John Wayne in a portrait photoImage by INSTARimages.com
By
Shawn S. Lealos
Published 23 minutes ago
Shawn S. Lealos is an entertainment writer who is a voting member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. He has written for Screen Rant, CBR, ComicBook, The Direct, The Sportster, Chud, 411mania, Renegade Cinema, Yahoo Movies, and many more.
Shawn has a bachelor's degree in professional writing and a minor in film studies from the University of Oklahoma. He also has won numerous awards, including several Columbia Gold Circle Awards and an SPJ honor. He also wrote Dollar Deal: The Story of the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers, the first official book about the Dollar Baby film program. Shawn is also currently writing his first fiction novel under a pen name, based in the fantasy genre.
To learn more, visit his website at shawnlealos.net.
Sign in to your ScreenRant account Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recapJohn Wayne has always been best known for Westerns, and that means some of his non-Westerns remain underrated, or at least not respected as much as his cowboy movies. Wayne got his start acting in the late 1920s, but he rocketed to stardom when he joined forces with John Ford for the first time in the Western classic, Stagecoach.
After that, Wayne became the biggest name in Western movies for the next three decades. This includes many Western and war movies he made with John Ford. However, while he mainly starred in Westerns and some war films, John Wayne had a lot of other roles in his career that many people overlook and remain underrated.
Back To Bataan (1945)
On top of his Westerns, John Wayne starred in a lot of war movies. Wayne had a tremendous amount of respect for the genre, so much so that he told Steven Spielberg not to make 1941 because it made fun of the military. While many of Wayne's war movies were also Westerns, many weren't, including Back to Bataan.
Back to Bataan is a John Wayne movie that most people never mention, even when discussing the Duke's war films. This was a movie set during World War II's Pacific Theater, shot in black and white, taking place after the Battle of Bataan. Wayne plays an Army officer who tries to rally Filipino citizens against Japan.
The movie was critically praised, with an 86% fresh Rotten Tomatoes rating, but even with that praise, it is not a film that many John Wayne fans remember or have even watched. Despite that, it is an unflinching look at a part of World War II history that isn't seen in many films.
Trouble Along The Way (1953)
John Wayne in Trouble Along The Way
Released in 1953, Trouble Along the Way was one of John Wayne's sports movies. While most people know Wayne from his Westerns and his tendency to play cowboys, Wayne was a college football player before his acting career started. He played on the USC Trojans football team, but a broken collarbone ended his athletic career.
In Trouble Along the Way, John Wayne starred as a formerly disgraced football coach named Steve Williams who was hired to coach a small Catholic school. The school wanted to take a chance on him to help save them from bankruptcy via money made from its football program. In the end, it was an inspirational sports story.
Michael Curtiz directed the film over a decade after he made one of the greatest movies of all time, Casablanca. Seeing John Wayne in a sports movie by one of cinema's most talented directors should make this a lot more notable than it is. Instead, it is one of John Wayne's most underrated films.
Seven Sinners (1940)
John Wayne in Seven Sinners
When John Wayne wasn't acting in Westerns, he was acting in war movies, and he has several in that genre that remain considered masterpieces. However, around the same time he enjoyed his breakout performance in Stagecoach, Wayne also appeared in a romantic drama called Seven Sinners in 1940.
Wayne had one of the most famous actresses of the era acting opposite him in Seven Sinners, as Marlene Dietrich was his co-star and love interest. Wayne plays Dan, a United States Navy soldier, who meets Bijou Blanche (Dietrich), a singer who also sparks the attention of other soldiers at the time.
This was John Wayne's first romantic drama movie role, and it was a solid film with Wayne and Dietrich having great chemistry, and the obstacles in their way were perfectly set up.
The Life Of Jimmy Dolan (1933)
The cast of The Life Of Jimmy Dolan
Most people talk about John Wayne movies starting with Stagecoach, after he enjoyed his breakout role. However, almost no one talks about the films where John Wayne isn't one of the leads, and there are plenty of good ones before he ever signed on for Stagecoach. One of these arrived in 1933 with The Life of Jimmy Dolan.
This movie stars Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Jimmy Dolan, a famous boxer who is accidentally responsible for the death of a reporter at one of his fights. However, even after he wins the legal battle, a lawman decides to take justice into his own hands and begins hunting down Jimmy to make him pay for the perceived crime.
John Wayne stars as another boxer named Smith, and while it is a small role, it is a nice look at the kind of actor that John Wayne would become over the years.
