Reeling Backward: "The Last Hurrah" (1958)

Despite being so closely associated with Westerns and, to a lesser extent, war/adventure films, John Ford did in fact make straight-up dramas -- and even a romance or two. "The Last Hurrah," a box office disappointment that has been largely forgotten today, is the unlikeliest of John Ford pictures: a political drama.

The story is still a familiar archetype we often saw with Ford's John Wayne collaborations: an aging leader/loner looks back on his life with both pride and regret, and resolves to ride off into the sunset doing what he knows best. Instead of a gunslinger, though, Spencer Tracy's protagonist is Frank Skeffington, mayor of an unnamed New England city who is running for his fifth term in office.

Frank had previously been governor, too, so it seems apparent to everyone but him that he has nothing left to prove. But Frank has been running things for so long that he can't imagine ever giving up the reins of power willingly. He enjoys charging about town in a Cadillac limousine equipped with a police siren so he can run all the red lights, a small group of loyal henchmen always at his side.

Despite telling his nephew, Adam Caulfield (Jeffrey Hunter), that this will be his final campaign, a "last hurrah" -- pronounced "hoo-RAH" in New Englandese -- we suspect that if he had won Frank would be saying the same thing again four years down the road.

Spoiler alert: Frank loses the election in the end. And not just to a talented up-and-comer, but to a spectacularly unqualified young nimrod put up by the bankers, church leaders and newspaper publishers who have dogged him for decades. It's the ultimate humiliation, and Frank succumbs to a heart attack soon after.

Still, this is an ending comparable to the cowboy shootist dying in the ultimate gunfight: he may lose, but he goes out on his own terms.

Frank, lying abed clinging to his last moments of life, is visited by one of his longtime enemies who opines that maybe the old politician, having just made his last confession, would have done things different if he could. "Like hell I would," Frank bleats, opening his eyes just long enough for one last act of defiance.

Frank has lived with a chip on his shoulder his whole life, and it became his defining trait. Born in the town's Irish-Americans slums, he crawled and scraped his way up the ladder, using charm and grit in place of money and prestige. The old Yankee bluebloods who controlled the city's levers of power for centuries resent the Irish upstarts -- just as their children will one day resent the browner wave of newcomers.

The screenplay by Frank S. Nugent was based on the book by Edwin O'Connor, who didn't take much trouble to hide the fact it was a portrait of Boston mayor James Michael Curley, a notorious crook. He served four terms as mayor, including five months of his last while in prison for mail fraud.

Curley was out of politics but still alive when "The Last Hurrah" came out. He threatened the studio, not because he worried about an unflattering portrait but because he harbored delusions of selling the rights to his life for a biographical movie. Columbia Pictures paid him $25,000 to go away -- one last grift for the shady pol.

The film takes pains not to depict Frank as explicitly corrupt. We never witness him using his powers for evil or self-interested ends, though he's not above a little old-fashioned light blackmail.

In one instance, he persuades a prominent banker (Basil Rathbone) to release loans for a new low-income housing development by pretending to appoint his idiot son (O.Z. Whitehead, complete with a spectacular lisp) as fire marshal, threatening to release photographs of him looking ridiculous in a white firefighter's hat and yachting outfit.

Still, Frank lives in a magnificent mansion that would seem out of sorts with a public servant's salary. (Mayors did not usually have official residences back in that day -- Curley did not, and his ostentatious abode was the subject of much controversy.) Frank also thinks nothing of throwing a $1,000 gift (disguised as coming from his deceased wife) to a new widow whose husband left her in a poor state.

The story doesn't say much about Frank's politics or positions, though it's pretty clear he's a Democrat Catholic while the bluebloods are Republicans and largely Protestant. In the few bits of dialogue relating directly to his acts as mayor, Frank references different statues that competing constituencies wanted to place in a prominent spot, and he compromised by picking a female saint.

Frank's biggest nemesis is Amos Force (John Carradine), publisher of the chief local newspaper; the men openly despise each other with a lifetime's worth of enmity. It seems Amos fired Frank's mother when she worked for him as a maid, "stealing" a few pieces of leftover fruit. Frank can't let go of the affront, and Amos can't believe someone so low rose so high.

This complicates things with Adam, Frank's nephew, since he is the star sports columnist for that same newspaper. Frank invites him to follow him along during his last campaign, not as a journalist but an adored relative. The reasoning is never provided, though I might surmise he hopes to rope Adam into going into the family business someday.

Certainly his own son will not. Frank Jr. (Arthur Walsh) is a happy-go-lucky playboy who seems to do little more than go on dates with girls -- two at a time, even -- and seek out hot bebop music. It's clear how disappointed Frank is in his son, though he takes pains not to show it to the kid.

Adam's character is really a piece of storytelling furniture that never goes anywhere. He doesn't actually seem to follow along during the campaign very much, and his few scenes away from the action detract from the goings-on. He has arguments with his wife, Maeve (Dianne Foster), over father's contempt for Frank.

His only really interesting interaction is when he leaves a funeral in a huff, upset that Frank's presence attracted hundreds of people to the wake of a man who, by all accounts, had few friends and was an ungrateful skinflint. But someone points outs to him that even though Frank effectively turns the funeral into a political event, it's better than the widow having to grieve in an empty room.

The various side characters and hangers-on are a motley bunch of comic stereotypes. There's "Cuke" Gillen (James Gleason) and John Gorman (Pat O'Brien), hard-nosed types and old-school ward heelers who know how to grease some palms and get the vote out.

