Posted on 01/10/2010 11:19:14 AM PST by JoeProBono
I saw part of that movie once in the eighties. It was so bad I couldn’t even watch it.
In chronological order.
They Were Expendable
Red River
The Ford Cavalry Trilogy
Sands of Iwo Jima
The Quiet Man
The Searchers
Rio Bravo
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Sons of Katie Elder
The Shootist
Man, I screwed it up. First line should be, “Give me a whiskey”
Rio bravo is ranked way too high in that list. Iwo jima, true grit, and the shootist are ranked too low.
Director Dick Powell, many of the actors (John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendariz, Thomas Gomez, Agnes Moorehead), and several of the crew members later fell victim to cancer, allegedly the result of producer Howard Hughes' decision to lens the film on location near the atomic testing grounds in the Utah desert. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Very sad, Armendariz has several bouts with cancer before he committed sucide. I loved him in The Three Godfathers.
57 posts and you are the first mention of “the Sons of Katie Elder”...
Wasn’t Hondo played by Alan Ladd? (or I am thinking of another Louis Lamore book)
The exterior scenes were shot on location near St. George, Utah, 137 miles downwind of the United States government’s Nevada Test Site, Operation Upshot-Knothole, where extensive above-ground nuclear weapons testing occurred during the 1950s. The cast and crew spent many difficult weeks on the site. In addition, Hughes later shipped 60 tons of dirt back to Hollywood for re-shoots. The cast and crew knew about the nuclear tests—there are pictures of Wayne holding a Geiger counter during production—but the link between exposure to radioactive fallout and cancer was poorly understood then.
Powell died of cancer in January 1963, only a few years after the picture’s completion. Hayward, Wayne, and Moorehead all died of cancer in the mid to late 1970s. Cast member actor John Hoyt died of lung cancer in 1991. Pedro Armendáriz was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 1960 and committed suicide after he learned it was terminal. Skeptics point to other factors such as the wide use of tobacco—Wayne and Moorehead in particular were heavy smokers—and the notion that cancer resulting from radiation exposure does not have such a long incubation period. The cast and crew totaled 220. 91 developed some form of cancer by 1981 and 46 had died of it by then.[1] Dr. Robert Pendleton, professor of biology at the University of Utah, stated, “With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic. The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you’d expect only 30 some cancers to develop...I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up in a court of law.”[
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“Two of the very best westerns ever made; Red River and The Searchers.”
One of my wife’s favorite comments, “You’re watching The Searchers AGAIN?”.
12 cents for a comic book. Boy those where the days.
My favorite line “Yer’ beautiful in yer’ wrath”. An absolutely terrible movie.
Great movie. I have the dvd.Best naval battle on film,Battleships(Jap)heavy cruisers (ours) slugging it out. Our ships got wacked,but it is still good.
In the historical epic The Conqueror, John Wayne stars as Temujin, better known as Genghis Khan. Red-haired Susan Hayward costars as Bortai, the Tartar princess whom Temujin claims as the spoils of battle. Eventually, Bortai’s hatred for her captor metamorphoses into love, while Temujin’s hordes lay claim to the entire Gobi Desert. Director Dick Powell, many of the actors (John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendariz, Thomas Gomez, Agnes Moorehead), and several of the crew members later fell victim to cancer, allegedly the result of producer Howard Hughes’ decision to lens the film on location near the atomic testing grounds in the Utah desert. ~ Hal Erickson
goat granny was wrong, googled Hondo, it was J.Wayne. I should know better than to question Freepers.....me bad
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