“His labour of love”: The only movie John Wayne loved “like a man loves a woman”
Trying to get an actor or filmmaker to name their favourite movie, especially if they have a long and illustrious career, can be like pulling teeth or asking them to pick a favourite child. John Wayne made his fair share of classics, but there was one that he loved to an almost peculiar extent.
He liked a lot of his pictures, with The Searchers standing out as a high point for ‘The Duke’ and True Grit finally giving him a meaty character to sink his teeth into, which rewarded him with the Academy Award he claimed he didn’t desperately crave but most people knew he kind of did.
Wayne also despised some of his films, especially the ones he was forced into making when he was a fresh-faced Marion Morrison. Even when he fine-tuned his persona to become the biggest star in Hollywood, he wasn’t immune from the occasional clunker or a desperate attempt to try and capitalise on a new trend.
Performers, writers, directors, and producers have an unlimited list of reasons for enjoying their own work, whether it’s based on a top-tier acting performance, groundbreaking visuals, box office success, awards season acclaim, or any other metric. However, ‘The Duke’ saying he loved a movie like a man loves a woman is weird, because that’s not really how people feel about films.
Apparently, the easiest way to get on Wayne’s good side was to tell him you loved The Alamo. Fuck the rest of ’em, if you ever found yourself one-on-one with the ‘Golden Age’ icon, he’d be buttered up in an instant if his directorial debut was showered in praise, which is exactly what Michael Munn did before finding out why it girded his loins so much.
Was it the greatest movie he ever made? No. Did it deserve to be recognised by the Oscars, as Wayne so vociferously claimed? Not really. Was it worthy of being the passion project that ‘The Duke’ dedicated more than a decade of his life to, burning several professional bridges along the way so that he was finally afforded the chance to tell the story of the epic battle on the biggest possible canvas? Meh.
As Munn recalled, Wayne literally forced it into their conversation because he knew the writer was a fan, asking him, “Tell me again why you liked The Alamo“. That’s sickly enough to make your teeth rot, and sycophantic enough to make your eyes roll into the back of your head, but co-star Linda Cristal knew why he was constantly searching for kind words.
“He loved The Alamo like a man loves a woman,” she informed Munn. “And so your admiration for The Alamo was like a respected admiration for a woman he loved. It pleased him in a sincere way. He didn’t wallow in praise. But it delighted him that his work, his labour of love, touched you in the way he wanted it to touch everybody.” Honestly, get a room.
Frankly, that’s enough to give anyone the boke, but if that’s how ‘The Duke’ felt about it, then fair fucks.
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