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Will we get Thomas Mitchell and Victor McLaglen open threads? Hardly anybody would recognize either man's name today, unfortunately, but McLaglen was good, especially in his younger days, and Mitchell (to bring politics into it, he was the brother of an Eisnenhower administration cabinet member) was a towering giant. They were also the ones whose shoes Wayne and others had to fill…the past always influences the present, and if we are to look at the influence of past figures like Ford and Wayne, then we also have to look beyond them, and behind them, to further discover our own sources today.

And Mildred Natwick, too, please!

Thanks, too, for the link to Harry Carey, Jr's, book — this is my "John Ford Discovery Year," and I can't get enough information about his "company." I first really noticed Pennick in Ford's "Hangman's House," where he has an uncredited role–the image of him picking up that log when the hero and heroine arrive at Citizen Hogan's hideout is unforgettable; that was two years after he started making pictures, apparently. He had a long career! (Somehow I always think of Joe Sawyer/Sauer when thinking of Pennick, but Pennick is the appropriate one to write about here.)

Ward Bond was a solid actor, and appears in the most films of the American Film Institute's list of the "100 Greatest American Movies." He was the first of the "company" to impress me (as Seth Adams in "Wagon Train" as a kid); and now I especially enjoy his performances in "The Searchers" and "The Quiet Man," (he was in "Mr Smith Goes To Washington," too), but also like his death scene in "The Long Voyage Home," which Ford turned just about a full 180 degrees from the way O'Neill wrote original play ("Bound For Cardiff") that section of the movie was based on. You won't win many friends by promoting his politics, though he didn't whine about the Hollywood backlash it earned him; he just capped his career with a triumph. It's such a pleasure to watch that last on-screen conversation between Wayne and Bond in "Rio Bravo."

(to be cont….)

In any case, Jack Pennick would probably give the benefit of the doubt because he's that kind of guy .

Robert Montgomery played many fluff films. There was a sensitivity, or self consciousness in his persona that separated Montgomery from the scenery. I did not know his war history. What a contrast with today's Hollywood, where patriotism is suspect.

They Were Expendable and Fort Apache were both great films. Fort Apache is my favorite of the two because something in it is so real I can feel the temperature of the breezes and the emotion is unwrapped. I cannot tire of that wonderful depiction of man.

I look forward to reading the other articles of the series. Thanks

Thanks for your take on this. It's always worth keeping in mind how severely cultural mores change, and that our grandparents lived in a world that is now foreign to ours in many key respects.

I don't believe either was married at the time, and the movie doesn't insinuate anything untoward about their relationship — they don't kiss during the entire film, or even embrace save to dance. The lady's case was based almost solely around the scene where John Wayne and Donna Reed are left to talk in the dark after Wayne's buddies politely excuse themselves at the end of dinner. It's an extraordinarily chaste scene, even by 1940s standards — if you watch it, you'll see what I mean. (and for all of you readers out there who have been following this series, listen carefully to the guitar-and-harmonica melody being played ever so softly under their dialogue — by now, if I've done my job, you should immediately recognize it.)

In the end, it wasn't losing the case that spooked the studio, but the size of the judgment: $290,000, which adjusting for inflation would come to almost three million pazoors today. Even the newspapers at the time deemed the case threadbare and opportunistic, so it came as a big shock to everyone, and scared the studios into proactively protecting themselves against such charges in the future. Meanwhile the guy on which Wayne's character was based only got a few thou!

Fair enough (I'm certainly no expert on military terminology and protocol) but in my defense, Pennick was both a marine in his early years during World War I, and a Navy/OSS man in Ford's Field Photo Unit in World War II. Note that even Wild Bill Donovan refers to Pennick as a "soldier" in the quote I gave in the article above.

Like Ford, Pennick is buried pretty close to where I live, so if his shade is angered I'm sure I'll have a nocturnal visitor rapping, tapping at my door any minute now. Once a Marine, always a Marine. . .

I envy you your first, fresh viewing of EXPENDABLE.

I wrote about Joe McBride and his wonderful book at length in the FURTHER READING section of the first post in this series:

http://tinyurl.com/yk96fw5

A reader named scruvy mentioned the Leftist slant of parts of the book here:

http://tinyurl.com/ykgjpfc

And my response to his (and now your) comments can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/yf3zdrb

I agree with your take, but still find the book invaluable.