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Although he is often most closely associated with the extensive work he did within the western genre alongside his regular collaborator, John Wayne, the great director John Fordwas also an actual veteran who used his experiences in war to inspire some of the more realistic versions of combat that had been seen on film. Ford’s service in the Navy allowed him to craft intense war films, such as They Were Expendable and The Wings of Eagles, which showed the incredible sacrifices that soldiers were forced to make within the field of combat. However, Ford wasn’t just interested in making digestible, patriotic films that avoided criticism of the United States military. Ford’s brilliant World War II satire Mister Robertsexamined the everyday challenges faced by the crew of a U.S. Cargo ship and featured amazing performances from Henry Fonda, James Cagney, and Jack Lemmon.

Quick LinksThe Original True Grit Earned John Wayne His First Academy Award2010’s True Grit Contained Elements Truer to the Book Than the 1969 OriginalJohn Wayne Starred in a Sequel to True Grit Alongside Katharine Hepburn

1969's Western True Grit was an iconic role for long-time on-screen gunslinger John Wayne. He played a character largely against type and received wide praise for his performance as Marshal Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn. The film is based on a book by Charles Portis that follows a young girl seeking to avenge her father's death with the assistance of hired guns. The reputation of the original film and its legendary status kept it from being touched by a remake for decades. But in 2010, Joel and Ethan Coen tried their hand at re-imagining the classic with great success.

Part of what made the reboot so successful was its attempt not to recreate the original but to...

John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara are two legends of Hollywood’s Golden Age who starred in five movies together, the most acclaimed of which is John Ford’s 1952 classic The Quiet Man. Wayne and Irish actor O’Hara first worked together in Ford’s Western romance Rio Grande two years earlier, when their on-screen chemistry quickly became apparent. But it was only with follow-up collaboration The Quiet Man that their acting partnership really came into its own.

The film features a rare comic turn from Wayne as Irish-American boxer “Trooper Thorn” Thornton, who moves to rural Ireland to manage his family’s homestead. O'Hara plays Thornton's love interest, whose brother he must fight in one of John Wayne's best fight scenes to win her hand in marriage. The Duke trades in his usual Stetson hat for a peasant’s flatcap, and his whiskey flask for “one of those black beers,...

Of all the incredible acting collaborations seen throughout the history of Hollywood, the pairing of John Wayne and Maureen OHara stood as one of cinemas greatest. With Waynes reputation as perhaps the best leading man of classic American cinema, and OHaras talent for portraying dynamic and passionate heroines, the two were a match made in heaven and to see them starring opposite one another was always a treat. Wayne and OHara collaborated with legendary filmmaker John Ford on three separate occasions which only added to the legacy of their work with one another.

The movies that starred both Wayne and OHara vary greatly and included fantastic Western team-ups, an idyllic rural romance, and even a slice-of-life laugh-out-loud comedy. Wayne and OHara played to each others strengths and their onscreen chemistry cemented their reputations as box office draws who teamed up five times for more than 20 years. With classic movies together,...

Andrew V. McLaglan's 1963 film "McLintock!" is a loose Western adaptation of William Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" (c. 1592), a problematic play to say the least. The story of Shakespeare's play involves a willful and bitter young woman named Kate who refuses to settle down and get married. This upsets Kate's younger sister Bianca, as she will not be permitted to marry until Kate is married. A man named Petruchio is hired to, as the title says, tame the shrew, transforming an outspoken and willful woman into a dutiful wife. By the end, he does. One can easily see the play's misogynist leanings. Critically speaking, one might be able to see a satire at play, however. Or perhaps it's merely sexist. 

"McLintock!" is equally tetchy, with John Wayne playing the Petruchio role, and Maureen O'Hara playing Kate. The story was altered somewhat to explain that Kate and Petrucho, called G.

“Two smoldering women made all the danger worthwhile!”… heck, we didn’t even see ’em catch fire. John Wayne is charismatic and Andrew V. McLaglen’s direction is decent for once in this formulaic ‘easy listening’ pot-boiler from the Wayne school of laid-back ’60s entertainment. After winning the Vietnam War, our intrepid action man extinguishes 101 out-of-control oil fires, which appear to happen every twenty minutes. When nothing’s burning, there are plenty of domestic tangles to straighten out with the womenfolk. In support are Katharine Ross, Jim Hutton, Vera Miles, Bruce Cabot and Jay C. Flippen. It’s old-fashioned but not embarrassing — Wayne still has his charm.

