John Wayne Talking Pictures

Strong, tough, hard-working, straight-talking -

these were the qualities Americans saw

when they watched John Wayne fill the big screen,

and over a 50-year career, those qualities turned him

into one of the great American icons.

Known affectionately as Duke, he starred in over 175 films,

and though they weren't all Westerns,

that is the genre with which he is for ever associated.

The image of him high in the saddle with a gun in his hand

is one that became familiar

to generation after generation of cinemagoers the world over.

Famously, John Wayne was not his real name,

as he explains here in our interview from 1969.

My right name is Marion Michael Morrison,

and the studio decided that it was not American enough for a boy

who was going to play Breck Coleman in The Big Trail back in 1929.

So, the studio heads were put together

and they came up with the name John Wayne.

But long before I had the name John Wayne,

I was going to school in Glendale and I had a dog named Duke,

and the dog would follow me as far as the fire station

on the way to school in the morning

and wait at the fire station for me to return in the evening.

And the firemen all knew the dog's name, but they didn't know mine,

so they called the dog Big Duke and me Little Duke.

-That was a few years ago.

-What did you study at Glendale?

Well, at Glendale high school I was just a...

In Glendale, it was just grammar school and high school.

I went to University of Southern California.

I took a pre-legal course.

Did you ever intend to be a lawyer?

Yes, I...

I think I would have enjoyed the occupation, but...

..while I was going to school,

I was offered a job in the summertimes working at the studios.

I met Mr John Ford, and I enjoyed working with him

and watching him mould a scene and meld the people to the scene.

And then I go back to school and look around at these kids and I say,

"This kid's father is a lawyer,

"this kid's uncle is an established lawyer,

"and they're going into those offices

"and one of them will take me

"and then I'll be writing briefs in the backroom for 10 or 15 years,"

and it didn't look quite as appealing or as exciting as pictures.

So, when I was offered the acting job,

I accepted it, never realising that it would end up a career,

but thinking it might establish me

so's that I could get into the production, and finally direct,

which I wanted to do.

Why was it cowboy films in particular that interested you?

Well, it wasn't a case of what it interested in me,

it was a case of that which I fit in best.

I...was of...

six foot four, which is a fairly tall man at the time in pictures, and...

and all the leading ladies were small, so I...!

You know, you don't...

You're all bent over like this with those leading ladies.

So, I fit the background of Westerns better.

And in those days, they needed...

You know, they didn't spend quite as much money on doubles and things

as they do today, and they expected you to be rugged enough

to do a little of this stuff, so I fit that category.

So, I guess that's why I got started in them.

Have you seen any of the films you made, those early films?

-Have you seen any of them recently?

-I try not to see them.

Stagecoach is always considered the turning point in your career.

-Yes, it certainly was.

-Why?

Well, it was the first time that I was able to be

a part of a picture in which...

..the reaction became important.

You know...

they say action pictures and A pictures...

..but in these action pictures that we made, earlier,

you had to explain the story, tell where you were going,

explain, you know, we'll...

the heavies are going Dodge Gulch,

so we'll cut across Red Gulch and meet them ahead of time.

Then you'd ride out and you'd say, "Well, this is Red Gulch,"

and then they'd say, "There they come now,"

and you never had a reaction to any situation.

It was just all action.

And nobody has a chance to get much of their personality

into a picture under those conditions.

But in Stagecoach, the story was told with a camera

rather than by the mouthing of the leading men.

You must be offered a lot of parts.

What determines you in choosing a particular one?

Personal story, as a rule.

Sometimes... you're stuck, you know,

and it's getting time for an assignment to come up,

and you accept stories that are not completed, but as a rule,

whenever that happens, you run into a mess.

But I haven't learned my lesson completely yet.

-I still do it on occasion.

-What parts would you downright refuse?

Anything mean and petty. I think...

I've established a character on screen that may be rough,

may be cruel...

..may have a different code than the average person,

but it's never been mean or petty or small.

A film where Wayne had decided exactly which role he got

was The Alamo, another epic Western that he not only starred in,

alongside Richard Widmark and Laurence Harvey,

but produced and, for the first time, directed as well.

In 1960, he was in the UK for its opening,

and he spoke to Robert Robinson on the programme Picture Parade,

starting with the subject of the movie's length.

