The narration continues with a roll call of the members of \u201cFain\u2019s Gang\u201d, each one given a distinctive backstory: \u201cA professional gunfighter, the last of his kind\u201d; \u201cA back-shooter. Considered a coward\u201d; \u201cMaybe the worst of them. An indiscriminate killer. Women and children.\u201d Suddenly, we\u2019re not watching a Western \u2013 we\u2019re watching an episode of \u201cDragnet.\u201d So Wayne attempted to strike a balance, embracing certain elements of these new Westerns while maintaining a tight grip on his well-established persona. His sense of humor and self-awareness helped him land an acting Oscar for 1969\u2019s True Grit<\/em>, for example, and surrounded himself with younger stars (including New Hollywood poster boy Bruce Dern) in The Cowboys<\/em> in 1972. Between them came Big Jake<\/em>, a film that mostly feels like 1971 in its graphic violence \u2013 particularly the nastiness and brutality of the opening sequence, in which Fain\u2019s Gang invades the ranch of Martha McCandles (Maureen O\u2019Hara), kills several people, wounds her son, and kidnaps her grandson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is, I think, going to be a very harsh and unpleasant kind of business,\u201d she declares, of paying the ransom. \u201cAnd will, I think, require an extremely harsh and unpleasant kind of man to see to it.\u201d And with that, Sherman cuts to John Wayne, squinting as he takes aim. It\u2019s a perfect entrance, and a late one \u2013 we don\u2019t meet the star of the movie until the 19-minute mark. But that\u2019s the way to play this sort of thing; by 1971, you\u2019re not making a movie with John Wayne the actor, or even John Wayne the movie star. You\u2019re making one with John Wayne the icon, and you have to handle that accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not just that the director treats him like an icon; the other characters do as well. His first dialogue scene includes this exchange:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJust who in the hell do you think you are?\u201d This becomes a running joke through the film, and a clear inspiration for a similar runner in noted John Wayne fan John Carpenter\u2019s Escape from New York<\/em>; in one instance, Wayne (not above an inside joke himself), responds to the remark \u201cI thought you was dead for sure by now\u201d by snorting \u201cThat\u2019ll be the day,\u201d his catchphrase from The Searchers<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Familiarity with his previous work also lends some extra weight to his loaded scene with O\u2019Hara, with whom he\u2019d shared the screen several times before (most memorably in The Quiet Man<\/em>). Not that they don\u2019t have plenty to play; when he\u2019s first mentioned, she sneers, \u201cI have no husband,\u201d and he\u2019s been estranged from his family so long, he barely recognizes his children. She just wants Jake to deliver the ransom, and not make trouble. Anyone who\u2019s seen a John Wayne movie knows it won\u2019t be that simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n O\u2019Hara isn\u2019t the only familiar face; Big Jake<\/em> was produced via Wayne\u2019s own company, Batjac, and he makes it a family affair, casting his son Patrick as Jake\u2019s son Jim, and his son Ethan as his grandson Little Jake. (Make of that math what you will.) And he also cast, as another of Jake\u2019s sons, Christopher Mitchum \u2013 son of his pal (and El Dorado <\/em>co-star) Robert Mitchum. Richard Boone is the villain, the second of his three collaborations with the Duke. And director Sherman was an old friend as well, directing Wayne in eight of his early, low-budget Westerns for Republic Pictures. This would turn out to be Sherman\u2019s last film \u2013 it\u2019s included in the recent \u201cfinal films\u201d<\/a> episode of the Pure Cinema Podcast \u2013 and Wayne reportedly directed a few scenes when Sherman became ill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Sherman had been directing since 1937, and had clearly learned a thing or two. He lets Boone rip as the antagonist, and it\u2019s a terrific performance; he\u2019s terrifying but also weirdly charismatic, and you sort of had to be, at that point, to successfully go toe to toe with the Duke. Moreover, his credibility as a bad guy is necessary to pull off the carefully (and patiently) constructed climax, a ransom handoff with an empty strong box. \u201cI just saw something in your eyes I don\u2019t like,\u201d Boone tells Wayne. \u201cI saw a foolish thought.\u201d It\u2019s a chilling moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The aforementioned element of of historical crisscrossing gives Big Jake<\/em> a unique look and feel; they\u2019re out West, and they\u2019re on horses, but also Rangers are in motorcars, and Mitchum is on a motorcycle. (The latter seems like a conscious move to make the picture hip and youthful \u2013 after all, it was in production in about a year after Easy Rider<\/em> became a commercial and cultural sensation.) But they\u2019re up to more than just winking incongruity. When Jake arrives to lead the ransom mission, he\u2019s told, \u201cIt\u2019s 1909, Jake,\u201d and he sneers in response, \u201cMeanin\u2019 that my way is old-fashioned?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s the subtext here \u2013 that Wayne is considered old-fashioned, and his Westerns are thought of the same way, and these young whippersnappers feel no obligation to respect him. But that changes over the course of their journey; he shows them that the old ways can be the best ways, and they learn to respect the old man because, gosh darn it, he might be a dinosaur but he gets the job done. None of this is terribly subtle \u2013 nor is it untrue. “Big Jake” is currently streaming on Amazon Prime<\/a> and several additional, ad-supported streaming services<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
This chicken soup of influences is typical of the trickiness of \u201ctraditional\u201d Westerns of this period. An onslaught of revisionist takes in the 1960s \u2013 led by Leone and his Spaghetti Western brethren<\/a>, and taken up by American mavericks like Sam Peckinpah and Monte Hellman \u2013 were making Wayne look like a bit of a fossil. His pictures still made money (the core oater audience was an older one, and one that thus leaned conservative, in its politics and its entertainment), but studios were moving into a decade where nothing was more embarrassing than seeming out of touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJacob McCandles!\u201d
\u201cOh, I uh, thought you were dead, Mr. McCandles.\u201d
\u201cNot hardly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/big-jake-1024x480.jpg\")
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