The second annual “Duke Days of May” stay-at-home film festival kicks off with “Stagecoach.”
Take Two: The folks at INSP are giving us a second dose of The Duke Days of May, their widely watched John Wayne marathon of 2020. This year, their watch-at-home film festival kicks off Friday, April 30, and continues through Memorial Day, May 31.
You can learn how to access INSP on the channel’s website. And you can check out the movie lineup here.
April 30
Stagecoach (1939) — Director John Ford’s must-see masterwork arguably is the first significant western of the talking-pictures era, the paradigm that cast the mold, set the rules, and firmly established the archetypes and conventions for all later movies of its kind. Indeed, it single-handedly revived the genre in 1939 after a long period of box-office doldrums, elevating the western to a new level of critical and popular acceptance. And, not incidentally, it made John Wayne a full-fledged movie star in the lead role of Johnny Ringo, the square-jawed, slow-talking gunfighter who’s willing to hang up his shootin’ irons — who’s even agreeable to mending his ways and settling down on a small farm with a good woman — but not before he settles some unfinished business with the varmints who terminated his loved ones. (8 pm ET)
Angel and the Badman (1947) — Writer-director James Edward Grant’s classic crowd-pleaser showcases Wayne as Quirt Evans, a notorious gunslinger who’s sorely tempted to hang up his shootin’ irons when he falls in love with a lovely young Quaker woman (Gail Russell). Unfortunately, his conversion to non-violence may be short-lived: Two pistol-packing owlhoots from Evans’ past are bound and determined to make sure our hero doesn’t have much of a future. Angel and the Badman was one of several collaborations between Wayne and Grant. Among Grant’s other screenwriting credits: Sands of Iwo Jima, Flying Leathernecks, Hondo, The Alamo, The Comancheros and McLintock! (1 am ET)
May 1
Big Jake (1971) — When we asked Ethan Wayne back in 2007 to name his favorite among his famous father’s movies, he didn’t hesitate: “For me,” he said, “it’s Big Jake, just because I was in it, my brother [Patrick Wayne] was in it, my other brother [Michael Wayne] produced it — and it gave me a chance to work with my dad.” Ethan played The Duke’s kidnapped grandson in the western drama, a gritty action flick directed by George Sherman that also featured Maureen O’Hara, Wayne’s longtime friend and frequent co-star, in a supporting role. “The crew that was on that movie, from the stuntmen and the caterers, they were all guys I grew up with,” Ethan Wayne recalled. “They were like my uncles. And the best thing about it was, I wasn’t there for just three weeks out of the filming — I was there for the entire filming. And it was the most fun a kid could have.” (8 pm ET)
Rio Lobo (1970) — Howard Hawks’ swan song as a director showcases Wayne as Cord McNally, a Civil War veteran who joins forces with two former Confederate enemies (Jorge Rivero, Christopher Mitchum) to battle land-grabbing varmints in the Texas town of Rio Lobo. If the plot of Rio Lobo seems a tad familiar, well, that’s because it is. As critic Roger Ebert noted: “We go to a classic John Wayne western not to see anything new, but to see the old done again, done well, so that we can sink into the genre and feel confident we won't be betrayed. To some degree Wayne movies are rituals, and so it is fitting that they resemble each other. El Dorado was a remake of Hawks’ Rio Bravo (1958), and Rio Lobo draws from both of them. (It is said that when Hawks called Wayne and offered to send over the script, Wayne replied, ‘Why bother? I've already made the movie twice.’)” Co-stars include Jack Elam, Jennifer O’Neill — and Sherry Lansing, who would later become the first woman ever to head a major Hollywood studio (20th Century Fox). (10:30 pm ET)
