Day 615

Aka Sunday 7^th October 

Today I had a bit of a John Wayne binge and watched:

‘Rio Lobo’ starts with what is almost a coda or prologue, which introduces us to the main male cast, as a band of Confederate’s, led by Jorge Rivero as Capt. Pierre Cordona aka "Frenchy" and Christopher Mitchum (son of the The Robert Mitchum) as Sgt. Tuscarora Phillips, rob an Union Army payroll, that s being protected by a unit of Union soldiers, led by John Wayne as Col. Cord McNally. Frenchy and Tuscarora are captured by McNally, who questions them about who in the Union Army leaked to them information about the payroll, but as the Civil War is still ongoing they refuse to reveal who in the Union Army gave them the information and they spend the rest of the war in a POW camp.

When the war ends, McNally re-asks Frenchy and Tuscarora to reveal the traitors identify, and now the war is over Frenchy and Tuscarora no longer feel a need to keep the identity’s secret, although all they know is his physical description as no names were exchanged. McNally thanks them and Frenchy and Tuscarora agree that if they ever meet the traitors again they will get word to McNally.

Time pass and Tuscarora returns home to Rio Lobo, however it turns out that the traitors are buying up land in Rio Lobo via underhand means, including Tuscarora’s fathers land, and have installed their own corrupt sheriff. McNally, Frenchy and Tuscarora team up with Tuscarora father (Old Man Philips played by Jack Elam), Shasta Delaney (played by Jennifer O'Neill), whose partner was killed by the corrupt sheriff, and townswomen Maria Carmen (played by Susana Dosamantes) and Amelita (played by Sherry Lansing), to clean up the town and take the traitors in to face trial or kill them.

‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ starts James Stewart, as Ranse Stoddard, a young naïve lawyer who is new to the western frontier and tries to ‘tame’ it, to bring the law to this lawless land. But, his first encounter with the West is when the stagecoach he is travelling on is held up, Liberty Valance and his gang, and when he steps in to try to stop it, he is beaten and his belongings, including his Law books, being ransacked and broken. He is found by Tom Doniphon, played by John Wayne, the mirror opposite of Liberty Valance and taken to the nearest town, Shinbone.

Stepping away from the story summery to note that Liberty Valance is played by Lee Marvin and his second-in-command is played by Lee Van Cleef!!! Two of the best actors ever!!!

Stoddard sets up as attorney in Shinbone and gets in involved in the local politics, becomes the nominee for senator and campaigns for statehood, which would “improve infrastructure, safety, and education”. This is opposed by the local cattle barons, who hire Liberty Valance to stop statehood happening. Stoddard believes in the law and won’t bow down to Valance’s pressure, but Doniphon explains that Valance doesn’t believe in the law and the only way to beat him is by brute force, i.e. the gun! And this culminates in a shoot-out between Stoddard and Valance, which ends with Valance dead. This kinda shatters Stoddard who feels that by shooting Valance he has betrayed his principles, his belief in the law and can no longer be entrusted to be a senator.

However, Doniphon takes him aside and tells him what really happened during the gun fight, that it was him, afraid that Stoddard would be killed, who, from an alleyway, fired the fatal shot. This reinstates Stoddard’s self-belief and he becomes the state’s governor, then senator and then US Ambassador to the UK, but no-one but he, Doniphon And Pompey (Doniphon’s ranch hand) know who really shot Liberty Valance. All this is told in flashback, to a reporter, when Stoddard attends Doniphon’s funeral, the reporter is interviewing him because there are rumours that Stoddard will be nominated as Vice President.  Stoddard has basically explained that his entire political career is based on the myth that he shot Liberty Valance, but the reporter notes that "This is the West, sir…when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.", and

‘Hondo’ is about Calvary dispatch rider Hondo Lane, played by John Wayne, and rancher Angie Lowe, played by Geraldine Page, who develop a relationship in the midst of a war between the Apache and the US (mainly the local settlers and Calvary). This relationship is complicated by (a) Hondo having had to kill Angie’s husband, as Angie’s husband was trying to kill Hondo and (b) Angie’s ranch being in Apache territory.