By far the most colorful is "Ditto" Boland (Edward Brophy), a bald little dynamo of obsequiousness, who always refers to the mayor as "His Honor" and seems to serve no other function than to follow Frank around, fetch and tote, and mellow out the old man's volatile moods. He even buys a peaked hat identical to the boss', which they refer to as a "hamburger."

Charles B. Fitzsimons plays the election opponent, Kevin McCluskey, a war veteran and family man who looks good so long as he doesn't open up his hole. In one hilarious bit, they shoot a live TV promo depicting his family life. His wife is so camera-struck she reads her lines woodenly from a cue card, and a mutt brought in from the dog pound to round out the portrait won't stop barking.

Tracy is comfortable and cantankerous in the role, showing us a man who is genuinely great but also ridden with flaws and faults. He's a brilliant retail politician, eschewing radio and TV for old-fashioned rallies and pressing of the flesh. But Frank has trouble seeing the forest for the trees, looking at the odds stacked up against him and seeing them as just more obstacles to be overcome rather than bellwethers pointing him toward a comfortable, content retirement.

One of the best lessons I've learned later in life is that everything has a beginning, middle and end. The start is usually a struggle, so when you get to the middle you revel in it so much it's often very hard to see the end staring you in the face. When you let your experiences define you, rather than the other way round, the letdown becomes inevitable.

Reeling Backward: "Sergeant Rutledge" (1960)

"Said the private to the sergeant, 'Tell me, Sergeant, if you can,
Did you ever see a mountain come a-walking like a man?'
Said the sergeant to the private, 'You're a rookie, ain't you though?
Or else you'd be a-recognizing Captain Buffalo.'"

A few years before he made "Cheyenne Autumn," which was widely perceived as his apology to Native Americans for their barbaric portrayal in his films, director John Ford made another movie that attempted to nudge the Western genre a little closer toward modern sensibilities -- this time on America's treatment of African-Americans.

Released a month before the book "To Kill a Mockingbird" was published and two years before its iconic cinematic adaptation, "Sergeant Rutledge" has surprisingly similar themes and storytelling structure.

It's about a black U.S. Cavalry sergeant played by Woody Strode who is accused of raping and killing a young white girl. The accusations rile up the community in and around the military fort, many of whose members demand an immediate lynching.

As with "Mockingbird," the story is framed around a heroic white protagonist defending him at trial -- in this case Jeffrey Hunter as Lt. Tom Cantrell. All of the film's posters and other publicity materials featured Hunter with Strode in a secondary role, with Constance Towers as Cantrell's love interest often overshadowing the titular character.

It's a well-meaning film that's often a bit stiff and predictable. Rutledge's innocence is never really in doubt, and his exoneration arrives in the last minutes in a twist so out of left field it registers as a deus ex machina resolution.

Still, "Rutledge" actually bests "Mockingbird" in one regard in that 1st Sergeant Braxton Rutledge manages to stand on his own as a flesh-and-blood character, whereas Tom Robinson remains little more than a vessel for racial injustice, a conveyance mechanism for allaying white guilt.

"Rutledge" represents the pinnacle of Strode's unlikely acting career, which was largely defined by his herculean physique and stoic presence. For those who don't know, he was an Olympic decathlete, starred on the same UCLA Bruins football team with Jackie Robinson and was one of the two first black NFL players.

His arresting appearance lent him to many villainous roles -- including famously fighting Tarzan on three occasions. He and Ford remained personally very close from the 1950s onward, and Strode even served as Ford's caretaker during the great director's final years, sleeping for months at a time on his floor.

(An anecdote that only underscores uncomfortable racial power dynamics in some observers' eyes, I'm sure.)

Like other actors who came from the sports/bodybuilding sphere -- Steve Reeves, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc. -- Strode was not the most subtle or emotive performer around. His career was largely defined by the polarities of intimidating stillness and energetic action -- one often preceding the other. Strode was rarely asked to speak a lot of words or convey a great deal of nonverbal information; his mere presence spoke enough.

His limitations as an actor do pull "Rutledge" down somewhat, particularly during his early scenes where Rutledge rescues Mary Beecher (Towers), a young woman returning to the Arizona frontier after a dozen years away. They're waylaid by Indians at the lonely train depot, and Rutledge is injured while protecting Mary. He strips off his uniform -- why hire a chiseled bod if you're not going to show it off, the thinking must go -- in a scene that is intended to heighten white audiences' discomfort about miscegenation. The whole sequence is just clanky and odd.

Later it's revealed that Rutledge was running AWOL from his post after killing his commanding officer. The officer's teen daughter (Toby Michaels) was found naked and dead next to him, leading to the presumption that Rutledge assaulted and murdered the girl, her father stumbled upon the scene and was killed himself.

Most of the story -- screenplay by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck -- takes place during Rutledge's court martial trial with flashbacks to the events. Lt. Cantrell, as Rutledge's immediate superior, is charged with defending him while the slimy Capt. Shattuck (Carleton Young) is the bloodthirsty prosecution. Shattuck is ostensibly a cavalryman but is really -- *shudder* -- a career attorney.

The various testimony, including a stint where Cantrell himself takes a turn on the witness stand, establishes that after being captured by Cantrell and his squad, Rutledge heroically defends his fellow buffalo soldiers during skirmishes with Indians. After initially riding off when given the chance, he returns to the ranks to warn the cavalry about an ambush awaiting them.

The other black soldiers of the 9th U.S. Cavalry -- part of the storied Buffalo Soldiers -- absolutely revere Rutledge as the highest-ranking NCO among them, referring to him as "Top Soldier," even after his disgrace. The high point of the film is when the unit, bloodied and fearing further attack, sings to Rutledge as he stands watch over them, likening him to the mythological "Captain Buffalo" who is their ideal and patron saint.