Now, the film is itself just over three hours long.

Did it need to be this long?

Well, I felt that it needed to be that long.

We wanted to develop each character,

particularly the Travis character, who was not well-known to audiences.

Naturally, they've heard of Bowie and Crockett,

and they've developed a picture of him.

But in order to set Travis, we probably took longer than we...

-Travis was played by Laurence Harvey.

-By Laurence Harvey.

And we thought he was magnificent in the picture.

Actually, now that we've seen Ben-Hur out and Spartacus,

and they're saying, "Too long, too long, too long,"

perhaps we should have tempered the time, cut it down.

Actually, I used my baby in the film

and I think I gave her a little too much footage.

It's probably a little sentimental.

And I had a sequence in which I wanted to set the...

the tenor of feeling of the men at the end,

and I had Parson's death.

But the Parson was not too well-known to the audience.

So, actually, I feel that maybe those two sequences

we could have done without them, and we may cut them.

You produced and directed and took the leading part in the film.

Well, I took one of the leading parts in the film.

It looked like THE leading part to me.

Well, I think that Travis was the pivotal character off of...

Travis was actually the man with the dedication

and he's the man who turned the other men into heroes.

Most of the men came in

as just healthy, rough, lusty men of the period, and...

-They're always the more interesting, aren't they?

-Oh, always.

But anyway, you had these three major responsibilities.

Did they worry you?

Not until after I was about halfway through the picture.

I'll tell you something, when you first start off,

you're kind of a lamb, you know, in a thing like this.

And I just assumed that I would have no troubles.

About halfway through the picture,

I realised that although I had known my crew for years,

and knew each personality,

I hadn't known Mr Harvey and I hadn't known Mr Widmark,

and whether or not we would chemically adjust to each other.

And about halfway through, when everything was going well,

and I realised how well it was going,

I started thinking what could have happened,

and I spent a night shaking, I'll tell you!

You referred earlier to your small daughter.

Did we you find it difficult to direct her,

to make her act, in a way, because...?

Well, actually, she was three years old,

and you can't expect too much of a three-year-old.

And at about four and a half, they start to get bashful.

She wasn't really bashful at that time

and she had enough reasoning power to remember a line.

But I think I went overboard a little with the young lady.

But that, I guess, is a father's prerogative.

Is it a difficult technique to act in front of cameras

which you're also directing?

Well, actually, what we would do

would be to come in and rehearse a scene and set the scene.

I've found that in lots of pictures

where actors have something to do with the direction,

that things become so pat, it loses its spontaneity.

And we were very conscious of clean performances,

but there's something that isn't realism

and there's something that isn't motion picture-style.

Accidents, lots of times, make for good scenes in pictures.

And when you're out there, you often think, "Oh, cut,"

because you figure something's gone wrong.

But actually, I overcame that feeling

and a lot of scenes that I was worried about when we shot,

when we'd look at them in rushes, were fine.

-You let the accidents stay in?

-Always.

Now, I know that you are a protege of John Ford, the director.

Did you have his assistance on this film?

Well, he is certainly my mentor,

and I had all of his enthusiasm and his good wishes.

He came down to visit us a couple of times on the sets,

but he was very careful to stay in the background,

realising that these people, you know,

it might affect their performance.

You have one and a half million dollars invested in this venture.

Do you feel that that is a calculated risk?

Well, it was a calculated risk because of the medium.

It requires spending a great deal more money to get it on the screen.

I wish I could have made it for 100,000, you know,

but it just was impossible.

To do this picture the way that I believed it should be done

just cost that much money.

You've been at the top of your profession, Mr Wayne,

as an actor, for about a quarter of a century,

although that has a more historical ring than I mean it to have.

25 years.

I don't wish to embarrass you, but can you tell me,

quite apart from your capacity as an actor,

what do you think your appeal is?

Well, we are in the business of making motion pictures.

And motion pictures...allow action.

And although top pictures, I believe,

are stories of people and their reactions to situations,

but once you have played a scene

and put those reactions on the screen,

then with our medium of motion picture,

you can pull back and show them scenery and break up monotony.

And naturally, the field of outdoor pictures,

which I have been in, lend itself to that medium.

And as a consequence, probably people have come away pleased

with the type of pictures that I've been in.

