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Rating:  - A Legend Passes
"I won't be wronged, I won't insulted, I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to others and require the same of them." Books credo and a fitting finale to a long and legendary career. Once there were giants. Wayne, Cagney, Cooper, Hepburn, Grant, Gable, Flynn, Bogart, all gone. We shall not see their like again. Wayne, undoubtably the most popular movie star of all time ( He was number one at the box office 21 times -- Gary Cooper did it 18 and Clint Eastwood 17), after a career of classic films in the 1940's and 50's, some routine oaters in the 1960's and early 1970's -- broken up by TRUE GRIT -- the Duke ends his career (though he didn't know at the time) with a movie that eerie reflect of the man and his life.
Rating: - the shootist
I bought this for my husband who has a lot of John Wayne films.
We watched it and it was fun to watch him "enjoy" the old movie and have a good clean movie day with our kids.
It was fun to watch "Opie" Ron Howard as a young man. My kids knew. or know him as "opie".
Too bad they don't make good clean movies any longer.
Thank you
shipped quick too
Rating: - A Fitting Tribute
This was John Wayne's last and best role. The Shootist (1976) didn't do well at the box office, but it has grown in stature with age. Wayne had already been fighting cancer for two years when the film was made and a lot of his friends joined the cast as a way of saying goodbye. (The casting of Ron Howard as the boy caused the ending to be softened from the book, but it still works.)
This combination eulogy and ensemble film never wallows in pathos and you believe that J. B. Brooks really reflects John Wayne inner character . This is a engaging story that shows that Wayne was not just a great star, but he was also a great human being.
The special feature on the making of the film is also well worth watching.
The Shut Mouth Society
The Shopkeeper
Rating: - John Wayne's last movie
The Shootist DVD
It's difficult to watch the Shootist, knowing that John Wayne was, in fact, dying of cancer, as was his character in the movie, and this was his last completed movie. John Wayne plays a dying cowboy/lawman that has come to town to die. It is, also somewhat symbolic of an Age dying, when you see the street cars down the middle of the main drag.
Highly recommended for fans of John Wayne, Western movies, and action films.
Gunner April, 2008
Rating: - One of my favorite films and I think one of Wayne's very best
This is one of my favorite movies. I think it is one of the best of the films that deal with the death of the Old West and the transition to smaller and unheroic modern times. J B Books is a valedictory character on several levels. For those of us who know Wayne's biography, we know this was his last film and appreciate what a fine job he did with the role. It is also, in its way, a valedictory to the kind of Western that Wayne made with a clear hero and bad guys.
Yes, you can claim that Books, who has killed dozens upon dozens of men, was a "bad guy". However, that is also another measure of its valedictory nature. The movie shows us how men died at the end of Books' gun. And Books himself claims that he ended up killing men who deserved it and largely in self-defense because he was living in the wild country. The civilized types who have never been in the boots in which Books walked see all killing as an example of bad character and hire others to kill on their behalf. So, it is also the valedictory of courage and the transition to the safety seeking city dweller. You know: us.
Towards the beginning of the film, JB Books seeks out Dr. Hostetler (a fine small role for Jimmy Stewart) to confirm a terrible diagnosis he had gotten elsewhere. Books hears that he is going to die quite soon and in a painful and awful way. He gets a bottle of laudanum from the Doc and asks if it isn't habit forming and the Doc confirms that it is. The lack of the "but" is one of the many nice moments in the film. We are taught by this more obvious exchange to look more closely for all that is not being said in a surprisingly subtle Waynestern. (Actually, most were more subtle than the caricature his detractors have scribbled for us.)
The Doc points him to the Widow Rogers (magnificently played by Lauren Bacall) where he can rent a room. Books is quite clear in his demands and so private he won't even share his name. The widow is instantly put on guard by the guns and her new boarder's secretiveness. She also has a near adult son named Gillom (Ron Howard in one of his very best roles). Gillom takes an instant dislike to the guest because he doesn't like the way he is being bossed around and sets out to find who this big old man is. When he finds out it is J B Books, the cover is blown and the whole town disregards his desire for privacy.
I don't want to spoil all the delights of the story, but it is fascinating how people want to condemn Books, but still use him to enhance their own lives. Sheree North as Books' past love, Serepta has one of the more heartbreaking scenes. Harry Morgan has a great turn as Marshall Walter Thibido (the name reveals his character). And the three men who will finally face Books are Bill Kinney as Jay Cobb, Hugh O'Brian and the faro dealer Jack Pulford and the glorious Richard Boone as Mike Sweeny. Some have criticized this final challenge as contrived. In a way, it is because it is required in these kinds of stories. But each of the three does have a real motivation. Sweeny hate Books for killing his brother, Pulford has a reputation to protect, and Cobb wants nothing to do with it but is put into the fight by Thibido because he has been such a big mouth and bully to everyone else.
I also enjoyed Scatman Crothers as the liveryman Moses Brown. He has an important role in showing us Gillom's development and struggle. This film has a very important sub-plot about Gillom's transition from boy to man and deciding what kind of man he will be. In the beginning he is full of boyish energy and willing to take the attention of any man who will pay attention to him. Once he becomes attached to Books he is attracted to the glory of his reputation, but the reality of Books puts him in a conflicted state of mind. And the choices he makes outside the saloon during the final conflict and inside at the end of it reveal how far Books has come. Gillom's final walk home, at first towards his mother makes us think he is going to her for comfort, but he turns and then she follows him. His journey to manhood is completed in the furnace of sorrow and turning away from rage at the last.
A terrific movie. I hope you will see it.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
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