They act as a sort of Greek chorus, not unlike the black townsfolk witnessing Tom's trial from the balcony in "Mockingbird."

Willis Bouchey plays Otis Fosgate, the Cavalry Colonel overseeing the court martial. He's portrayed as a bumptious figure, sneaking gulps of whiskey during the trial and calling for recesses so he and his fellow officers of the court can smoke and play whiskey in the adjoining room. Still, he seems committed to affording Rutledge a fair trial, or at least a fair as one as a black NCO can receive in 1881.

Billie Burke has the comic relief role as Fosgate's wife, Cordelia, a presumptuous old biddy who manages to ensconce herself in the front row during the trial, even after the colonel has ordered the courtroom cleared. The pair seem to be having their own offscreen war going on, with little peeks of how the conflict we see will lead to further contretemps behind closed doors.

The other notable supporting role is Juano Hernandez as Sgt. Matthew Luke Skidmore, the oldest member of the cavalry regiment and the highest-ranking NCO after Rutledge. He leads the reverential lionizing of Rutledge, while being more realistic about his chances for justice. During his testimony it's revealed that Skidmore must be over 70 years of age, though he doesn't know for certain himself, given his birth as a slave.

"Sergeant Rutledge" is a decent film and certainly a well-meaning one, but it's repeatedly undermined by the awkward introduction of humor, seemingly for no other reason than to keep things light, and the intrusion of a completely unnecessary romance. Cantrell and Mary are destined to wind up together, if for only the reason that he repeatedly refers to her as "the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."

Stiff as he is, Strode does get to deliver one great speech as he takes the stand and breaks down about why he ran away twice, and why he chose to return, knowing the almost certain fatal punishment he would face. He calls the Cavalry the only place he's ever felt like more than the freed slave that he is:

"It was because the Ninth Cavalry was my home, my real freedom, and my self-respect, and the way I was deserting it, I wasn't ... nothing worse than a swamp-running nigger, and I ain't that! Do you hear me? I'm a man!"

It's a great moment, and I'm glad Woody Strode got to have at least one like it during his long career.

Reeling Backward: "Cheyenne Autumn" (1964)

I was surprised by how inert and ineffective "Cheyenne Autumn" is. I've been meaning to catch up with it for years and came away quite disappointed from the experience.

The film is seminal for a couple of reasons: it was John Ford's last Western, and it was pretty much the first deliberate attempt by Hollywood to cast American Indians in a positive light, showing how they were ill-used by the American government as it expanded into the West.

It's based on a real bit of history, the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878-79, during which hundreds of native people left the harsh, arid reservation land that had been set aside for them and traveled more than 1,000 miles north to their ancestral home. There were several skirmishes with the U.S. military along the way, and newspapers of the day portrayed it as a rampaging army of Indians on the warpath.

In truth, they were largely elderly, women and children, and posed no threat to anyone unless their trek was opposed.

The movie was actually based on two novels, "The Last Frontier" by Howard Fast and "Cheyenne Autumn" by Mari Sandoz, though only the latter received a screen credit. Screenwriter James L. Webb had recently won an Oscar for another Western, "How the West Was Won," of which Ford directed one of the five sequences. They ended up reusing a lot of the same talent for this picture, including stars Richard Widmark and Carroll Baker, Webb and Ford.

"Cheyenne" can't quite decide who is its main character. Its heart seems to lie with the Indians, particularly Little Wolf and Dull Knife, the two main leaders of the Northern Cheyenne tribe. They're played by Ricardo Montalban and Gilbert Roland, respectively, both actors of Mexican heritage. Italian-American Sal Mineo plays Dull Knife's hot-headed son, Red Shirt. Most of the other Cheyenne are played by Navajo, and speak in their own language during the film.

But Widmark is put front and center as Capt. Thomas Archer, a fictional Army officer assigned to make them stay put, and later pursue them after they begin their exodus. He's a sympathetic figure torn between his military obligations and his own recognition of the suffering of the Cheyenne. Baker plays Deborah Wright, a Quaker devoted to educating the Indian children who ends up tagging along on their quest.

Their tepid romance is barely sketched in the early part of the film, then quietly tucked away for the rest. There isn't even a big reunion scene and kiss at the end. They have a little cheeky repartee, addressing each other as "Friend Deborah" and "Friend Thomas" in the Quaker way.

The movie's pacing staggers this way and that, an occasional fight scene between the Cheyenne and Army with lots of talking in between. Archer tries to convince his superiors to show the Cheyenne more respect and restraint, but it falls on deaf ears. Eventually he takes his case directly to the Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schurz (Edward G. Robinson).

Karl Malden has a small but vigorous role as an Army officer who imprisons the Cheyenne on orders, leaving them to freeze and starve to death in a warehouse because he's too afraid to take other action without authorization. The character refers to himself as a Russian, though his accent sounds more German to these ears. Perhaps we'll be generous and say Malden was going for Prussian, and leave it at that.

Patrick Wayne, son of John, has a small part as an impetuous young officer Archer has to continually reprimand. John Carradine turns up in Dodge City as a gambling gentleman.

The music by Alex North is quite good, but often too obtrusive. There's an opening piece and an intermission that is probably unnecessary.

By far the biggest problem with the film is the Dodge City sequence. It arrives just before the intermission, and completely rips the audience out of the story of the Cheyenne.

It stars Jimmy Stewart as Wyatt Earp and Arthur Kennedy as Doc Holiday, portrayed here as peevish, aging gamblers who have taken up the offices of sheriff and deputy simply to allow them to sit in the saloon and play cards all day. They want nothing to do with the Cheyenne "horde" passing nearby, and Earp even contrives to lead the ad-hoc force of vengeful vigilantes in a different direction.

