Movie Night: ***McLintock! (1963)

This is a classic John Wayne movie.  It also stars Maureen O'Hara.  It is a Western remaking of the "Taming of the Shrew."  It tells the story of a cattle ranching area accepting into the community homesteaders.  G.W.'s (McLintock) wife left him a couple years earlier, but has returned to petition for divorce, and to take their daughter with her to the territorial capital.  G.W. refuses.  He is still not sure why she left, but things are not right between them.
Things are also not right between the Native Americans and the area settlers, and the government.  They have released the chiefs of the Comanche, but want them to move to a different reservation.  There is a negotiation, which was decided before the hearing, that the move had to take place.  The Native Americans saw they will not go, and would rather die in battle.
Add to this is the courtship of their daughter, with a college educated dandy, versus a young man her father has hired.  This movie has lots of nice characters, but the two that sparkle ware G.W. and his wife.  In fact it boils over with a good beating in the end.  The chase scene, on foot no less, with G.W. in pursuit is a classic.
These events take place around the town of McLintock.  We see the Fourth of July celebration with races and games and dances.  There is the city fight in the mud.  McLintock helps the Indians to escape, with the hopes of forcing an investigation, and thereby exposes the poor treatment they have received from the governor and the agent.
Drawbacks to this movie are the caricature of an elderly Native American as a drunk always looking for a party with whiskey.  There are also portrayals of white individuals with drinking issues, including McLintock, but not as caricatured.  Also I do not condone spousal abuse. (It was a different era.)

Movie Night: ****Hondo, John Wayne

Hondo

This is a John Wayne from 1953 and is available through Instant Netflix.  This is a very enjoyable movie. Geraldine Page is the costar.  She as Angie Lowe has been abandoned by her husband and lives with her son in Indian Territory.  She is confident she will not have trouble, but the Apache are on the war path due to broken treaties.  However she is right, the Apache mean her no harm, but only because the Apache chief befriends her son, who reminds him in spirit of his own sons who have been killed, and who he adopts as a son.  Hondo (Wayne)  had visited the ranch, carrying dispatches for the army.  He leaves the army and goes back to make sure she is OK.  Meanwhile Hondo is bushwhacked by her husband, how is killed by Hondo.  A love interest develops between the two.  She tells the chief Hondo is her husband, saving his life from the Apache.   How can he love a woman, after he has killed her husband?  What price should you pay for happiness?  This story gets more intense when the chief is killed, and then the Apache no longer hold her and her son in favor.  The only complaint may be the number of violent deaths, mostly of Native Americans.

Movie Night: ****^True Grit (1969, John Wayne)

This movie is a true classic.  John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn won an Oscar.  Glen Campbell stars as Texas Ranger La Boeuf and also sings the theme song.  And Kim Darbie as Mattie Ross, whose father has been murdered, round out the team.  You have to admire the grit of all three of the characters going after the murderer Tom Chaney.  Chaney is hooked with a bunch of other bad men, lead by Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall).  Cogburn and Mattie Ross are not a match made in heaven, but find each other paired together on a dangerous journey into Indian Territory.  Cogburn is a rough man, and drinks too much.  Mattie too is a stubborn person.  La Boeuf is interested in Chaney for a previous murder in Texas, and for reward money.  Wayne's vinegar and sauce won him the Oscar, but Darbie could just have easily been nominated.  Her character is very strong.  This is Wayne at his best, and a great movie.  In the end it is La Boeuf who saves everyone.  Oh I hate rattle snakes.

To the Movies/ Movie Night: ***Three Musketeers, ***Mansfield Park, ***^Sons of Katie ElderPark,

Tony and I went to see Three Musketeers at the Marketplace Theater.  It was fun.  Tony was interested in seeing the sword play, and was not disappointed.  The story was very repetitive in comparison to other versions of the same story.  The only addition was the flying ships, which really added some fun to the story.  They had two men-of-war, which were attached to dirigibles, and had a fine battle.  This movie is worth seeing just for the battle between these two vessels.  However other than that the story has been told before.

Mansfield Park is the Billie Piper version which I got from Netflix mail.  I liked Billie Piper in Doctor Who and she is very good in this as well.  The story as told in this PBC WGBH Boston version loses some of the periphery stuff, and is much more directly a love story between Fannie and Edmond.  I missed the story line of the slaves, but really it did keep the movie focused on the main characters.

Lastly The Sons of Katie Elder is an old John Wayne, who is always good.  There is a scene where John Wayne is shooting his two six shooters much like Rooster Cogburn in True Grit.  I guess this was a rehearsal.  It reminds one of the importance of family, and not forgetting those who are older, even when we are moved out and doing our own thing.