John Wayne in “Red River” on WUAB – November 1968

I remember as a kid seeing this California tourism ad
featuring John Wayne in Life magazine.

John Wayne was still hugely popular with movie audiences in the 1960s and 70s, and our family was no exception.

My parents took us to Amherst Theater to see many of his first-run movies, including The War Wagon (1967), True Grit (1969), The Undefeated (1969), Chisum (1970), Big Jake (1971), The Cowboys (1972), and Cahill, United States Marshall (1973). We also saw some of his other films from that era at Lorain’s summer movie program for kids.

Today, most of John Wayne’s best movies are available on DVD or rerun endlessly on channels such as Grit TV. But back in 1968, if you wanted to see a specific John Wayne movie, you had to wait for it to show up on television – if it did at all, since many of his films were out of distribution for decades.

Thus, a John Wayne movie on TV back then was something special.

So it’s not too surprising to see the ad below promoting the Friday night showing one of the Duke’s best movies, Red River (1948) on Channel 43. The ad ran in the Journal on November 22, 1968.

I know we were watching that night. (What seems strange to me now is that the movie – which seemed so old at the time – was only 20 years old in 1968.)

In the movie, John Wayne plays Tom Dunson, a pretty tough character who builds a cattle empire with his adopted son Matthew Garth, played by Montgomery Clift.

The Duke’s loyal sidekick is played by Walter Brennan.

The main plot of the movie is the big cattle drive during which Dunson’s ruthless actions towards his hired hands eventually cause a rift between him and Matt. Matt ends up taking over the herd from Dunson, leaving him behind. Dunson then vows to kill him.

It all ends happily and sappily, with Dunson and Matt reconciling at the end of the movie.

But not before a big fist fight between the two. I remember thoroughly enjoying watching Wayne punch Montgomery Clift. And not believing that Clift could really smack the Duke around.

Anyway, the movie had a big effect on my siblings and me. It got us all working on our imitations; John Wayne (“Someday you’ll turn around... and I’ll be there. And I’ll kill you, Matt.”); Walter Brennan (“You was wrong, Mr. Dunson.”); and Hank Worden (“Plantin’ and readin’... plantin’ and readin’).

I can still recite huge chunks of dialogue from that movie. I never forgot the ‘ode to beef’ in the movie, in which John Wayne extols how beef makes people strong... makes them grow.

Not surprisingly, I’m still a big John Wayne fan. And I watch Grit TV every day, especially when one of the Duke’s movies is being shown.

The Duke as "Tom Dunson" samples some chuckwagon grub in Red River