My Favorite John Wayne Movie
Sunday afternoon. Bored out of my gourd. The Bills are playing New England in a game that has minimal meaning for the Patriots and none for the Bills. The Jets are playing Miami for no other reason than it is on the schedule. So I start flipping through the channels when much to my delight I find that –on TCM–my favorite John Wayne movie is about to start.“The Searchers” was released in 1956. It was directed by John Ford who had a hand in several other Wayne movies and co-starred Jeffrey Hunter and Natalie Wood. It has achieved “classic” status over the years and been voted the best “western” movie ever by several film organizations. I love it because it depicts Wayne as a very complex and conflicted character in a role where he played someone other than “John Wayne”. For more information about this great–and I use that word sparingly–film click here.
By the way, several times during the movie Wayne’s character “Ethan” utters the phrase “That’ll be the day”, a phrase that inspired the late Buddy Holly to write a classic song of the same name.
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