duke who swings manfully through the movie, chopping wood, shoeing horses, fighting Indians, etc. There is a lot of action in this movie–really too much for the simple love story it tells. You can see that they are trying to use the 3-D to its optimum effect and that they overdo it. What a shame.

3-D already. We get it.

The great stage actress Geraldine Page stars here in her first movie as Angie Lowe, a woman living alone with her young son in the midst of hostile Apache territory. Cast for her non-Hollywood looks, she is unfortunately not terribly appealing. Louis L’Amour wrote a compelling female character–unusual for mid-century movies–but somehow Geraldine, even though she was nominated for an Academy Award, doesn’t quite pull it off, which is also a shame.

Hondo is a movie that has received some criticism for its portrayal of Native Americans. Some of it is deserved. The white actors who play Indians look Italian and wear way too much body make-up. They say idiotic things like, “You have good man. Treasure him.” Really? (This is what I meant by “snicker-inducing”.) John Wayne-haters often cite this role, but his famous line–“Everybody gets dead. It was his turn.”–is always taken out of context. Hondo is part Apache and has lived with the Indians and respects their way of life. One wonders if these critics have even seen the movie!

Bottom line: this movie could have been so much better. John Ford did not direct it. Noted. But there is still a lot of good in it and, for me, any movie with John Wayne is worth watching. It is easy to see why Angie makes up that pallet on the floor for old Hondo. Who in her right mind wouldn’t?

There is also a great dog in this movie (see photo above)–really one of the great movie dogs of all time. His name, of course, is Dog.