Hellfighters

Blu-ray

Mill Creek

1968 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 121 min. / Street Date May 4, 2021 / Available from Mill Creek Entertainment / 19.99

Starring: John Wayne, Katharine Ross, Jim Hutton, Vera Miles, Jay C. Flippen, Bruce Cabot, Edward Faulkner, Barbara Stuart, Edmund Hashim, Valentin de Vargas, Frances Fong, Alberto Morin,...

With Lovecraft Country still providing HBO and HBO Max with its horror content through October, the streamer is looking elsewhere for its spooky season offerings. HBO Max’s new releases for October 2020 feature some truly awesome horror library titles.

Jordan Peele’s Us, John Carpenter’s The Thing, and David Fincher’s Se7en all arrive on Oct. 1. That alone should be enough to last you through spooky season. And if it doesn’t, It: Chapter Two is right there as well. October is also a big month for Batman and Superman with Man of Steel arriving on Oct. 1 along with a whole of animated specials dropping that same day.

In relation to the library titles, this isn’t HBO Max’s strongest month from an original perspective. But there is still plenty to like here. The West Wing election special arrives on Oct. 15. That will be followed by David Byrne...

Now At A Reduced Price! Only $61.00 Through Amazon...Original Price Was $149.00- Free Shipping For Prime Members.

Time to put up your Dukes! (DVDs, that is!)

DVD Collection Of 40 Warner And Parmount Films Is Largest John Wayne Box Set Ever

Includes Hours Of Special Features And Remarkable Memorabilia

Amazon Buyers Get Exclusive Wayne Belt Buckle

Here is the original press release from when the set was originally made available:

To commemorate one of America’s most iconic film heroes, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will introduce a comprehensive new DVD set -- John Wayne: The Epic Collection -- on May 20. The spring release, just in time for Father’s Day gift-giving, will contain 38 discs with 40 Wayne films (full list below), including The Searchers, once called one of the most influential movies in American history[1] and the film for which Wayne won his Best Actor Academy Award®, True Grit (1969). The collection...

Turner Classic Movies is a boon for auteurists. Who need a local movie theater when you can just scan TCM’s monthly schedule for directors you want to catch up on? (Or, for the more adventurous, directors you’ve never heard of—part of the simultaneous greatness of and frustration with TCM is their seemingly random hodgepodge programming of great films with utter mediocrity.) I’ve been guilty on many occasions of letting a film by a filmmaker I like pass by—it’s too long, it’s otherwise easy to see, the mood isn’t right, the film sounds like a minor work—and one that I let pass more than any other was John Ford’s 1957 film The Wings of Eagles.Made after The Searchers, given a particularly forgettable title (I keep having to double-check if the film is actually The Eagle’s Wings or On The Wings of Eagles...

Stop! Don't touch that dial... if you like your atom-age propaganda straight up, MGM has the movie for you, an expensive 1946 docu-drama that became 'the official story' for the making of the bomb. The huge cast includes Brian Donlevy, Robert Walker, Tom Drake, Audrey Totter, Hume Cronyn, Hurd Hatfield, and Joseph Calleia. How trustworthy is the movie? It begins by showing footage of a time capsule being buried -- that supposedly contains the film we are watching. Think about that. Mom, Apple Pie, the Flag and God are enlisted to argume that we should stop worrying and love the fact that bombs are just peachy-keen dandy. The Beginning or the End DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1947 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 112 min. / Street Date September 22, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Brian Donlevy, Robert Walker, Tom Drake, Beverly Tyler, Audrey Totter, Hume Cronyn, Hurd Hatfield, Joseph Calleia, Godfrey Tearle, Victor Francen,...