-That's a very modest answer, Mr Wayne.

-I didn't mean it modestly,

but I really do think that that has a great effect.

Because you play tough guy parts in films, do you find that

people in the street try and pick quarrels with you?

No, actually, the kind of tough parts that I've played

have not been really aggressive toughies on the screen.

When I first came into the business and had to wear real long hair

for a lot of pioneer parts when I was young,

a few of the fellas tried to get into conversations with me

that might have got them in trouble,

but I managed to talk my way out most of the time.

It wasn't just the tough guy image

that went everywhere with John Wayne.

Over the years, he also became increasingly well-known

for his strong right-wing views and die-hard Republican politics.

In the 1950s, he was a prominent supporter

of the House Un-American Activities Committee

and its efforts to remove communists from the film industry,

something he discussed in a prickly encounter

with Michael Parkinson in 1974.

Can I talk to you now

about another much publicised aspect of your life,

-which is the sort of political views that you hold?

-Mm.

I'd like to particularly ask you, as well,

because it's related to the film industry,

about that period in your career in Hollywood

when you were to the forefront of the people

who were blacklisting the alleged communist members of the industry.

-That's not a true statement.

-Well...

-We were not blacklisting.

-They were...

-Well, you were naming...

-No.

They were blacklisting. We didn't name anybody.

We stayed completely out of it and said, "We are Americans."

Anybody that wanted to join us was fine.

We gave no names out to anybody at any time, ever.

But when you look back at that now, John, this space of time,

I mean, are you proud of what happened in Hollywood and that time?

I think it was probably a very necessary thing at the time

because...

..the radical liberals were going to take over our business...

..and you wouldn't have had any pictures like that then.

No, but seriously, though, I mean, were they in a position,

the people who got kicked out of Hollywood, surely they...?

-Who were kicked out?

-Well, the people...

-Wait a minute.

-Tell me who was kicked out.

-Well, the people who left.

-Let's take, for an example, Carl Foreman.

-Yeah, Carl Foreman.

-There was Dalton Trumbo.

-Carl Foreman, Dalton Trumbo.

-Look what happened to Larry Parks.

-About...

Larry Parks admitted that he had been a commie and he went on working.

Well, he didn't work for some time.

Well, he hadn't worked a hell of a lot before that, had he?

-Well, no, but I mean...

-No.

But, I mean, these aren't people, surely,

are they, who you would expect to take over the industry?

Well, at the time, it seemed rather serious.

And they were getting themselves into a position where they could

control who would do the writing.

But isn't it...

Isn't it right that people of all shades of opinion should be able to

make movies whether they be extreme right-wing or extreme left-wing?

Definitely. Any time that it is their opinion, fine.

But the trouble there was that they were spouting by rote...

..somebody else's way of life.

That's all right for those fellas over there. That's the way

they want to live but we don't have to have it in our country.

-No, you could say, of course...

-That was our point of view.

Yes, but you could say that your point of view was reflecting

the capitalist way of life, the American way of life.

I don't think that capitalist is such an unpopular word, you know, it's...

In 200 years, we have taken a wilderness and

built a factory that feeds the world, a farm that supplies the world

and a farm that feeds the world.

And we have been doing our best to help everybody out that we can

so I think it's a pretty good way of living.

I read an interview that you gave, John,

in which you said that you objected to High Noon, to the film itself.

You said it was un-American.

I saw that film and, I guess,

a lot of people here in this audience will have seen that film

and I, for the life of me, can't see what is un-American about it.

Well...

..a whole city of people

that have come across the plains

and suffered all kinds of hardships

are suddenly afraid to help out a sheriff

because three men are coming into town that are tough.

No, he goes to them and pleads them, he goes into the church

and, for some reason,

the women are all sitting on one side of the church and the men

are sitting on the other side of the church and he pleads his case.

And the men say, "No, no, no."

And women get up and say, "You're yellow, you're cowards."

I don't think that ever happens in the United States.

Then at the end of the picture,

he took the United States Marshall badge, threw it down,

stepped on it and walked off.

-I think those things are just a little bit un-American.

-Really?

-Yeah.

It's amazing, you see, cos I've seen that film not once but,

-oh, four or five times.

-Well, you saw those things.

Do they strike you as being a true picture of the Pioneer West?

-No, but...

