HONDO (1953) **1/2 I have to admit that when this film came around to the local theater, in the early '70s, I was very disappointed when it turned out not to have anything to do with John Havlicek. John Wayne wasn't too bad as a consolation prize, not as a part-Apache loner who's decided to let everyone do what they want, so now they're all after him. Now Mr. Wayne, he couldn't shoot in motion like Hondo, but he had some of the greatest comedic timing in the history of mankind. Not his overblown macho stuff, which came naturally but could be very funny anyway. But those short lines bent towards five different kinds of irony, Wayne's delivery of which is the cinematic equivalent of the most sullen pronouncements of two or three word Mike Hammer sentences. Not many people can utter such simplistic insight without looking like an idiot, and only John Wayne could be witty and philosophical. The plot's lifted from a Louis L'Amour, and has all the elements of something: cowboys, indians, a boy, a dog, a wild horse, a saloon scene. It also has something deeper: a plot whereby honkeys break the truce, and the Apache are honorable, but the audience is somehow drawn into cheering as the calvary massacres them anyway. L'Amour, I would suggest, would have made an outstanding spin doctor. The problem is Wayne's romance with Geraldine Page, which is as unconvincing and awkward as her delivery of lines that wouldn't have worked even if she was good. It's just so stupid, but, yuh know, a man can't be good at everything.
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