Eventually, Hondo tells Angie the truth about being responsible for her husband’s death and they agree to leave for Hondo’s ranch in California. To leave safely they join a Calvary column, but this column is soon attacked by the Apaches and they form a wagon circle and gun battle between the Calvary & settlers and the Apache. The Apache are defeated and as they retreat, and the film concludes, a Calvary officer states that a large US Army force will soon be in the area to pursue the Apache, which Hondo notes will end the Apache’s way of life.   

All three are enjoyable and have much deeper/complex stories than I first thought, e.g. ‘The Man Who…’ can be seen as being about the rational man versus the emotional man, reason versus feeling and ‘Hondo’ treats the Apaches pretty sympathetically (for the time it was filmed) rather than as savages. All three have a common theme, which I think is due to Wayne, of men being men and standing up for what they believe in and defending those weaker than them and beating the bad guy.

‘Rio Lobo’ is probably my favourite of the three, while it is mostly an action flick, it has a (relativity) complex storyline and touches on interesting points, for example, Amelita has her face scarred by the corrupt sheriff and it seems like it only happens to further justify our heroes fighting against him (and justify how bad the and corrupt the sheriff is), but at the film’s climax she is the one that stops the sheriff, that kills him and then has conflicted feelings about, happy that she got her vengeance, but sad that she had to become a killer. 

The only problem I have with ‘Rio Lobo’ is that it pretty much glosses over why the Civil War happened and it’s kinda icky to have, as our heroes, two people who fought on the side of slavery. Although, Tuscarora does have a Mexican girlfriend, so maybe that was a subtle way of saying that he and Frenchy weren’t racist and were fighting on the side of the South of some other reason. Or maybe I’m reading too much into the film and reaching for an excuse to make it easier for me to watch it?

 

…I also watched ‘The Initiation’, which is the first horror film I can remember watching. It’s about Kelly Fairchild, who has started University and is pledging to a sorority, and the stress and worry about the pledging may be causing the horrible, recurring nightmares, of a man being burned and killed, she is having. Kelly decides to use her nightmares as the basis for her term research project and has them analysed by her TA Peter.

This all comes to a head at the last sorority initiation, where Kelly and the other pledges must steal the uniform from the night guard at the shopping mall owned by Kelly’s father. While this is happening, Peter deduces that Kelly isn’t having nightmares, but is remembering her twin sister setting fire to a man. As Peter rushes to tell Kelly this, Kelly’s sister, Terry, is slowing murdering all the pledges in the shopping mall but is eventually stopped by Kelly.

I really like ‘The Initiation’ as it has all the key ingredients of an ‘80’s slasher film, a sound, but slightly dubious reason for the killings to happen, a slightly cheesy script, gratuitous female nudity, people being killed because of having sex, drinking beer, etc., and the final girl triumphing due to her own actions and not needing to be rescued.

…and I read a couple of comics:

‘New Lieutenants Of Metal’ #4, which concludes the story and sees the New Lieutenants triumph over the Boyband Nation. It’s a fun end to a fun story, but, and this isn’t to diminish the work done by Joe Casey, writer, and Ulises Farinas, pictures, (and Melody Often, colours, Sonia Harris, design, and Rus Wooton, letters), for me the best part of this issue is the back matter, in which Mr Casey’s reflection on work with Top Cow/Marc Silvestri and Todd McFarlane. I just find the insight into creating and why things did and didn’t work out really interesting. And slightly annoyed that we didn’t get to see all of what was planned for ‘Haunt’ and other stories. 8/10

 In ‘Giant Days’ #43 Daisy and Ed are working at the local Christmas Faye, only to found out that not everything is on the up and up. As per usual, John Allison has written a great story full of ups & downs, fun, frolics and pathos, which is perfectly brought to life by Max Sarin (art), Whitney Cogar (colours) and Jim Campbell (letters). 10/10. It’s bizarre how good each issue of Giant Days is and how good the entire series has been.