It's a weird, weird sequence that belongs in another movie. It's completely comedic in tone, right down to a saloon wench losing her dress and some vagrant cowpunchers getting one-upped by the wily Wyatt. One wonders what Ford and Webb were thinking including it in the film, especially seeing as the original cut was creeping up on three hours -- Ford's longest movie.

Indeed, after being initially released in theaters the Dodge City section was cut out, and wisely so. Most modern versions on video include it, to the detriment of the overall experience. This is where the "chapter skip" button comes in handy.

"Cheyenne Autumn" is undeniably a magnificent-looking film, shot largely in Ford's beloved Monument Valley with widescreen and lots of vivid colors. Cinematographer William H. Clothier deservedly received the film's sole Academy Award nomination.

At the time of its release, John Ford publicly declared "Cheyenne Autumn" to be an elegy for the Native American. It says something of the man that during his lifetime he came to recognize that his own work bore a great deal of responsibility for the popular depiction of Indians as whooping savages, and it was something he regretted.

He tried to get the movie made for years without success. When he finally did, it was his longest and most expensive project, and one of the few that was a commercial failure. Ill health and a lack of confidence from the studios resulted in Ford only completing one other feature film.

It's such a shame that one of the greatest movie directors ended his career on such a sour note. John Ford's song of regret for the Indian, while noble in purpose, is a discordant and dull affair.

Reeling Backward: "Up the River" (1930)

Yes, John Ford again. I recently did a double feature of Frank Sinatra films in this space, so I figure there's no harm in doing it again with another artist.

"Up the River" was not Ford's first feature film, or even his first sound film. He made dozens of silent features starting in 1917, most of which have not survived the ages. "River" is notable mostly for having the first screen credits for Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart.

(Though both had appeared briefly in uncredited roles prior.)

This largely unheralded body of work represented John Ford's training ground, as he learned the craft of filmmaking, studied other directors' work, found his ethos as an artist and started to build his famous stable of pet actors. It was he who recommended both Bogie and Tracy to the studio, but they were both dropped after this film was made. (And surely regretted it in perpetuity.)

It was the only time Ford and Bogart ever worked together, and it would be nearly three decades before he and Tracy teamed up to make a film again.

It's a wacky comedy about a bunch of jailbirds, busting in and out of prison, falling in love and whatnot. It's rather amusing, a parade of broad caricatures and easy jokes, though if it weren't for the two main stars I doubt the film would be much remembered.

There are no pristine prints of "Up the River" surviving, so watching it takes some patience. It's scratchy and poppy, with a lot of distracting marks and missing frames. Dialogue will cut out in the middle of a scene and pick up half a sentence later, so it's helpful to watch with subtitles to track the missing words.

Bogart plays Steve, the good-hearted young kid doing a short stretch after making a bad choice. It's hard to think of Bogie as a youngster, even a little disconcerting. Tracy too, though he didn't physically change much from young to old, just getting a little grayer and thicker.

Some Hollywood stars remain stuck in time, at least in our minds. Spencer Tracy is forever the sage father figure; Julia Roberts will always be the sprightly ingenue.

Humphrey Bogart seemed born in early middle age and only went a little further. But he once was a smooth-faced, sharp-jawed stripling, as in this film.

Steve comes from a well-to-do family in New England, and they don't even know he's in prison. His family believes he's working in China, and he even has friends there who send fake correspondence from time to time. While working as an interviewer for incoming inmates, he meets Judy (Claire Luce), a 21-year-old who got sucked up into the rackets by Frosby (Gaylord Pendleton), an older crook who passes himself off as a fine gentleman.

In one of those things that only happens in the movies, Steve and Judy fall irrevocably in love after just two meetings totaling perhaps five minutes. They make plans to get married after they get out, start at the "bottom rung of the ladder," and become respectable again. Frosby tries to put the kibosh on that by moving into Steve's hometown, threatening to brow his cover as an ex-con if he doesn't play ball.

Tracy plays "St. Louis" -- that's the only name he ever goes by; I assume it's a nickname but since even the warden calls him that, we'll never know. He's a dapper career criminal who's a celebrity among convicts and lawmen alike. The opening scene shows him escaping from a state prison along with his sidekick, Dannemora Dan (Warren Hymer), a cigar-chomping dimwit with a good heart.

Those two stage another escape in order to go help Steve out. This culminates in a prison variety show in which St. Louis performs a knife-throwing act on a very nervous Dan. When the lights go out, they dress up as women and sneak out with the wealthy benefactors who came to watch the show.

This sequence includes the incredibly painful spectacle of two white actors performing in blackface as "Black & Blue," an aw-shucksin' pair in the Amos and Andy mold. In the middle of this travesty, Ford even cuts away to a closeup of an African-American prisoner in the front year screaming in hysterics at the act. I realize this was simply how many folks felt back then, but it's still tough to watch.

The script, by Marine Dallas Watkins, contains a lot of pratfalls and other vaudevillian slapstick comedy of the era. It is notable for the naturalistic acting of Tracy and Bogart. We even get a preview of Bogie's famous clenched-jaw grimace, which he would later go on to express depths of pain in noir and romantic films of the 1940s and '50s.

This was very much an era in which cinema was seen as an offshoot of the legitimate theater; the credits still use the term "the players" in introducing the cast. Ford and other pioneers of the advent of sound pictures started to move away from that very stiff, formal style of acting.

