ISSUE DATE: Aug. 8, 1969
ALSO APPEARED: Mar. 3, 1952
THE BUZZ:
The broader the parody, the bigger the self. Wayne has been honing and buffing that self in some 250 pictures —mostly westerns—for 40 years. He has become the essential American soul that D. H. Lawrence once characterized as “harsh, isolate, stoic and a killer.” Superficially his films have been as alike as buffalo nickels. Only the date changes; even the Indian looks the same. Yet through the decades there has been a perceptible alteration. The public, riding along in movie houses or taking the TV shortcut, has watched the celluloid Wayne pass through three stages of life. In the ’30s, he was the outspoken, hair-trigger-tempered son who would straighten out if he didn’t get shot first. By the late ’40s, he had graduated to fatherhood: topkick Marine to a platoon of shavetails or trail boss to a bunch of saddle tramps. In True Grit his belt disappears into his abdomen, his opinions are sclerotic and his face is beginning to crack like granite. Audiences now recognize him as a grandfather image, using booze for arterial Antifreeze, putting off winter for one more day. They also recognize Wayne as an actor of force and persuasion. And the frontier town of Hollywood—which has never granted Wayne a single Academy Award—has begun to realize that it might just be a little behind in its payments.
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