-Or a picture of what Carl Foreman or somebody

would like to give our children the impression?

No, but similarly,

I'm sure a lot of the movies that have been made about the West

that you would approve of

were similarly not a true picture of the West

nor of American society.

I just took it to be, you know, a dramatic exposition of something

and certainly not a knock at the American way of life.

I'm amazed, you know, when I read it in the research, I thought,

"My God, this is an extraordinary ultra-reaction."

Well, actually...

..you must realise what was going on at that time in our business.

-Well, I was going to ask...

-There was a heated...

There was a heated thing going on.

There were a lot of people that were fine writers

that were getting...

weren't being used and it was rough on them

and that why I took up for that side because Maury Riskin

who was a Pulitzer Prize-winner couldn't get a job

because he didn't think exactly like these fellas.

That's what started it. Not us trying to throw them out.

I suppose they could turn around, conversely, and say, of course,

then they couldn't get a job afterwards.

Well, they did pretty well.

What about your...?

Switching from that slightly to your political views

about the modern political views about the modern scene in America.

-You, of course, are a friend and supporter of President Nixon.

-Yes.

Has, in any way, what's happened over the recent months

altered your point of view about him?

No, it has brought to light what

any thinking American must realise

and that is that

politics in our country are not...

..shall we say, the most beautiful part of our American life.

And instead of blaming politics for what is going on - the good

and the bad politicians don't want to get mixed up in that -

they're blaming leadership.

Now, this man came in, first he tried to keep in all the liberals

and all the Conservatives and tried to make one big family.

Then the liberals started double-crossing him

so he turned to the others.

Then they got high-hat and started running affairs

in a very high-handed fashion, which they shouldn't have done.

It was wrong. It was a terrible abuse.

But it wasn't the leadership of our country.

It takes three years for a man to get his hands on the reins

of government after he gets in there and in the fourth year

he is in a campaign again.

Now, what did this man do for us?

He brought home 525,000 kids from Vietnam that two very popular

presidents couldn't do and he had to do it the unpopular way -

by making the decision to mine Haiphong Harbour.

Then when they started playing pawns with our prisoners of war,

he made the awesome decision of

bombing Hanoi and did and brought them home.

He opened up a detente with China, which the conservatives didn't like.

I think he's...

I think he should be at the top of his glory right now

and, instead of that, because of some political thing,

they are belittling this man.

But the political... It's more than a political thing, isn't it?

It involves criminal acts.

-Yes.

-But, I mean, you can't have the president of the United States

or indeed the president of any country to be seen

in that kind of company, can you? Because if they do that...

I don't think anybody has seen him in that side of company.

It's true that the party did do some idiotic things

and they are going to jail for it

but I think it is pretty unfair to

try to bring our president into it.

You don't think he should be impeached then

as a lot of Americans do?

Well, to have an impeachment is probably the only way that

they'll ever clear his name

because each day a new little piece of something comes out,

they try to twist it around.

Only by either a grand jury

or by an impeachment

can he be cleared up to where people will

either believe in him or not believe in him.

The latest poll shows that eight out of ten Americans now

have lost confidence in Nixon.

I mean, that's a very, very different situation than it was,

what, two years ago, isn't it?

Yeah, and if that is true, too, you know.

Well, I mean, it's a poll published in America. The Harris Poll.

I mean, polls, I know, are not infallible

but they give a fair indication.

Right, right, I'm sure that there is a...

It is quite a bit that way.

Are you bored with this conversation now?

No, I'm not bored but I do know

that they have taken advantage of this man and that

he probably should have just stood up at the very beginning and said,

"Anybody that's has done something wrong will go to jail."

He didn't do it soon enough.

He believed in the fellas he had around him

in spite of the fact that when you have...

in a year's time they mushroom up millions of dollars to do

a campaign, you know there is going to be some misuse of funds,

misuse of power

and it suddenly is all focused on this one man.

If his controversial views sometimes earned him a rough ride over here,

in the eyes of many people back home,

they would help to consolidate his image as a hero.

Something explored in a programme called

The Great American Picture Star.

Chicago in the summer of 1976.

Like many American cities in the year of the Bicentennial,

people are looking for home-grown heroes to honour.

