Morgan Freeman’s favourite John Wayne movie: “He was what was happening to me”
Long before he collaborated with Clint Eastwood for the first time on one of the greatest westerns ever made, Morgan Freeman was already a fan of the iconic actor and filmmaker’s work in his preferred genre.
Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales blew him away from the first time he watched it, and there’s a case to be made that it’s superior to Unforgiven. Either way, Freeman never wavered from his position that the 1976 classic was, is, and will forever be one of the best movies he’s ever seen.
If success is measured in dollars and trophies, Unforgiven is the clear winner. The Outlaw Josey Wales did at least make some history when Eastwood’s forcible ejection of original director Philip Kaufman forced the industry to put it into writing that actors can’t effectively stage a coup and take over a production they’re starring in, but it didn’t win Academy Awards for ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’.
It was pure wish fulfilment for Freeman to not only get the chance to share the screen with Eastwood but do it against the backdrop of the American West. He was among the last to seize that opportunity when Unforgiven doubled as his fond farewell to the western, so there are no prizes for guessing which of the genre’s two most famous faces he’s the biggest fan of.
Everyone has their preferences, but what can’t be denied is that Eastwood was the 1B to John Wayne’s 1A. They’re unquestionably the two actors most synonymous with Hollywood’s depiction of the Old West, and it turns out that Freeman, like many others in his age range, grew up with a soft spot for ‘The Duke’.
He eventually aged out of it, but when asked to name his favourite films, the stately veteran cast his mind back to his youth before quickly clarifying that he wasn’t a fan of Wayne’s for very long. “I think I was maybe 15 years old when I saw John Wayne as Quirt Evans in Angel and the Badman,” he told The Guardian. “I don’t like John Wayne today, but when I was 15, he was what was happening to me.”
Either Freeman’s memory is off, or he didn’t catch the film the first time around. Writer and director James Edward Grant’s oater, which stars ‘The Duke’ as an injured cowboy who falls for Gail Russell’s Penelope Worth while recuperating from his injuries in a Quaker community, was released in February 1947, when he was only nine years old.
Angel and the Badman isn’t usually celebrated as one of Wayne’s finest hours, but it clearly had an effect on a 15-year-old Freeman, even if he grew out of that phase pretty quickly. Ask him today, and he’ll say his favourite westerns are The Outlaw Josey Wales, High Noon, and Unforgiven, leaving ‘Angel and the Badman ‘The Duke’ out in the cold.
