num_pages: 160
description: In a career of more than fifty years--spanning the Golden Era from 1926 to 1976--Hollywood icon John Wayne created a treasure trove of movies. Today, scarcely an hour goes by without one of them appearing on television somewhere in the world. With most of the Wayne films available for his fans today, just a few of them remain unavailable in this era of remastered miracles. Of all the movies he made beyond the 1939 Stagecoach age, only two have been kept from the public: Island in the Sky and The High and the Mighty.These two aerial films were made and released in the mid-1950s when the John Wayne cowboy and war-hero box-office phenomenon was reaching its zenith. His starring performances in both are legendary, even if the films are seldom seen. Both were produced by Wayne-Fellows, Wayne's independent film production company, and directed by William A. Wellman, and both were based on novels by Ernest K. Gann, a veteran pilot of distinction who oversaw the screenplays and was technical adviser on the films. William H. Clothier, the aerial cameraman on both films, as he was on many John Wayne films, was sometimes referred to as "Wayne's Cameraman."Many reasons have been suggested for why the two films have been unavailable until the summer of 2005, from the thought that the original films were damaged and the copies were not good enough for additional distribution to the theory that they have been withheld for a future grand release. Some have said that when Wayne commented late in his life that he hoped people remembered perhaps six of his best pictures and forgot the rest, he may have had Island in the Sky and The High and the Mighty in mind. Whatever the reasons may be, The Lost Films of John Wayne honors his work in both films and serves as a loving portrayal of some of the lesser-known images he left behind.
language: English
title: The Lost Films of John Wayne
titlecomplete: The Lost Films of John Wayne
ratings_count: 2
publisher: Cumberland House Publishing