In the city hall, they confer the freedom on an actor

who, perhaps more than most, portrays the ideal American -

John Wayne.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

For the town hall office workers, it is

an opportunity to come face-to-face with a Hollywood legend.

For Mayor Richard Daley, it is

a chance to honour a man whose view of America is close to his own.

We admire him because he's a great American.

One of the outstanding men in this country that is constantly talking

about our country and its people

and are reassuring in the bicentennial year that we do

live in a great land

and there is nothing like it any place in the world and we all should

get together and start boosting it instead of tearing it down.

So, John, on behalf of the people of Chicago and by virtue

of my authority as mayor, I would like to present you this medallion

of merit on the visit to our city

and make you an honorary citizen.

And I know you will come back in the next election and vote.

APPLAUSE

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

In America, with no royalty and, after Watergate,

less of a regard for politicians, people need someone to hero worship.

Hollywood has traditionally filled the gap.

-MAN IN CROWD:

-Duke, you're the greatest!

-ANOTHER MAN:

-You are a real American and what could be better?

-THIRD MAN:

-John, wonderful to have you here.

Thank you. It's great being here.

The alumni of the University of Notre Dame,

an institution renowned throughout America for its sporting prowess,

heap even further honours on the great American.

Ladies and gentlemen,

this is truly a great honour to present this award to

Duke Wayne tonight, who is no doubt of the most popular

and respected movie actor of all time.

APPLAUSE

He has been made entertainer of the year -

a greatly sought-after award.

Bob Hope was the 1975 recipient.

But not everywhere is the prophet treated with such honour.

Notably, when he braved the winter snows and snowballs of Harvard Yard

in Boston to field questions from a less respectful university.

To his credit, he gave as good as he got.

The students came to jeer and stayed to cheer.

-STUDENT:

-How do you feel about students smoking LSD?

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

I'm just happy that you all weren't here 200 years ago.

They'd have never got that tea into the harbour.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

-ANOTHER STUDENT:

-Is it true that your toupee is real mohair?

No, sir, that's real hair.

Not mine but real hair.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-THIRD STUDENT:

-I don't care what they say about you, Duke,

you're still a man.

LAUGHTER

-FOURTH STUDENT:

-Mr Wayne, do you look at yourself

as a fulfilment of the American dream?

I don't look at myself any more than I have to, friend.

Nearly all of his contemporaries of either retired or died

but even a brush with death in 1964 when he contracted lung cancer

couldn't stop Wayne.

After the operation, he immediately threw himself into an arduous film.

Now he is in his 70th year,

dogged by ill-health but still in the saddle.

This summer, in Burbank Studios in California, Wayne was to be found

putting the final touches to yet another cowboy movie - The Shootist.

It's the final day's shooting.

The director is Don Siegel,

well-known for films like The Killers and Dirty Harry.

On the set, Wayne is the professional's professional.

Word perfect himself and generous to his fellow actor who may have

difficulty sharing a scene with him.

Well, what's your proposition?

Well, I'm prepared to offer you embalming

by the most modern methods, by the most scientific methods.

Bronze coffin, guaranteed good for a century

regardless of the climatic or geological...

-..what?

-Conditions.

-Conditions.

Geological conditions. My best hearse.

Oh, this is lunch, powerful lunch, you know.

That's all right. That's all right. Take your time.

It was on a back-lot set like this 50 years ago that Wayne

and his football team-mate first found work.

So, John Williams and I had put on the swing gang,

which is the fellas who bring in the furniture so that the set

decorator can say, "Put it there, put it there, put it there."

And I stayed at that for a while and when Ford needed somebody to

come herd the geese on his set, they sent me over there

and from then on I worked in the property department

and with Pappy Ford on his pictures.

-INTERVIEWER:

-Do you feel more at home when you're doing a Western

than on any other sort of picture?

No, you feel at home, you feel...

When you have a good personal story

and you feel everything fits together then is when you're relaxed,

otherwise, you know,

it's really a torture to work in a picture that you feel isn't

going to be good and that

you are a pawn in somebody's hand doing this thing.

But I think this is going to be a good one.

Unlike the younger superstars,

who feel they don't owe their public any more than their performances,

Wayne is aware of who ultimately pays his salary

and is unfailingly gracious to guests on the set.

Yeah, well, you know, I felt so lousy this whole picture.

It was only the day before yesterday I felt good.

