John Wayne's Last Films

If you want to argue about who is the best actor or actress, that is entirely subjective.  In the 1930s, Sir John Gielgud and Sir Laurence Olivier had a rivalry as to who was the best Hamlet.  However, who is the all-time most popular movie star?  That is an entirely different manner.  It is objective and entirely quantifiable.  Who sold the most tickets or who spent the most years ranked among the ten most popular actors in Hollywood.  Any guess as to who that might be?

 

Who rated in Hollywood’s top ten most popular actors for the greatest number of years?  The winner is John Wayne.  No one else is even close.  Clint Eastwood is a very distant second. 

 

Nowadays, people tend to underestimate Wayne as an actor.  (Granted, he found a winning formula and largely stuck to it.)  He is also regarded by many liberals as a boogeyman.  (His attitudes were consistent with someone born in 1907.)  I went through a John Wayne stage in my early-to-middle teens.  Upon reviewing some of those films, I found a number of surprises.  The country changed a great deal during John Wayne’s career and so did John Wayne himself.  For example, in 1970, John Wayne made a film called Chisum, which was approximately the101st retelling of the Lincoln County War in New Mexico.  Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett and all of that.  The Duke played cattle baron John Chisum.  Part of the backstory of Wayne’s character was that he fought with a Comache chief named White Buffalo over the same piece of land.  Of course, Chisum had come out on top.  However, as he mentions at one point to his young niece, he and White Buffalo had grown closer than Chisum and his brother.  Any two men who can fight over the same piece of land and develop a respect for each other knows nothing about Field Marshals Rommel and Montgomery.  Or, for that matter, Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler.

 

There’s a scene almost midway through Chisum in which the title character is meeting with the cavalry officer responsible for the territory.  White Buffalo and a number of other Comanche are present.  John Wayne was sixty-three at that point.  The actor who played White Buffalo was quite a bit older.  In that scene, Chisum has to tell the colonel that because of an attempted cattle rustling, he can’t deliver the beef contract on time.  White Buffalo starts to speak: “Chisum’s word is good.”  The colonel cuts him off, saying, “Your opinion of Chisum and his word are of no concern to me.”  Moments later, as the meeting breaks up, White Buffalo finds Chisum and says, “This changes nothing between us.”  When an overly efficient cavalry sergeant grabs White Buffalo and tells him to get in the wagon.  Chisum steps up and says to the younger man: “Sergeant, don’t you know who that man is?”  The Sergeant says, “Looks like an Injun to me.”  Chisum says, “That is the chief of the Comanche nation.”  The Sergeant replies, “I don’t care if he’s the crown prince of Montenegro, he’s getting on that wagon.” 

 

At this point, the screenwriters came up with a neat twist.  Chisum reaches into his pocket and pulls out a massive cigar and offers it to the Sergeant, who accepts.  He then offers another to White Buffalo and takes one for himself.  All three light up.  After puffing away for a few seconds, Chisum says to the Sergeant, “If you ever lay hands on White Buffalo again, I will kill you.”  The sergeant is goggle-eyed.  I thought that if a man John Wayne's size said said that to me, I would take notice. And if a man who *any* size who was wearing a pistol on his hip said that....   White Buffalo takes another long drag on his cigar and says cheerfully, “Sergeant,.... we go now.”  It’s just a little bit, but I found myself liking Chisum’s character quite a bit for standing up for his old rival.

 

In 1969, Wayne made a film called The Undefeated, which takes place in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War.  His character is named John Henry Thomas (one of my oldest friends is a gentleman named Jonathan Thomas, so I got to tease him about that movie).  Colonel John Henry Thomas was a Union Cavalry officer (dear God, that poor horse) who is getting back to the business of capturing wild horses and selling them to the federal government…until he gets a better offer from the French government of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico.

 

Rock Hudson plays a Confederate colonel who is such a bitter ender that he would rather burn his home and relocate to Mexico than live in a defeated South.  Adventures ensue.  The biggest casting surprise in The Undefeated was the role of "Blue Boy", Colonel Thomas’s adopted son.  Who did they get to play Blue Boy?  Roman Gabriel in his only film role.  Roman Gabriel was six foot four and weighted 220 and built like he could play quarterback for the Rams. (Which is what he did). He was of Irish-Filipino ancestory- so he was swarthy enough to play a Native American.  I was simply astounded that after making a career out of playing Indian fighters, John Wayne played a character who had adopted an Indian son.  I would have liked to have been in on the script development meeting before filming started.  Roman Gabriel was plenty big enough to play one of The Duke’s kids. 

Lieutenant Lane’s Lucky and Remarkable Rendezvous with Rommel

When I saw Quentin Tarantino’s recent film Inglorious Basterds, I’m afraid I didn’t like it at all. First, and some people might find this ironic, it contained a great deal of what I found to be gratuitous violence (I found myself thinking, “Whoever fights monsters should take care in the process not to become a monster himself”), and while I understand that it works as a Jewish revenge fantasy, I know enough WWII history to know what would actually happen if there was a unit operating behind German lines doing the sort of things Brad Pitt’s outfit does. German occupation authorities would round up 10 leading citizens for every man Pitt’s Basterds shot and machine gun the bunch of them. Finally, it has been my experience that for every outlandish Hollywood fantasy, there is a true story that is a whole lot better.

