Big Jim McLain

Y'know the old joke, told after Reagan was elected, that "One of every three Hollywood conservatives gets elected President"? (The joke being, of course, that there was only 3 conservatives in Hollywood)...well...

Not Wayne's greatest, or even a great, movie. But still, in these days if Political Correctness being hammered down our respective throats, it's nostalgia to know it used to be vice versa.

Darn, I miss the 1950s.

While the brainwashed elite criticize this story of how Communism threatened the security of America in the 1950s, any unbiased viewer will understand a piece of history that has since been revised.

This movie was made while the liberal elite defended their liberalism by making a straw man of Senator McCarthy. John Wayne understood the real threat of Communism and their spies in America. Making this movie was unpopular then, nevertheless now; Wayne was a brave patriot who should be commended for doing the principled thing, however unpopular.

The liberal politicians and the media has waged war on the fight against communism for 40 years. That repeated mantra of group thinking has obscured the real attitudes of that era. This movie is valuable for the independent minded; it shows a history and culture that Hollywood wants to deny and ignore in the same way the Klan wants to deny and ignore the Holocaust.

It is not Wayne's best film. It is probably the least seen. However, a student of history or a student of Wayne's character should view the movie.

An HUAC (House UnAmerican Activities Committee) propaganda film at its worst. How John Wayne could persist in claiming that the HUAC was good for the country is beyond my comprehension. It is even worse that he stated publicly that he was "delighted" that this film probably brought on the scandalous McCarthy hearings of the 1950s which, in many cases, ruined the careers of many leading Hollywood personalities of the period.

John Wayne (in ties and jackets!) ferrets out Commies in post-WWII Hawaii along with strapping partner James Arness. For a movie so obviously filled with swaggering machismo, the overall results of "Big Jim McLain" are fairly tame, with just a scene or two of fisticuffs outnumbered by the romantic clinches between the Duke and Nancy Olson (who moves quickly). Archie Stout's black-and-white cinematography isn't expressive (the budget here doesn't seem large enough for expressive), and yet his silvery shots of the tropics in all their '50s splendor are memorable. As for Wayne, he walks through the whole thing rather sheepishly; Jim McLain isn't much of a character, and Wayne doesn't look like he's anxious to find one in the writing. The flag-waving, Purple Heart-patriotic drama at hand is tidied up very quickly, and yet the film is directed with an easy-going pace by Edward Ludwig. The title was changed for release around the globe (most often due to redubbing to remove the Communist plotting): in Germany and Austria, it was called "Marihuana"; in Mexico and Chile, it was "Intrigue in Honolulu". ** from ****

While Big Jim McLain will hardly rank with the greatest of John Wayne's films, it expresses the conflict between loyal American citizens and law enforcement officials and the threat posed by Soviet agents. Only since the release of some of the USSR archives can we see how real the threat was although rarely as simplistic as the film shows it. Big Jim McLain needs to be viewed in the context of its times just as other US wartime action films reflect the tenor of our role in World War II and how people saw the enemy of that day.