Maureen O'Hara: Queen of Technicolor. Maureen O'Hara movies: TCM tribute Veteran actress and Honorary Oscar recipient Maureen O'Hara, who died at age 95 on Oct. 24, '15, in Boise, Idaho, will be remembered by Turner Classic Movies with a 24-hour film tribute on Friday, Nov. 20. At one point known as “The Queen of Technicolor” – alongside “Eastern” star Maria Montez – the red-headed O'Hara (born Maureen FitzSimons on Aug. 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, County Dublin) was featured in more than 50 movies from 1938 to 1971 – in addition to one brief 1991 comeback (Chris Columbus' Only the Lonely). Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne Setting any hint of modesty aside, Maureen O'Hara wrote in her 2004 autobiography (with John Nicoletti), 'Tis Herself, that “I was the only leading lady big enough and tough enough for John Wayne.” Wayne, for his part, once said (as quoted in 'Tis Herself): There's only one woman who has been my friend over the...

From the AP:

Maureen O’Hara, the flame-haired Irish movie star who appeared in classics ranging from the grim “How Green Was My Valley” to the uplifting “Miracle on 34th Street” and bantered unforgettably with John Wayne in several films. She was 95.

O’Hara died in her sleep at her home in Boise, Idaho, said Johnny Nicoletti, her longtime manager.

O’Hara received an Honorary Award at the 2014 Governors Awards.

“She passed peacefully surrounded by her loving family as they celebrated her life listening to music from her favorite movie, ‘The Quiet Man,'” said a statement from her family.

“As an actress, Maureen O’Hara brought unyielding strength and sudden sensitivity to every role she played. Her characters were feisty and fearless, just as she was in real life. She was also proudly Irish and spent her entire lifetime sharing her heritage and the wonderful culture of the Emerald Isle with the world,...

Spanish director José Luis Guerín is best known in the States for his pseudo-fictional love letter to women-watching In the City of Sylvia, but in fact is a prolific documentary filmmaker and has brought with him to Locarno the lovely and elegant pseudo-documentary L’Accademia delle Muse. Playful and clever as ever, Guerín has collaborated with Professor Raffaele Pinto and several actresses, perhaps students, to stage a false course in philology. The class, populated almost entirely by women, discusses the nature, influence and meaning of muses in poetry, and what starts as seemingly a documentary on this classroom, its teacher and a few select students, subtly evolves into a drama of words and unseen actions.The issues at stake as discourse in the class—what desire means, if it has to be sexual, the difference between a woman and a muse, how a lover influences the beloved and vice versa...

This year's poster for the Vienna International Film Festival is of a flame, and while around the world in other cinema-loving cities and at other cinema-loving festivals one might that that as a cue for a celluloid immolation and a move forever to digital, here in Austria cinema and film as film aren't burning up but rather are burning brightly.

The tributes and special programs in artistic director Hans Hurch's 2014 edition make this position clear: John Ford, Harun Farocki and 16mm, with new films by Tariq Teguia, Jean-Luc Godard, and Jean-Marie Straub accompanying older ones by the same directors. These aren't just retrospectives, they are revitalizing redoubts, inexhaustible fountains of flame, of sensitivity, of consciousness, and of intervention. With such a profound retrospective program, I hope you'll forgive me telling you very little of anything new at the festival; unless, that is, you like me count cinema revived as something always new.

Veterans Day movies on TCM: From 'The Sullivans' to 'Patton' (photo: George C. Scott in 'Patton') This evening, Turner Classic Movies is presenting five war or war-related films in celebration of Veterans Day. For those outside the United States, Veterans Day is not to be confused with Memorial Day, which takes place in late May. (Scroll down to check out TCM's Veterans Day movie schedule.) It's good to be aware that in the last century alone, the U.S. has been involved in more than a dozen armed conflicts, from World War I to the invasion of Iraq, not including direct or indirect military interventions in countries as disparate as Iran, Guatemala, and Chile. As to be expected in a society that reveres people in uniform, American war movies have almost invariably glorified American soldiers even in those rare instances when they have dared to criticize the military establishment.