During WWII, the British army actually did put together a small unit of Jewish refugees who served as commandos. As I recall, there were about 88 of them. A fourth of them were killed, a fourth were wounded, and a fourth were given officers’ commissions. One of the best was a young man from Hungary who anglicized his name to be George Lane. He was an extraordinarily, smart, athletic fellow (he had represented Hungary in the 1936 Olympics).

Contrary to what you’ve seen in Hollywood B movies, commandos concentrated far more on reconnaissance and intelligence gathering than trying to take on the entire German army by themselves. In early 1944, Lieutenant Lane had the bad luck to be captured by German troops. They blindfolded him, put him in a car, and took him for a long drive. Lt Lane was fully aware that Hitler had personally ordered that all captured commandos were to be summarily executed. Since he was Jewish, I wonder if he was thinking “What are they going to do, execute me twice?” At the end of the drive he was shown into a luxurious French chateau and ushered into a large study where he found himself face to face with none other than commander of Army Group B, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel (I have already written about Rommel here for those who care to read). Rommel’s first words to him were “So, are you one of those gangster commandos?” Lt Lane replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a soldier and commandos are the best soldiers.”

Rommel laughed out loud and told Lt Lane to sit down. He then asked the lieutenant “Don’t you think it’s a shame that Germany and Britain are fighting against each other instead of the common enemy of all mankind?” Lt Lane asked, “Who do you mean?” Rommel responded, “Why the Soviets of course.” (and there can be no doubt in the mind of anybody who knows anything about Rommel that that was exactly what he believed in his heart of hearts.)

Lt Lane said, “I’m sorry, Field Marshall, but I don’t think there’s any chance our countries can become allies” When Rommel asked him what he meant, Lt Lane said, “For example, the way your government treats Jews.” Rommel cut him off by saying, “Now you are talking politics. We are soldiers, we don’t concern ourselves with politics.” They spoke for a few minutes more, and when Rommel dismissed Lt Lane, he told his aide that the lieutenant was a prisoner of the Wehrmacht and was not to be harmed. Some of my readers might not fully appreciate the risk Rommel was running in disobeying a direct order from Hitler. Ironically enough, in 1944 the safest place for a Jew to be in Germany was in a Wehrmacht POW camp. After the war, when Lt Lane was debriefed on his experiences as a POW, his superiors initially found his story too strange to be believed until they happened upon a German interrogator’s report that told exactly the same story.

Before the end of the year, Rommel was dead, forced to commit suicide because of his role in the July 20 plot against Hitler. As best as I can determine, Lt Lane was still alive as of 2 years ago, living in London in his early 90s. He’s lived more than 60 years due to Erwin Rommel’s gallantry.

Rommel the Soldier

During Rommel’s inter-war years, Rommel was able to impress a rising German politician named Adolf Hitler. Rommel distinguished himself during the invasion of France in 1940 and for two years, his Africa corps fought the entire British Army to a standstill. Finally, his people were overwhelmed by vastly superior numbers. In early 1944, Hitler chose him to command the Atlantic Wall, to prepare for the Allied invasion. In early 1944, a British commando unit made a raid on the French coast and one of the units and officers were taken prisoner. To the young lieutenant’s amazement, he was taken to Rommel’s headquarters for an interview with the field marshal himself. They had a nice chat and Rommel commented that it was a shame that the British and the Germans were not fighting on the same side against the Russians. No doubt Rommel was sincere in what he said. He spoke excellent English and, like many Germans, was an avid Anglophile. The young officer commented that he did not think that would be possible because of the extent of the differences between England and Germany. When Rommel asked him what he meant, the young officer replied, “for example, your country’s treatment of the Jews.” At that point, Rommel snapped, “You are talking politics. We are soldiers.”

At the end of the interview, Rommel gave an order that the young officer was not to be harmed. It was not until the end of the war that the young British officer fully realized how lucky he’d been. Rommel knew that Hitler had issued express orders that any captured commando was to be summarily executed. In sparing the young officer’s life, Rommel was disobeying a direct order from the Fuhrer. When that young lieutenant reported his conversation with Rommel to his superiors after the war, they found it hard to believe until British Occupational Forces looked into the archive and found transcripts of the conversation, finding the officer was correct. In hearing that anecdote, I have profoundly mixed feelings that Rommel had the moral courage and gallantry to spare a captured enemy, even at the risk of his own life, but I’m deeply saddened that Rommel undoubtedly had considerable knowledge of the ghastly nature of the Nazi regime’s treatment of Jews. It is impossible not to admire Erwin Rommel. It’s also a mistake to admire him too much.

Rommel

As a student of Military History, I started reading about Erwin Rommel when I was quite young. I find it impossible not to admire him; but it would be a *huge* mistake to admire him too much.

Rommel's physical courage, and tactical skill, his "fingerspitzengefuhl" (feeling at the fingertips) was the stuff of legend: in the First World War, He led troops against the Romanians, Italians, and French- he was wounded three times; captured- he escaped; he won the Iron Cross second class, Iron Cross first class, *and* the Pour le Merit (most of *those* were won posthumously). He had to have had *amazing* luck to have survived until Nov. 11, 1918.