John Wayne did it best in HONDO (1953), the movie from which one of his iconic images comes from, but the story of a stranger coming to the rescue of a women and her son or sons has been repeated many a time in Hollywood, probably ignited from the Louis L'Amour short story "The Gift of Cochise" (1952).
The story line goes like this... Stranger down on his luck, wanders in from nowhere to find a women and child in need of saving, saves them and usually everyone else around them. I could use words like Epic, Ethos and Archetype to describe the classic hero character, but I won't, you can click the highlighted classic words for their definitions. I am impressed that I remember some notions from my literature classes in college.
The gist?
There are only so many character types in story-the hero, the villain, the damsel, etc. be it movies or literature and you can't get any more classic than the hero saves the day and gets the gal. Except in these movies, the stranger/hero is blamed or actually does make the women a widow, which puts a kink in the attraction exuding from the screen between them.
Clint Walker, star of the first hour long television western CHEYENNE...
did it a little bit more sultry a few years after HONDO in FORT DOBBS (1958) with Virginia Mayo...
An outlaw on the run, Gar Davis (Walker) makes it barely through Comanche Territory, only loosing a posse on his tail by trading jackets with a dead man that was not so lucky and rolling him off a cliff.
Okay, I digress...Comanche Territory is in Eastern Colorado, New Mexico and western Kansas and Oklahoma, not in Utah where the movie was film.... I'm done, for now.
Coming upon a small farm and trying to steal a horse, Gar is stopped by a feisty young boy played by Richard Eyers, who is best know for battling a pet goose in...
FRIENDLY PERSUASION
In FORT DOBBS, Davis wakes up with a bullet wound to his head but finds mercy from the mother, Celia Gray (Virginia Mayo),who informs him he could have just asked for a loan of a horse.
Davis soon is making amends saving Celia and her son, sneaking them out in the dark of the night...
from the Comanches, which are really Navajos, dressed up like Comanches, because Comanches never raided in the red rock canyon country of Utah. Why all the Western directors like Gordon Douglas or John Ford seems to like to make the bad Indians Comanches, I do not know. Does Comanches sound more threatening than Navajo or Ute?
Back to the story line, Davis leads his helpless brood, in a round about way towards Fort Dobbs, which is actually in North Carolina and was built in 1755.... because there are no forts in the West? I'll get back to that too.
But after Davis saves Celia from the rushing water of whatever river the Colorado is suppose to be, there is some steaming bantering as their clothes dry and the boy sleeps nearby. I wont go on another rant that although they travel by day around the red rock country near the Colorado River, easily find themselves up a couple thousand feet each night in wonderful lush campsite surrounded by aspens.
clip of the romantic interlude from Turner Classic Movies... here
The steamy connections cease when the dead man's jacket is discovered and Davis is accused of killing Mr. Grey.
Even though Celia still believes Davis killed her husband, he deposits her and boy on the outskirts of Fort Dobbs, where inside the possibility exists she could expose him.
This fort is actually near Kanab, Utah and has been used for quite a few Westerns...go here to see its many transformations
In FORT DOBBS, when the Comaches come again the hero emerges and Davis risks it all for the woman he loves and most of the townsfolk as well.
Story line of Hondo?
HONDO Trailer HERE
About the same...in comes a stranger, stranded women and boy, in danger from the Apache this time...
some smoldering attraction between Wayne and Geraldine Page...
another cute kid played this time by Lee Aaker, who would go on to television...
to star next to RIN TIN TIN
What is different in HONDO?
Wayne does kill the husband and father of the family he starts to desire after, but of course he doesn't have a choice. The guy did break every Code of the West going for his gun after Hondo saves his life from the Apaches, which would be accurate where the movie was filmed in Arizona, old Mexico and Utah, though according to the open screen of the trailer it takes place.,..
I don't get it. But then thing like...
IS filmed in New Mexico, though it is suppose to take place in Wyoming. Off track again...
Like I was saying, Hondo confesses and is forgiven, saves the women and boy from the Apaches
though the two leaders of the Apaches who have speaking parts are really an Australian and a Mexican.
It would be a very long time before the idea stuck in Hollywood to use actual "native" actors to portray their own culture.
THE LAST SAMURAI (2003) which other than in the setting is a Western, took the archetypal Hero story line much further this time. The hero, Nathan Algren, played by Tom Cruise...
is the enemy...
and everyone knows it, even the son of the fallen Samuria Algren has killed...
and his widow, who out of utter obedience, finds the wherewithal to save the life of the soldier who killed her husband.
But this time...
he does not save the day.
What makes these epic journeys of heros so different than other classic Westerns, even though one is set in Japan?
Simply, these men hang up their guns, or swords as much as the world will let them and settle down with a good woman.
Most Westerns the hero rides off into the sunset, after a slow drawl of how he can't change now, too set in his ways, with the notion that his brief encounter with those he rescued has to be enough...
Like in WILL PENNY starring Charlton Heston and the Iconic SHANE
Last Scene of SHANE (1953) here
I hate those movies and I guess the big difference is also that the husband, the father, no matter how much less of a man he is to the hero is still around.
But, bet your gonna hear "Shane, Shane come back..." in your head the rest of the day.
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