But it wasn't just on this picture. I just had a lousy year.

-Well, let's hope from here on out...

-I'm telling you, I feel great now.

When you wake up, it doesn't matter

if the sun is shining or anything, if you feel good...

In the film, Wayne plays an aging gunfighter who is dying of cancer.

He has summoned an undertaker to make his own funeral preparations.

You're going to lay me out for the public to gawp at 50 cents a head,

children 10, and when the curiosity peters out you're going to

stuff me in a gunny sack and stick me in a hole someplace

and hustle to the bank with the loot.

Mr Books, I assure you...

No. Have you got a pencil and paper?

The picture ends with Wayne's death. A bloody but a tasteful death.

How do you like the red button holes?

I remember him, red buttons.

'The whole idea of our business is illusion'

and they are getting away from that now.

Putting electric squibs in livers and blowing them up slow motion

and having blood all over everything. I mean...

..it's not that there is more violence in pictures today,

it's that it is done with such bad taste that people turn their

stomachs, not their emotional insides are affected, it turns their stomach.

I just don't want to play anything petty or small or mean.

I don't mind being rough and tough and cruel but in a big way.

No little, petty things.

I like good personal story.

I don't care whether it's armchair or stand on top of a building or

jumping off of it. If they jump off it, I don't do it anyway.

Indeed, his stand-in has already performed his dying fall.

Although Don Siegel may be the director, Wayne makes

sure that the camera captures his own demise with dignity.

You're shooting up his nose.

I'm going to make God-damned sure you're not shooting up my nose.

I mean, I can look at him right here and you're not shooting up my nose.

But if you put him around over here and I'm looking at him,

it's God-damned photographically...

-Do you want to put the bullets in?

-Don, Tom?

-Yes.

-You're right on his waist?

-Yes.

-Will it see the belt?

-Yes, it will.

OK.

You're going to shoot just up my nostrils.

Eventually, Wayne expires to his own satisfaction and the movie's over.

The producers throw a party for the cast and crew.

Some of the stars like James Stewart return for a farewell drink

but the Duke has gone.

Exhausted at the end of the picture, he escapes

to the only place in the world where he can really relax -

his boat, the Wild Goose, a converted mine-sweeper.

Since before the war,

he has been coming here to the Pacific coast of Mexico.

You know, when I step aboard this thing, I yawn.

I am just completely relaxed the minute I step aboard.

I don't have to dress up or be smiling or shaking hands or

if I'm having any trouble with any of my family,

I don't have to be sweet about it

because there's a lot of people around.

I can be a human being and not worry about an image.

Of course, I haven't had that much of an image where

I have to worry about it anyway.

And, luckily, I like people so I don't mind going to shore.

You noticed it's a quiet, little, sleepy town.

They don't bother you too much, particularly in Mexico,

they are very respectful of another man's dignity.

-INTERVIEWER:

-There is some of the family aboard. Which ones are they?

Well, Ethan, who is 14, Marisa, who is 10

and Aissa, who just turned 20

and is going to the University of Southern California.

It's Easter week and they are going to stay down here for about a week.

-How many children do you have altogether?

-Seven.

And what is the age range?

Well, from 40 to 10

and I have 20 grandchildren.

Don't ask me to name them.

On board the ship, perhaps a microcosm of the old America which

Wayne would like to preserve, he directs his family

and his crew and, indeed, our film crew with a firm hand.

Now, this is where we generally have lunch.

We don't do this for every meal but we think about it.

-Ethan, will you say grace?

-Yes.

Lord, we thank you for this food and for letting us be able to come

down here and have so much fun, God, cos most people can't do it.

-We thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name, God. Amen.

-Amen.

Dig in.

Here we go. Roast beef?

How about you, Pat?

Wayne is, in fact, separated from his third wife Pilar,

who is the mother of the three youngest children.

A crew of six run the ship with a professional captain at the helm.

-Skipper.

-Yes.

Do you think we can get this bunch over to Isla Grande and back?

I don't see why not.

We only have the one rock we have to be careful of going in.

-Yeah, but I mean we can get back by five?

-Oh, absolutely, yes.

-OK.

Take her away.

The apple of the Duke's eye is his youngest daughter Marisa.

-We stop over there. Isla Grande. Isn't that pretty, out there?

