Hugh Gallagher Review: John Wayne in “The Cowboys"

Promotional photo of John Wayne in The Cowboys
which appeared on the cover of Life Magazine

Fifty years ago, first-run John Wayne movies were still being shown in theaters, and one of them – The Cowboys – was reviewed in the Journal on Feb. 17, 1972.

Alan Hopewell’s favorite Journal movie critic, Hugh Gallagher, did the honors.

It’s interesting that Mr. Gallagher thought that the Duke was better in The Cowboys than he was in True Grit, which featured his Oscar-winning performance.

Back here on this post, I mentioned how I remembered seeing The Cowboys at Amherst Theater, and getting teary-eyed seeing the loathsome scumbag Bruce Dern murder the Duke. I haven’t been able to watch the movie on TV since. (Yes, I know that’s pretty goofy.)

(For the record, I didn’t mind seeing John Wayne get wiped out in The Alamo. After all, he was playing Davy Crockett and we knew in advance that everyone there was gonna die. At least he literally went out with a bang.)

Anyway, here’s the Hugh Gallagher movie review of The Cowboys.