Maureen O'Hara movies: 2014 Honorary Oscar for Hollywood legend (photo: Maureen O'Hara at the 2014 Governors Awards) In the photo above, the movies' Maureen O'Hara, 2014 Honorary Oscar recipient for her body of work, arrives with a couple of guests at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 2014 Governors Awards. This year's ceremony is being held this Saturday evening, November 8, in the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood. For the last couple of years, Maureen O'Hara has been a Boise, Idaho, resident. Before that, the 94-year-old movie veteran -- born Maureen FitzSimons, on August, 17, 1920, in Dublin -- had been living in Ireland. Below is a brief recap of her movies. Maureen O'Hara movies: From Charles Laughton to John Wayne Following her leading-lady role in Alfred Hitchcock's British-made Jamaica Inn, starring Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara arrived in Hollywood in 1939 to play the gypsy Esmeralda opposite Laughton in William Dieterle...

Amazon's best-selling titled "John Wayne: The Epic Collection" is on sale this week at an astounding 54% off. That means you save $80 on this massive DVD collector's set that includes 38 of the Duke's classic movies. Also included are bonus collectibles and a Duke belt buckle available exclusively through this Amazon deal.

Below is the original press release from Warner Home Video pertaining to the set's debut on Father's Day.

Burbank, Calif., February 24, 2014 -- To commemorate one of America’s most iconic film heroes, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will introduce a comprehensive new DVD set -- John Wayne: The Epic Collection -- on May 20. The spring release, just in time for Father’s Day gift-giving ($149.98 Srp), will contain 38 discs with 40 Wayne films (full list below), including The Searchers, once called one of the most influential movies in American history[1] and the film for which Wayne won his Best Actor Academy...

There is no studio that times their releases more perfectly than Warner Bros. Around the end-of-year holidays there will be gift sets for films like “Elf” and “Willy Wonka.” Near Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, you can expect gift-appropriate releases.

And, of course, they always bring out the war movies and Westerns for Father’s Day in June. This year’s gift idea is a beauty, a massive 40-film, career-spanning set of films starring the legendary John Wayne. From 1932’s “Big Stampede” to 1976’s “The Shootist,” there’s a bit of everything for Wayne fans in here, but more for those who like war movies and Westerns.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

We don’t need to go through them all but highlights include “Rio Bravo,” “El Dorado,” “The Searchers,” “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” “True Grit,” “How the West Was Won,” “Fort Apache,” “Donovan’s Reef,” and “Hatari!” Some Wayne...

Wallace Beery movies: TCM offers a glimpse into Beery’s extensive filmography (photo: Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery in ‘Min and Bill’) According to the IMDb, the Wallace Beery Filmography features nearly 240 movie titles, including shorts and features, spanning more than three decades, from 1913 to 1949 — the year of his death at age 64. You’ll be able to catch about a dozen of these Wallace Beery movies on Saturday, August 17, 2013, as Turner Classic Movies continues with its "Summer Under the Stars" series. (See “TCM movie schedule: Wallace Beery from Pancho Villa to Long John Silver.”) Wallace Beery, much like fellow veteran Marie Dressler, with whom he co-starred in Min and Bill and its sequel, Tugboat Annie, was a Hollywood anomaly. At age 45, the ugly, coarse-looking actor became a top box-office draw in the United States after languishing in supporting roles, usually playing villains, throughout most of the silent era. Beery and Dressler,...

The Independence Day weekend on TV means what it always does: Fireworks shows on the broadcast networks, hot dog-eating on Espn and a whole bunch of all-day marathons on cable.

Here's a rundown of some of the highlights from the long weekend.

Fireworks

- "The Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular" on CBS features host Craig Ferguson and a performance by Toby Keith. 10 p.m. Et Sunday (July 4).

Justin Bieber and members of the "Twilight: Eclipse" cast make the "Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular," hosted by Alison Sweeney and Nick Cannon, the most squeeee!-worthy of the July 4 specials. Enrique Iglesias and LeAnn Rimes will be there too. It's at 9 p.m. Sunday on NBC.

Jimmy Smits hosts "A Capitol Fourth" on PBS from Washington, featuring former "American Idol" finalist David Archuleta, Gladys Knight, Reba McEntire and Darius Rucker. Check local listings.

Food

- The 95th annual Nathan's Famous International Hot...