-Yeah.

When was the last time you were here?

Oh, I guess, when you're about that high.

Those white rocks are always a pleasant sight for us

aboard the Wild Goose.

We have seen them many times and now, in this bicentennial year,

is most important because below those white rocks

are the redcoats.

Now, the redcoats, in this case, are lobster.

That's where we get a lot of lobster, honey.

And that is between Zihuatanejo and Isla Grande,

-where we are going to go.

-Oh.

-I love you.

-I love you too.

-OK.

The Wild Goose is bedecked with patriotic memorabilia.

Most telling are the various regimental plaques sent to

Wayne from units fighting in Vietnam.

They appreciated his support for them during that war.

His patriotism has never wavered but today

he is a little disillusioned with modern America.

We are being represented by men who are kowtowing to minorities

where they can get votes

and I think it is bad for our country

and I am sad to see minorities

make so much of themselves as a hyphenated American.

I wish they would all get to thinking that they're Americans,

as they should and as they have luckily been born here

and couldn't be better off in any other place,

there shouldn't be so much whining and bellyaching.

In the late '60s and early '70s,

there was a period of considerable change.

Civil rights for blacks, equal rights for women.

Has this made America a better place?

I am saddened by the fact that, although we were a matriarchy,

I think we will not be any longer.

I think opening doors

and tipping your hat to ladies is probably a thing of the past.

The forerunners of the women's liberation of today have

taken that feeling away from the average American man.

But what about the civil rights? I mean...

What about the civil rights?

-Well, we have 20 million blacks on this continent.

-Right.

It was necessary to extend rights to them that, perhaps,

for the first 199 years were denied them in this free America.

I guess that they have had a pretty tough break

but not quite as bad as you

and your do-gooder friends would have them believe.

They live as well here as they live in any other country

over that 199 years.

True, I think they do have a right to more rights but it isn't a thing

where the rest of the country should feel terribly guilty

about anything because they have had a better life here

and their fathers and mothers than they would have had any place else.

And I want to see them have everything. I want...

I don't squawk and crybaby and say,

"I had to go without meals when I was 16 and 17 years old.

"It's a terrible thing."

I don't think that you should look back and whine and bellyache

or try to hold somebody else guilty for everything you did.

Despite the ferocity of his views, he must know that his children

are growing up in a new and changing and different America.

But if ever the future generation need to be

reminded of the spirit and values of the men who created

their continent, they need only turn to the films of John Wayne.

Not just a film star

but a real-life character played by Marion Morrison from Iowa.

I think Marion Michael Morrison and John Wayne are the same person.

I don't know. I mean, I don't know what the difference is.

I probably am a little more careful in my public image than

I would be were I Marion Michael Morrison

but I doubt it. I have done...

I have been on many an escapade under the name John Wayne that might

make Aunt May turn up her nose.

What sort of escapades?

Well, I like to handle that who-hit-John, as you know,

and do quite well and quite often.

But as long as I do things that do not hurt other people

either physically or their dignity,

I will allow them to do it and I hope and pray

that they will give me the same return feeling.

Well, I don't think it is too much to say that, in the eyes of

the rest of the world, you represent perhaps the ideal American.

Are you aware of this? Can you step outside of yourself and see that?

No.

I think I represent, as I said,

we are talking about personal identity.

I think that a Frenchman looking at me,

outside of when I play a clodhopper oaf or something,

the characteristics of manliness that I try to keep on the screen

are the things that every man would want, not just an American.

The day has ended.

The Wild Goose reaches her moorings for the night

and John Wayne orders a farewell salute.

Shall we give them a little show? Have you got the sunset gun ready?

Fine. The sun sets at 6.42, that's five seconds.

Four seconds, three seconds, two seconds, one second.

Now, pick it up, pick it up.

That's fine. That's fine. That's good.

We don't have to have the finish cos we cut back to me.

Well, another day and, let's hope, another dollar.

The Shootist turned out to be one of the most acclaimed

films of John Wayne's career.

It was also his last.

Three years after its release, he died of cancer, aged 72.

Posthumously, he received America's two highest civilian honours -

the Congressional Gold Medal

and the Presidential Medal of Freedom,

awarded to formally recognise his status as an iconic American,

the like of whom Hollywood is unlikely to produce again.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd