Watched it again last night. One of the most underrated movies of all time, and IMHO, John Wayne's best performance.
Terrific supporting cast -- Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, Richard Boone, James Stewart, Hugh O'Brien, Harry Morgan, John Carradine, Sheree North, Scatman Crothers. Johnny Crawford -- most of them in cameo roles, although Howard was honored as supporting actor.
It was Wayne's last movie. I always thought it was semi-autobiographical in that he knew he was dying of cancer in real life. However, I had a chance to ask a friend of his about that -- I attended a seminar on cowboy movies and one of the panelists was Dick Jones -- and was told that wasn't true. His cancer was in remission at the time, had been for quite a while, and didn't recur until three years after the movie was released.
My only criticism is that Lauren Bacall was a bit old to play a 40-year-old.
Terrific supporting cast -- Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, Richard Boone, James Stewart, Hugh O'Brien, Harry Morgan, John Carradine, Sheree North, Scatman Crothers. Johnny Crawford -- most of them in cameo roles, although Howard was honored as supporting actor.
It was Wayne's last movie. I always thought it was semi-autobiographical in that he knew he was dying of cancer in real life. However, I had a chance to ask a friend of his about that -- I attended a seminar on cowboy movies and one of the panelists was Dick Jones -- and was told that wasn't true. His cancer was in remission at the time, had been for quite a while, and didn't recur until three years after the movie was released.
My only criticism is that Lauren Bacall was a bit old to play a 40-year-old.