The Undefeated (1969) — The Duke is well-cast as John Henry Thomas, a former Union Army colonel who becomes the unlikely ally of Confederate Army veteran James Langdon (Rock Hudson) when the two men and their associates get caught in the crossfire during the Mexican revolt against Emperor Maximilian. Ben Johnson, Lee Meriwether, Bruce Cabot, Merlin Olsen, Paul Fix, Dub Taylor, John Agar, and Harry Carey Jr. are among the familiar faces in the strong supporting cast. (1 am ET)
May 2
McLintock! (1963) — Aptly described by film critic and historian Leonard Maltin as a “slapstick variation of The Taming of the Shrew set in the Old West,” director Andrew V. McLaglen’s 1963 comedy-drama showcases John Wayne as G.W. McLintock, a swaggering man’s man who’s rich enough to accurately claim he owns “everything in this county from here to there,” and ill-behaved enough to drive his well-bred wife, Katherine (Maureen O’Hara), to establish residency back East. Two years after his wife’s departure — she suspected her husband of infidelity, and he never really denied it — Katherine returns to the territory, and to McClintock’s opulent home, to claim their Eastern-educated daughter, Becky (Stefanie Powers), and to start divorce proceedings. But Becky is in no hurry to leave after she discovers her father’s new ranch hand (Patrick Wayne, The Duke’s son) is appreciably more attractive than her Harvard-educated fiancé (Jerry Van Dyke). And Katherine reconsiders her options after falling in love with “G.W.” all over again — after he chases her through town during the movie’s climactic sequence, and none-too-playfully spanks her. (2 pm ET)
El Dorado (1967) — If the plot of El Dorado seems a tad familiar, well it should — director Howard Hawks more or less recycled it from Rio Bravo (1959), and then re-recycled it for Rio Lobo (1970). But never mind: As often is the case with John Wayne westerns, the storytellers, not the story, are what really matter here. As critic Roger Ebert noted in his original review: “Wayne plays a professional gunman who comes to town to take a job from a rich rancher who wants a poor rancher’s water (who says the plot has to be original?). But the sheriff turns out to be his old buddy, [Robert] Mitchum, and so he turns down the job. Then the rich rancher hires another gunman (Christopher George), and Wayne sides up with the drunk and disheveled Mitchum. Duke’s team isn't exactly made of heroes. Mitchum has been hitting the bottle for two months, his deputy (played with charm by [Arthur] Hunnicutt) is a windy old Indian fighter, Wayne has a bullet near his spine that causes a slight touch of paralysis now and again, and his sidekick ([James] Caan) is a kid who carries a shotgun instead of a pistol because he's such a lousy shot. Hawks fashions scene after scene of quiet, earthy humor from this situation. Without great care, the movie could have degenerated into a put-on, but Hawks plays it straight and never allows his actors to take that last fatal step in overacting.” Movie buffs, take note: Listen closely, and you’ll hear a sly reference to Shoot the Piano Player, the 1962 film by Francois Truffaut, the great French filmmaker who, during his days as a critic, championed Hawks’ films long before many U.S. critics did. (8 pm ET)
Hondo (1953) — The one and only John Wayne movie filmed in 3-D — all the better to make audiences duck when arrows start flying — this gritty, grown-up Western (based on a Louis L’Amour story) remains, even in 2-D, one of The Duke’s most enduringly popular movies. As Hondo Lane, an Indian scout, ex-gunfighter, and dispatch rider for the cavalry whose best friend is his mangy dog, Wayne makes an indelible impression in an iconographic role, playing the rugged loner as surprisingly sympathetic to the Native American cause — with good reason, it should be noted — even while protecting a neglected woman (Geraldine Page) and her young son (Lee Aaker) from their increasingly (but not unreasonably) hostile Apache neighbors. Not surprisingly, Hondo takes a hankerin’ to the lady in jeopardy. So it’s not altogether unpleasant for him when she agrees to pretend she’s his wife — if only to keep an Apache chief (Michael Pate) from slaying our hero. (11 pm ET)