While modern audiences might have a tough time sitting through "Up the River," for both aesthetic and moral reasons, it's an energetic and amusing film for its era. And it launched a trio of Hollywood giants.

Reeling Backward: "When Willie Came Marching Home" (1950)

In 1950 John Ford was already a revered filmmaker, becoming the first person to win back-to-back Oscars for directing. But he was about to commence a darker and, I think, richer period of his career, marked by more pessimistic films that cast a gimlet eye at man's capacities for good and evil -- "The Searchers," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "Cheyenne Autumn," etc.

So what to make of this goofy piffle, starring largely forgotten comedian/song-and-dance man Dan Dailey, which came out the same year as "Rio Grande" and "Wagon Master?" Think of "When Willie Comes Marching Home" as the fruity apéritif before a sumptuous banquet. Though it's certainly a minor entry in the Ford oeuvre, it shows off his undervalued capacity for humor and warmth.

"Willie" was a war comedy at a time when American audiences were just getting enough distance from World War II to milk it for laughs. Dailey plays Bill Kluggs, a cutup in the finest Rodney Dangerfield "can't get no respect" tradition.

Celebrated for being the first man in Punxsutawney, West Virginia, to enlist after Pearl Harbor -- which is odd, since all he accomplished was being first in a line -- Bill becomes a punchline when he's assigned as a gunnery instructor at the local airfield.

The guy who was supposed to become a bona fide war hero essentially never leaves town, and is branded a coward as other boys go off to war, fight and die. There's even a running Chaplinesque gag of a scruffy little dog biting Bill's leg as he shambles away from his latest humiliation.

I kept expecting the movie to grow more serious. We know Bill is eventually going to get his chance to get into the fighting, so I assumed we'd see him get bloodied and grim, the goofball become savior. But even when he finally goes overseas, Bill's adventures are decidedly of the slapstick variety.

His B-17 is prevented from landing in Britain by thick fog and low fuel, so the crew is ordered to bail out and ditch the brand-new plane in the English Channel. Asleep in the belly turret after the long flight, Bill doesn't hear the command and only parachutes out over occupied France. There he's captured by French resistance, led by the lovely and flirty Yvonne (Corinne Calvet).

Bill is tasked with carrying home some film the Frenchies shot of German rockets being tested in advance of D-Day. (The film's fidelity to the historical record is shaky, at best.) This kicks off a long sequence where he's transported to and fro, by boat and plane, questioned by doctors and generals, kept awake and plied with liquor the whole time.

Dailey basically spends the last third of the movie playing drunk, and he's pretty good at it. The audience is rewarded with several google-eyed reaction shots as the curly-headed Kluggs labors to keep his bearings.

Rounding out the cast are Colleen Townsend as Marge Fettles, Bill's wholesome next-door neighbor and betrothed, and crusty character actor William Demarest as his father, who shares in his son's mortification. Jimmy Lydon plays Marge's kid brother, a gangly type who goes on to become a famed Air Force dogfighter, adding to Bill's grief.

(He isn't credited so I can't be sure about this, but I believe Hardy Krüger has a small non-speaking role as a German soldier who waltzes into the French cafe where Bill is posing as Yvonne's newly christened husband. If so, this would make it his first appearance in a Hollywood film.)

"When Willie Comes Marching Home" is more interesting as a time capsule than as a standalone film. It's so different from John Ford's usual stuff that it bears a second peek.

Reeling Backward: "The Informer" (1935)

"Stagecoach." "The Searchers." "The Grapes of Wrath." "How Green Was My Valley." "Drums Along the Mohawk." "Young Mr. Lincoln." "My Darling Clementine." "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." "The Alamo." "How the West Was Won." "Mister Roberts." "The Quiet Man." "How the West Was Won." "Rio Grande."

John Ford arguably directed more iconic movies than any other Hollywood filmmaker. Unlike Hitchcock or Welles, who never earned the plaudits during their lifetimes commensurate with their body of work, Ford was well recognized by his peers: his four Academy Award wins for Best Director are a record that will likely never be surpassed.

(He won two more Oscars for his wartime documentaries.)

Interestingly, none of his Oscar wins were for Westerns, the genre with which he is most associated. His first, 1935's "The Informer," is probably the least known of the bunch. Based on the novel by Liam O'Flaherty, it was previously adapted into a 1929 British film before Ford and screenwriter Dudley Nichols had their own crack at it.

The result was a resounding success, winning four of its six Oscar nominations, losing the Best Picture race to the Clark Gable/Charles Laughton version of "Mutiny on the Bounty." Star Victor McLaglen won for Best Actor, and Max Steiner took the musical score prize. Nichols won the screenwriting Oscar, but became the first person to refuse to accept an Academy Award, citing the ongoing screenwriters guild strike.

The members of the Academy apparently didn't hold it against him -- Nichols would go on to be nominated three more times.

McLaglen is hardly your standard matinee idol. A huge man with a barrel chest, craggy face and balding pate, he mostly resembled an albino ape with an Irish brogue. (He often affected that accent for his roles to the point American audiences assumed he was an Irishman; actually he was a Brit born in Kent who was raised in South Africa.)

McLaglen gives an exuberant performance as Gypo Nolan, a dimwitted bruiser and petty thief who was court-martialed out of the Irish Republican Army for endangering the rebels with his inability to keep a secret or maintain a low profile. For some reason, the IRA guys here are all represented as young, good-looking fellows wearing long trench coats and narrow-brimmed fedora hats, almost like proto-Bogarts.

Gypo is not just dumb; he seems to have absolutely no control over his thoughts and urges. He essentially exists as pure id, his mouth and his fists immediately carrying out whatever thoughts spark inside his primordial swamp of a brain. He swaggers this way and that from moment to moment, becoming increasingly inebriated (a McLaglen specialty) as the story goes on.

