McClintock/The American West of John Ford
The 1963 movie stars John Wayne in an unusual Western. Many of the past cultural cliches have been reversed, as if it is a parody of earlier movies. You can recognize parts of earlier movies (the spanking scene from "The Quiet Man". Big landowner McClintock is not out to exploit the new homesteaders over their lack of water. In fact, he warns them about these conditions. [He would lose these grazing lands.] So how does grass grow on the Mesa Verde? This story seems to be patched together from earlier movies, as if it was produced as a quick money maker. [Wayne's "The Alamo" was not a success.] The unintentionally funny part is where this 19th century land baron talks about creating parkland from his estate! I found this to be anachronistic. Would McClintock really own a large brick house in the middle of nowhere whose interior was clean like some city home? How many servants were needed to maintain it?"The American West of John Ford" is a tribute to this famous movie director who won many Hollywood Oscars, none for a Western. John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Henry Fonda talk about their movies. It provides a summary of John Ford's movies. Western movies became part of American culture. Some people today talk about "Dodge City" as a bad example of gunfights when in fact they had gun control for visiting cowboys. A cowboy was a hired rural worker whose lot was not envied by most people. They were unskilled labor used by big cattle barons for seasonal work. Since there were no railroads in Texas (then), their job was to herd cattle over hundreds of miles to the railroad stations in Kansas. Some paid the tolls to cross Indian Territory in Oklahoma, some tried to avoid fares and found conflict from their trespassing.