Big Jake (1971)

best movie i've ever seen.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

(Flash Review)John Wayne plays a cowboy named McCandles, great name, in this Western that highlights the trend away from horses to cars and motorcycle. It opens in 1909 with eight bandits who approach vast ranch estate and murder many workers and kidnap the mother's grandson for a random of $1mil. Not just any grandson, a grandson of McCandles who has been away from the family for many years. The mother calls back McCandles to handle the job of rescuing the grandson and make sure the ransom makes it to its destination safely. Will anyone doubt McCandles at accomplishing his task and will he have any tricks up his sleeve? This was a solid story as a basis some good shootouts, snappy dialog and splendid natural cinematography. Pure John Wayne.

I'm a huge fan of John Wayne and this was the first Wayne western I saw in a theater on first release. It's a treat seeing Wayne and O'Hara again and many of the veteran character actors such as Bruce Cabot, Harry Carey, Jr. and Hank Worden that have appeared in many films with the Duke. Richard Boone also gives a marvelous performance as the vicious villain and he's the perfect foil for Wayne in the film. No one could play a slimy bad-guy like Boone. Having said all that however, this still is not a very good picture. The direction is shoddy (reportedly director Sherman was ill during the shoot and Wayne directed scenes himself), the script weak and many of the performances are sub-par (Patrick Wayne is particularly bad). Most of the humor in the film comes across as forced and some of the violence is kind of gratuitous and in bad taste. This was typical of most of Wayne's 1970's films (the exceptions are the classic "The Shootist" and the underrated "The Cowboys"), he often gave clichéd performances during this era and was mostly just going through the motions and playing his "personna." I almost gagged when I saw an earlier reviewer state that this is better than "The Searchers." Sorry - not even close. Still, it's The Duke and most of the movie is kind of fun - just don't compare it with Wayne's best Westerns. "Stagecoach," "Red River," "Rio Bravo," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," and the aforementioned "The Searchers" and "The Shootist" are all miles ahead.

. . . to see the damage repetitive head injuries can have, as it's clear that BIG JAKE was shot out of sequence, beginning with John Wayne knocking out Real Life son Patrick Wayne and pretend son Christopher Mitchum in Mexican Escondero Hotel Room #8 who knows for how many takes. Always a stickler for authenticity, "The Duke" obviously took his stage directions a little too literally here, which is why these two co-stars were virtually unheard of ever again. One only needs to watch the rest of BIG JAKE, filmed AFTER this double tragedy, to see how Pat and Chris seem to be competing for a not-even-invented-yet Razzie Award for Most Wooden Actor in a Supporting Role. John Wayne's "BIG JAKE" character names his dog "Dog," so that viewers won't feel too bad when this thoughtlessly tagged mutt is hacked to death by John Goodfellow's machete. Jake's Native American sidekick is named generically after Uncle Sam, for the exact same reason. As John-the-Machete-Man tries for a bloody Hat Trick by slashing after BIG JAKE's grandson, viewers will be wracking their brains to remember whether Jake named the kid simply "Boy."

I believe it was the last film I saw in the old Bayshore 5th avenue drive-in (not the bayshore sunrise drive-in). Websites claim the drive-in's last season was 1964, but to those that remember it closed much later. I think during or after that summer (1971)when the screen was torn in half by a tree after a storm. Either way, this film was a good old-fashioned western that came out in a time when westerns became revisionist garbage ("Doc"), or had political undertones that paralleled the view of some on the Vietnam war (Ulzana's raid, soldier blue, pat garrett and billy the kid)- not to say these were bad films, but it was the direction many films were going at that time. "Big Jake" made a statement about the changing times and how certain old tried-and-true methods were tried-and-true for a reason. Wayne knew full well what he was doing; his popularity was so for many reasons, one of which was tried-and-true movie-making. Good was good, bad was bad and people just wanted to sit back and enjoy rooting for the hero. This is not to say he didn't make westerns with gray areas, but when he did it was more a case in character study than political statements for the purpose of revision.