Wake Of The Red Witch (1948)
John Wayne in Wake Of The Red Witch
One of John Wayne's lesser-known movies is Wake of the Red Witch. Directed by Edward Ludwig, Wayne stars as Captain Ralls, a ruthless captain of a ship called the Red Witch who sinks the ship and its cargo of $5 million worth of gold bullion during a rivalry with Mayrant Sidneye, the owner of a shipping company.
However, while Batjak chooses not to take official action against him, Sidneye has his own plans for Ralls. This was a rare film role, since John Wayne played more of a villain, although he had reasons for his actions. Still, what he did was immoral and illegal, and he faced consequences, as this was made during the Hays Code.
Wake of the Red Witch should get more attention for showing John Wayne in a very different light, as it was one of the more bizarre roles, and is a nice look at what the Duke would look like if he had taken on more villain roles.
The High And The Mighty (1954)
John Wayne in The High and the Mighty
John Wayne knew that he needed to keep acting in Westerns because that is what fans expected from him. However, he took a few chances over his career, although most of those films remain underrated thanks to being out of his more popular wheelhouse. One of these movies was the 1954 release, The High and the Mighty.
This was a disaster film, where Wayne plays an airline co-pilot named Dan Roman tasked with landing a plane safely after one of its engines goes out on a flight from Hawaii to California. The main pilot is unable to perform when this happens, and it is up to Dan to deal with landing the plane by himself.
This is a rare John Wayne disaster movie, and while the theme was repeated countless times in the following decades, the Duke delivered an outstanding performance as a man who refuses to give up in the face of death.
Without Reservations (1946)
John Wayne in Without Reservations
Without Reservations might be one of John Wayne's best non-Western movies, and it remains one of his most underrated, a film that more people need to talk about when discussing his best performances. This is a rare romantic comedy for John Wayne, as he plays a Marine soldier who becomes infatuated with a best-selling author he meets.
Claudette Colbert stars as Kit Madden, an author who is heading to Hollywood since her best-selling novel is being made into a movie. When it comes to comedic acting, Wayne doesn't have many great performances in his career, but this might be the Duke at his funniest, and it is easily his best comedy role.
It also helps that Wayne and Colbert have fantastic chemistry, which adds to the natural humor of their comedic scenes together. Without Reservations is also notable because Jack Benny, Raymond Burr, and Cary Grant all make cameo appearances in the film.
Pittsburgh (1942)
John Wayne smiling in Pittsburgh
Released in 1942, Pittsburgh is another film with John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich playing love interests, released two years after Seven Sinners showed they had great chemistry. In this film, Wayne is Pittsburgh Markham, a successful businessman from Pittsburgh, while Dietrich plays his love interest, Josie Winters.
This offers up a love triangle between Pittsburgh, Josie, and a man named Cash Evans (Randolph Scott). The movie also played heavily into the idea that World War II was building up in the background, but eventually, the film chose to ignore that in exchange for the main melodrama between the three main characters.
Pittsburgh received mainly mixed to negative reviews from critics, although it ended up as a box office success. However, most of the negative reviews compared the film to Wayne's Westerns, which wasn't fair and led to this film remaining an underrated release from the Duke in the 1940s.
They Were Expendable (1945)
John Wayne and Robert Montgomery in They Were Expendable
Released in 1945, the John Wayne war movie They Were Expendable is based on a 1942 nonfiction book by William Lindsay White. It is based on real events that happened on a U.S. Navy ship that was defending the Philippines. The events involved what was known as the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three.
John Wayne played Lt. J.G. "Rusty" Ryan. He was a military man who was tired of sitting around and wanted to enter combat and help the Allied Forces win the war. The movie was a success when released, earning two technical Academy Award nominations for its sound recording and visual effects.
However, while this was considered one of John Wayne's best war movies, it is once again overlooked by his more prestigious war films, like Sands of Iwo Jima, The Longest Day, and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. However, it stands up well against those films as one of Wayne's best movies.
The Quiet Man (1952)
John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara hugging in The Quiet Man
It might not be totally accurate to call The Quiet Man one of John Wayne's underrated movies. Still, when people are looking at his career and throwing out films like The Searchers, True Grit, and Stagecoach as his masterpieces, it is a crime that more people don't mention The Quiet Man, which might be John Wayne's greatest performance.
The Hollywood studios didn't even want to let John Ford make this movie, and he reluctantly had to make Rio Grande first, or the studio wouldn't give him the money for The Quiet Man. Both movies were good, but The Quiet Man was a genuine masterpiece. This was a charming Irish romantic comedy about a man rediscovering his homeland.
John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara were always brilliant together, but this was their best pairing, and it's a masterful film that's funny, clever, and has the perfect amount of romance. John Wayne was never better, and The Quiet Man deserves to be held to the same level as The Searchers, and the fact that it isn't makes it highly underrated.
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