The setup is that Gypo, penniless and friendless in 1922 Dublin, rats out an old friend on the lam (Wallace Ford) in exchange for a 20-pound reward from the police. Unfortunately, his friend is caught at his mother's house and refuses to be taken prisoner, and is gunned down by the police.

Gypo had hoped to use the money to buy steamship tickets to America for himself and his sweetie, Katie (Margot Grahame), who has recently been forced to selling herself on the street. His 20-pound fortune now becomes blood money, a deadly albatross hanging around his neck and spilling out of his pockets as he goes on one long bender of drinking and carousing.

Gypo at one point declares it "the greatest night of my life," and he means it, despite his genuine sorrow for his good friend's death as a result of his actions. Always forced to be the mindless muscle, the guy who stays in the back and takes orders, Gypo revels at becoming the "cock of the walk," buying everyone rounds and bursting into an exclusive party of hoity-toity types.

He takes to going around holding his meaty fists in the air like a triumphant prizefighter, shouting his own name with a crescendoing emphasis on the latter syllable: "Gih-POHH!!" It's his cry out to the world, a man celebrating a brief interlude as the center of attention, a bonfire that's bound to burn out.

Of course, his time on this mortal coil is ticking downward. The IRA quickly figures out that it was him who fingered their compatriot. And with every pound Gypo drops at various pubs, fish 'n' chips counters and saloons, it's not hard to put together who claimed the filthy lucre.

Preston Foster plays Dan Gallagher, the local IRA commandant, who knows he has to enforce the code against snitchers but it reluctant to condemn another man, especially one so pure of heart as Gypo. By "pure of heart" I don't imply that Gypo is angelic -- far from it. What I mean is that the towering lummox hasn't an ounce of deceit or falseness in him. Whatever he's doing or feeling at any given moment, he gives himself over to that completely.

At first pathetic and imbecilic -- watching him fritter away his money on whiskey and hangers-on, his dreams of finding a new life in America almost immediately dashed -- Gypo eventually becomes a tragic, sympathetic figure. At the end when he's finally caught he pleads, "I didn't know what I was doing!" And it really is true.

After he escapes (briefly) from the IRA and runs to Katie, he demands to know where the 20 pounds he gave her is -- forgetting, in his drunkenness and stupidity, that there were only a few crumpled notes left when he finally handed them over.

Heather Angel plays Mary McPhillip, the sister of Gypo's betrayed friend. She has a romance with Gallagher that feels ill-placed within the story of Gypo's descent and ultimate absolution. Una O'Connor plays her mother -- her name may not be recognizable, but her face is, a character actress often called upon to play ridiculous older women, such as the pinch-faced maid in "Witness for the Prosecution."

"The Informer" isn't a great movie, but it shows off John Ford's burgeoning talent for using landscapes to his benefit, weather sprawling vistas in Monument Valley or the mist, dank streets of London. And McLaglen is a revelation as the flawed, pitiable Gypo.

Known to be extremely hard on actors -- Ford was dubbed "the only man who could make John Wayne cry" -- he also knew how to get great performances out of them.

Reeling Backward: "The Wings of Eagles" (1957)

"The Wings of Eagle" is supposed to be a biopic of naval commander and screenwriter Frank "Spig" Wead, a tribute from John Wayne, John Ford and others who knew him well. It wants to be epic in scope, but ends up feeling like ham-fisted Cliff Notes version of a man's life.

The film loiters way, way too long on Wead's early days as a hell-raising test pilot, then jumps ahead through long sections of his life after he is paralyzed in an accident and becomes estranged from his family. At one point something like 10 years slips by in a single edit, and suddenly Wead is a rich and famous writer living in a Beverly Hills mansion. Then World War II breaks out and, despite having limited mobility with two canes, he somehow gains a commission as an officer aboard a naval carrier.

Watching it, I thought of a better title: "The Ellipses of Spig Wead."

The film, directed by Ford from a screenplay by William Wister Haines and Frank Fenton, never quite decides what tone it wants to strike. Up until the accident, the movie is fun-n-games with a little undercurrent of darkness about Wead's long-distance relationship with his wife, Min (Maureen O'Hara). Then it suddenly turns on a dime and tries to become an inspiration life story.

There's a long section with Wead in the hospital, laid up in traction with a broken neck, as his friend "Jughead" Carson (an excellent Dan Daily) visits him every day for nearly a year, urging him to wiggle his big toe. "I'm gonna move that toe!" he repeats over and over, a mantra that's supposed to be heartfelt but comes across as just plain silly.

I have to say I found the relationship between Wead and Min rather unconvincing, despite a nuanced performance by O'Hara. Spig will abandon his wife and two daughters for years at a time, then show up on her doorstep and within a matter of minutes, has her falling into his arms again. Min is supposed to be a tough, sassy redhead, but she sure is an easy touch when it comes time for wooing.

John Ford even briefly caricatures himself in the character of John Dodge, played by Ford mainstay Ward Bond, a slick Hollywood honcho who favors dark sunglasses, even indoors.

I also found it interesting that this is one of the very few films in which John Wayne appeared without his hairpiece, in the later sections as Wead grows older. This is especially noteworthy in that Wead himself still had a full head of hair at the time of his death.

I get the sense "The Wings of Eagles" was created to serve two purposes: As a tribute to Frank Wead, and an opportunity for John Wayne to play a more subtle character than we're used to seeing from him. It's not particularly successful at either.

