John Wayne on TCM

John Wayne in The Alamo. Photo: Courtesy Turner Classic Movies.

It’s John Wayne day on Tuesday, Aug. 18, as Turner Classic Movies continues with its "Summer Under the Stars" series.
One of the most popular film stars ever, John Wayne was almost invariably John Wayne (or the screen version of himself) no matter who or what he played. But then again, the same can be said of Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and other well-respected actors of the studio era. I’m not quite sure why Wayne is generally regarded as less of an actor than those other performers, but perhaps one explanation is that Westerns and war movies aren’t perceived as settings for a real actor, and Wayne made his [...]

STAGECOACH Screening

Stagecoach is the next 1939 best picture Oscar nominee to be screened as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ series “Hollywood’s Greatest Year: The Best Picture Nominees of 1939.” Directed by John Ford, and starring John Wayne and Claire Trevor, Stagecoach will be presented on Monday, June 1, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The film will be introduced by John Ford’s grandson, Dan Ford.
Beginning at 7 p.m., the evening will also feature the second and third chapters of the 1939 serial Buck Rogers, starring Buster Crabbe and Constance Moore, in addition to the animated short The Film Fan, [...]

THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY, HONDO, McLINTOCK!: John Wayne on DVD

Paramount Home Entertainment and Paramount’s Worldwide Television Distribution, in association with John Wayne’s old Batjac Productions, will be distributing several Wayne titles on DVD beginning in spring 2005.
The upcoming releases include:

Island in the Sky (1953), a rarely seen adventure film about a plane crash in sub-Arctic Canada;
Hondo (1953), a Western based on a story by Louis L’Amour, who was erroneously nominated for an Academy Award in — and was later withdrawn from — the Motion Picture Story category; additionally, Hondo earned Geraldine Page her first Academy Award nomination (as best supporting actress);
the comic Western McLintock! (1963), partly inspired by Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, and co-starring Maureen O’Hara and Stefanie Powers;
and a fully [...]