Hellfighters (1968) — In this Andrew V. McLaglen-directed drama inspired by the real-life exploits of oil-well firefighter Red Adair, Wayne keeps his cool while taming blazes in Texas and Venezuela. Katharine Ross (fresh from her breakthrough in The Graduate), Vera Miles, Jim Hutton and Jay C. Flippen co-star.(1968) — (1 am ET)
May 7
Rio Bravo — 8 pm ET
Rio Lobo — 1 am ET
May 8
3 Godfathers (1948) —Three hard-luck cattle rustlers (Wayne, Pedro Armindariz, and Harry Carey Jr.) ride into a small town to try their hand at a new line of work: bank robbery. But shucks, these fellows are too good-hearted to be real bad guys — they’re even polite to the local sheriff (Ward Bond) while on their way to the heist. While riding across an unforgiving desert with a posse in hot pursuit, they stop to help a dying woman give birth, then vow to care for her orphaned infant. The sentimental streak is a mile wide — and the religious symbolism only slightly less conspicuous — in John Ford’s first filmed-in-color western. But never mind: Wayne has never been more amusing and endearing than he is here as a tough but tenderhearted galoot who awkwardly warms to the task of being a surrogate daddy for a needy newborn. It helps that — for a while, at least — he has two co-stars to share the parenting chores. Think of it as the original Three Men and a Baby. (8 pm ET)
Rooster Cogburn (1975) — John Wayne once again dons the trademark eyepatch to play the role that helped him win his first and only Academy Award as Best Actor. Directed by Stuart Millar (When the Legends Die), this True Grit follow-up boasts another kind of distinction: It’s the first and only movie ever to showcase Wayne and Katharine Hepburn as co-stars. The plot — which owes more than a little to The African Queen — pairs Wayne’s cantankerous lawman with Hepburn’s Eula Goodnight, an elderly minister’s spinster daughter who relies on Cogburn’s help after outlaws kill her father. Veteran character actor Anthony Zerbe (Will Penny, TV’s The Young Riders) also figures into the mix as Breed, Cogburn’s former scout, who’s now aligned with the bad guys. (10 pm ET)
McLintock! — 1 am ET
May 9
Blood Alley (1955) — The Duke teams with Lauren Bacall in a two-fisted action-adventure, directed by William A. Wellman (The Public Enemy, The Ox-Bow Incident), about a daring plan to smuggle villagers out of Red China (as it was known during the Cold War) and to the British port of Hong Kong. Paul Fix, Anita Ekberg and Mike Mazurki co-star. (2 pm ET)
Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) — The Duke earned his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor for his lead performance in this stirring WWII drama as Sgt. John M. Stryker, a hard-bitten U.S. Marine who leads his men from basic training to the climactic Battle of Iwo Jima. John Agar and Forrest Tucker co-star, under the director of Hollywood veteran Allan Dwan. This film is a rarity among Wayne’s star vehicles, but you’ll have to see it to find out why. (8 pm ET)
The Undefeated — 10:30 pm
Angel and the Badman — 1 am ET
May 14
El Dorado — 8 pm ET
Hondo — 1 am ET
May 15
Hellfighters — 8 pm ET
Rio Lobo — 10:30 pm
Sands of Iwo Jima — 1 am ET
May 16
Rio Bravo — 2 pm ET
Rooster Cogburn — 8 pm ET
Big Jake — 10:30 pm
Blood Alley — 1 am ET
May 21
McLintock! — 8 pm ET
Rio Bravo — 1 am ET
May 22
The Fighting Seabees (1944) — The Duke stars as Wedge Donovan, a civilian construction company boss who joins the U.S. Navy to form Construction Battalions (CBs, or Seabees) while fighting the good fight during World War II. Susan Hayward, Dennis O’Keefe, William Frawley and Paul Fix co-star. (8 pm ET)
Hondo — 10:30 pm ET
Big Jake — 1 am ET
May 23
3 Godfathers — 2 pm ET
The Undefeated — 8 pm ET
Hellfighters — 10:30 pm ET
El Dorado — 1 am ET
May 28
Hondo — 8 pm ET
Blood Alley — 1 am ET
May 29
Rio Bravo — 8 pm ET
3 Godfathers — 11 pm ET
Rio Lobo — 1 am ET
May 30
El Dorado — 2 pm ET
Big Jake — 8 pm ET
The Fighting Seabees — 10:30 pm
Rooster Cogburn — 1 am ET
May 31
The Sands of Iwo Jima — 8 am ET