1.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "The Long Voyage Home" (1940)

"The Long Voyage Home" is a curious animal. It stars John Wayne, already a major star in 1940, who gets top billing in this adaptation of a Eugene O'Neill play about the salty, often cruel life of sailors aboard a merchant marine ship.

And yet Wayne's character is not one of the most important in the story -- in fact, he's essentially a bit player.

Wayne barely speaks more than a few lines of dialogue throughout most of the movie, finally getting to string a couple sentences together in a scene near the end. But for the most part, other members of the ensemble cast rotate in and out of the limelight, with Wayne off to the side and in the background.

Imagine "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" with Jack Nicholson in the Martini role (played by Danny DeVito) and no McMurphy in the ward. That'll give you an idea how strange it is to see John Wayne in the margins of his own movie.

True, John Wayne was not quite yet JOHN WAYNE -- having just had his big breakout role a year earlier in "Stagecoach," also directed by longtime collaborator John Ford. But still, it's one thing to see the star of a picture relegated to a secondary role, and quite another when they have barely any screen time and hardly say a word.

It's a good film, a less plot-driven movie than a meandering look at the nomadic men who make their life on the high seas for various reasons. The cinematography by the great Gregg Toland -- his next film was "Citizen Kane" -- is a gorgeously bleak swath of shadows and light that makes the ship seem like its own world rather than just a dingy old merchant vessel.

The S.S. Glencairn is a slow, decrepit, rusty ship making one more long trip across the Atlantic. "An old hooker" is just one of the many colorful epithets the captain and crew lovingly (we think) use to describe the ancient bucket.

As the story opens, the Glencairn is docked in the West Indies, but most of the crew has been forbidden shore leave due to the secrecy of their next voyage. In an arresting opening shot, the men stand on the deck casting yearning glances at the beach, where native women writhe half-dressed. The gal in the foreground wears a blouse that barely clings to her shoulders as she runs a hand over her considerable cleavage -- pretty hubba-hubba stuff for 1940.

It's a typically motley crew. Aside from the stern captain (Wilfrid Lawson), the man who seems most in charge is Driscoll, an Irishman with a fondness for drink and trouble. Having gotten into a scrape with the law on shore, Drisc barely makes it back on board, scrambling up the anchor chain, to make roll call.

There's also Cocky, the acerbic ship's steward; and Yank (Ford mainstay Ward Bond), a lusty brawler and Drisc's right-hand man; John Qualen as Axel, a Swede who's small but feisty; and Donkeyman (Arthur Shields), who's given up on the land and is always ready to sign on for another voyage, no matter how bad the last one was.

Wayne plays Ole Olsen, a big Swedish farmer who's been promising his mother for the past 10 years he'll come home after the next voyage. Invariably, he and the boys go ashore for "one last drink" to celebrate his departure, and the next thing he knows he's signed on for another.

When he does talk, Wayne does so in what must be the worst Swedish accent in the history of cinema. Coupled with the fact that he looks about as Swedish as Sammy Davis Jr., and you've got a strong nominee for Wayne's worst screen performance.

Wayne, as has often been said, was not an actor but a movie star. He was good at playing one character: Himself ... or, at least, what the public believed to be his star persona. When Wayne tried to stretch himself into more exotic roles, he usually crashed and burned. I've never seen 1956's "The Conqueror," in which Wayne plays Genghis Khan -- yes, really -- but I hear it's howlingly bad.

The Glencairn crew nearly jumps ship when they learn their next job is a hold full of ammunition for the British. That means going through the War Zone patrolled by German U-boats hunting for ships bringing supplies for the war effort, and a huge target on the ol' Glencairn.

"The Long Voyage Home" was actually based on three different plays written by O'Neill, one of which bore that title, that were set during World War I. It's not much of a stretch to change the setting to WWII, since the life of a seaman wasn't very much different in the intervening quarter-century or so.

Much of the first half of the film is devoted to piercing the mystery of Smitty (Ian Hunter), a crew member with a mysterious, haunted past. He speaks the King's English like an aristocrat, and tries to jump ship after picking up their explosive cargo but is arrested and brought back.

Driscoll and the others come to believe Smitty is a German spy, but after opening the mysterious black box he hides under his pillow, they discover he's a disgraced officer who has run away from his family. It's quite a poignant moment  where Drisc reads a letter out loud from Smittie's wife in which she refuses his request to tell their two children he is dead.

The last third or so of the movie is one long bar crawl, as the men from the Glencairn are set up by some unscrupulous club owners. Ole, his ticket for Stockholm and last two years' wages sewn inside his coat, is drugged and shanghaied aboard another ship. His drunken crewmates stage a daring rescue, but Drisc is knocked unconscious and captured, replacing Ole as a conscript. The next day, newspapers reveal the ship was sunk in the Channel.

What does it all really add up to? "The Long Voyage Home" is long on character and atmosphere, and not really concerned with telling a story. It's a worthwhile film, especially for those wanting to explore John Ford's non-Western oeuvre. Even if John Wayne, the ostensible star, is woefully misused.

3 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "My Darling Clementine" (1946)

"My Darling Clementine" is almost an art-house version of a Western, long before anyone thought to divide films into mainstream ones and "serious" ones.

Director John Ford lets his camera linger over the expanses of arid ground and the yawning openness of the Arizona sky. It's like a banner of freedom, possibility -- and threat. The Tombstone of 1882 was little more than a stopover for miners, lacking even a church or a school. Ford really makes the audience feel the lawlessness, and the possibility for to introduce some structure with the arrival of Wyatt Earp.

