Westerns seduce us into seeing how mere mortals become heroes, how boys become men.
Nancy Schoenberger, Wayne and Ford
Schoenberger confesses to having a "John Wayne problem," meaning not just that she is a big John Wayne fan but that she has from girlhood admired the kind of hero John Wayne so often portrays, especially in those many films, mostly westerns, directed by Ford. Such heroes are not universally admired by modern, feminist women, but this author begs to differ. She explains why in her fine book.
Wayne was a college boy when he began working for Ford, mostly moving sets and doing an occasional stunt. Before Ford recognized Wayne's onscreen potential, another director signed him to star in some cheap westerns made for boys. Ford refused to speak to the young actor for a decade, apparently as punishment for what he considered disloyalty, but these years gave Wayne time to mature into the physical presence that helped make him a star in Ford films.
Stagecoach was the first of these, and Schoenberger devotes much attention to this great film in which Wayne plays, as she puts it, "a good bad man." Later she discusses the 7th Cavalry movies and the other films, although surprisingly she has relatively little to say about The Quiet Man, surely one of the pair's best films. But the author's focus falls mostly on the westerns.
The book is as much biography as film study, and she tells us about Ford's drinking problem (between films), his apparent homosexuality and his bullying abuse of his stars (including both Wayne and Maureen O'Hara). Wayne admired Ford too much to be too troubled by the harsh treatment he received, but he had other worries, including his difficult marriages and his money problems. Later came the cancer that would eventually kill him.
Schenberger shows us two flawed, you might even say weak, individuals who nevertheless managed to construct an ideal of what a real hero should look like.
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