Earp, played by Henry Fonda, was one of the first cinematic good guys to wear black. Tall, lean and stern, he and his three brothers are just driving their cattle through the countryside when their herd is rustled and the 18-year-old brother murdered. Earp, who had just been offered the job of marshal for corralling an drunk Indian and turned it down, returns to take up the badge.

It's clear from the beginning that the Earps are not in it for the long haul. Wyatt already knows the Clantons are responsible for the crime; he just wants to hang around long enough to get his revenge. If it can have a patina of legitimacy through law enforcement, so much the better.

Wyatt spends most of the movie tangling not with the Clantons but with Doc Holliday (Victor Mature), a self-loathing gambler and proprietor of the town's biggest saloon. There's something terrible in his past, which is never revealed, and he seems to delight in gunning down any man who dares challenge him.

The Clementine of the title (Cathy Downs) doesn't show up until nearly halfway through the movie, and is really a tertiary character. I'm not sure if she has more than a couple paragraphs of lines. She used to be Doc's girl before he ran off, and has spent years tracking him down. He abruptly orders her to leave town, though Wyatt intervenes to prevent this, taking a shine to Clementine himself.

Eventually, the conflict that led to the shootout at the O.K. Corral heats up again. This famous piece of history had been depicted on film many times before, and would be again several times after. Ford shoots it not as a cliched quick-draw standoff, but a nasty little business of hit-and-run tactics.

As was usually the case with Ford's Westerns, the supporting cast adds a lot of color and texture to the tale. The great character actor Walter Brennan, who usually played world-weary cynics with a heart of gold, is chilling as Old Man Clanton.

In one amazing scene, Clanton sits mournfully in a chair next to the bed containing the body of his youngest son, who has been gunned down by the Earps (after fatally shooting Chiuauha, Doc's Mexican saloon girl). Morgan Earp (Tim Holt), who chased the fugitive back to his home, tells Old Man Clanton he's sorry it turned out this way, and turns to leave. Without even getting up from his chair, the old man triggers the shotgun in his lap, shooting Morgan in the back. It's a moment of startling violence and contempt for human, and must have been shocking to audiences in 1946.

Ford mainstay Ward Bond plays Morgan Earp, Wyatt's well-fed brother who eats more for breakfast than most people do in a weekend.

History, of course, was very different from the movie. The instigating cause of the gunfight was all about some cowboys who refused to give up their weapons, and the shootout led to a series of reprisals and assassination attempts. The Earps were eventually run out of town, never to return to Tombstone.

But as they said in another great John Ford Western, "When legend becomes fact, print the legend."

4 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "The Grapes of Wrath"

"The Grapes of Wrath" is about the exploitation of people by other people. Since that's unfortunately a perpetual blight on the face of mankind, it's also part of the reason why the great 1940 film version of John Steinbeck's novel remains so timeless.

The film, directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda, feels relevant to current times in myriad ways. The economy isn't as much of a mess now as it was during the Depression of the 1930s. But there's the same sense of our fundamental values having gone out of whack. Corporations that are making healthy profits lay off workers as executives enjoy seven-figure bonuses. People are losing their homes for reasons they often can't even understand, to faceless entities they couldn't name. Whole families are forced to uproot, and like the iconic Joads travel an arduous journey to a destination that may hold no better promise for them.

In Steinbeck's novel, the regular farmers and folks are the sainted salt of the earth, at the mercy of bankers, powerful agricultural consortiums and the roughneck hooligans they hire to keep the workers in line. Although the film is more vague in its presentation of the moneymen, the enforcers are vivid and villainous. The fact that they wear badges and are called "deputy sheriffs" makes them even more contemptible, since their vocation is not upholding the law but preventing its just application.

Another way in which "The Grapes of Wrath" has resonance today is in comparing the Okie farmers' reception to that of illegal immigrants. There's an amazing scene where the Joads stop at a modern gas station to fuel up, and after they've gone the attendants describe them as less than human, even swine, because of their shambling appearance and rickety old truck piled high with belongs and human detritus.

In another scene, the Joads encounter a roadblock. A mob carrying torches and weapons stops them and surrounds the truck, ordering them to turn around. 'We don't want any more Okies like you coming in into our town and taking jobs away from those who already live here,' is the gist of their feeling.

Whatever one thinks about the flood of people crossing our borders (mostly the Mexican one) to find jobs -- I consider myself fairly moderate on this issue, though I'm probably closer to the Minutemen than La Raza -- the treating of other humans as chattel must infuriate anyone with an ounce of empathy.

It seems that wherever they go, the Joads are viewed as undesirable, even dangerous, simply because they are poor and have few prospects.

This was perhaps the greatest performance of Henry Fonda's career, though he would have to wait another 40 years to receive the Best Actor Oscar. As Tom Joad, the eldest son recently paroled from prison for manslaughter, Fonda has a harsher, more defiant aura than we're used to. In his many roles Fonda was usually a reassuring figure, the loyalist and company man, so to see him so convincing in this role as an agitator -- even if a reluctant one -- is striking.

A couple more points. The cinematography is by Gregg Tolland, who would go on to deliver his masterwork, "Citizen Kane," the following year, and in "The Grapes of Wrath" one can see him warming up. The play of darkness and light is hauntingly beautiful, and characters will often move in and out of the light in the midst of a piece of dialogue. John Ford often uses low angles to make certain moments more portentous.

Jane Darwell, as Ma Joad, won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, and deservedly so. Most people remember the rousing speech she gives right before the end credits roll, with the oft-cited line, "We're the people." But she has many other great moments throughout the movie, such as the scene where she burns mementos in the wood stove before they're forced to vacate their home. It's a wordless scene, ripe with power and glory.

4 stars