John Wayne: An American Icon

Starring:John Wayne-American Icon
Studio: Platinum Disc
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Great American at some of his best
Not Iconic but Interesting
The Shepherd of the Hills
J.W. an american icon
The Shepherd of the Hills

John Wayne - An American Icon Collection (Seven Sinners/ The Shepherd of the Hills/ Pittsburgh/ The Conqueror/ Jet Pilot)
Starring: John Wayne
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

( J ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

All Titles | John Wayne Store | Stores | DVD | Video

Boxed Sets & Collections | John Wayne Store | Stores | DVD | Video
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The John Wayne Film Collection (Without Reservations / Allegheny Uprising / Tycoon / Reunion in France / Big Jim McLain / Trouble Along the Way)
The Big Stampede / Ride Him Cowboy / Haunted Gold
The Telegraph Trail / Somewhere in Sonora / The Man from Monterey
The Wings of Eagles

ASIN: B000EQHXMI
Release Date: 2006-05-30

Amazon.com

He was no one's (including his own) idea of a great actor--one senses that the one Oscar he won, for True Grit in 1970, was as much for his longevity as his talent--but "icon" is an apt description for John "Duke" Wayne, who starred in scores of movies in a career that spanned 50 years. Five of them are collected on John Wayne - An American Icon Collection, a two-disc, no-frills (as in no bonus material) set offered at a very reasonable price. Ranging from 1940 to 1957, these items reveal that although he didn't have a lot of range ("I play John Wayne in pretty much every film I do," he once admitted), Wayne was at least willing to tackle other genres besides the Westerns with which he's so closely identified; here he portrays a coal miner, a moonshiner, and a legendary warrior, along with the more expected military roles. As for the quality of the films, let's just say that "good" and "entertaining" don't always go on the same page, and the set at least has plenty of the latter. Seven Sinners ('40) is the best of the lot, with Marlene Dietrich sly and radiant as the delightfully named Bijou Blanche, a South Pacific cabaret singer who tantalizes naval officer Wayne. At the other end of the spectrum is The Conqueror ('55), generally regarded as Wayne's worst feature ever, but even it is a campy hoot. Sporting a Fu Manchu 'stache and many silly hats and delivering some preposterously stilted dialogue ("Hi, Mom" becomes "I greet you, my mother!"), Wayne plays Mongol warlord Temujin, soon to become Genghis Khan, who's obsessed with a beautiful princess (Susan Hayward as a Tartar? Mayonnaise is more like it) who just happens to be the daughter of the man responsible for the death of Temujin's father. Pittsburgh ('42), again pairing Wayne with the luminous Dietrich, is considerably better, charting the rise, fall, and redemption of miner-turned-captain-of-industry Charles "Pittsburgh" Markham in a story that's both humorous and dramatic before devolving into flag-waving World War II propaganda. Neither The Shepherd of the Hills ('41), sentimental hokum about a clan of drawling, superstitious Ozark hicks, nor Jet Pilot ('57), with a pre-Psycho Janet Leigh as a Russian spy (!), ranks as what you'd call a classic--indeed, there are no classics to be found anywhere here--but the Duke, always a man's man, probably wouldn't mind. "When people say a John Wayne picture got bad reviews," he said, "I always wonder if they know it's a redundant sentence, but hell, I don't care. People like my pictures and that's all that counts." --Sam Graham

Description

John Wayne remains, without a doubt, a legend of the silver screen and one of Hollywood's most talented and versatile leading men of all time. See "The Duke," with his rugged good looks and undeniable charm, take command of the screen in the amazing collection of five unique films from his long and illustrious film career. This must-own set confirms John Wayne's status as a true American icon!

Customer Reviews:

Great American at some of his best.......2007-06-27

Movies used to be great, John Wayne truly was a great icon of American bigscreen, movies then always defeated the evil forces, good always triumphed. I guess, we had real writers then, who knew what people wanted to see. I highly reccommend this. The DVD got here in a timely fashion.

Not Iconic but Interesting.......2007-06-11

This collection fills in another void in available John Wayne films. Most of these movies, save Shepherd, have not been seen on TV for decades, if ever and none of them are his best work. But these movies span the War years, during Wayne's transition into a star.

In the "Seven Sinners" - 1940 - Wayne plays second fiddle to Marlene Dietrich, a cabaret singer for whose love Wayne is willing to sacrafice his Naval career. Made a year before Pearl Harbor, the movie shows a strangely innocent view of the service - where chasing chorus girls and visiting native bars seemed to be the sole occupation of the Navy.

The "Shepherd of the Hills" - 1941 - is the gem of this collection, in which Wayne plays an Ozark orphan who is manipulated by his aunt to murder his absent father. Harry Carry, as Wayne's long-lost father, who is willing to kill his own son rather than see him branded a murderer, steals the show.

Pittsburgh - 1942 - Wayne stars with Randolf Scott and Marlene Dietrich (again) in this "Horatio Alger" story about two coal miners with an idea that make them rich. Along the way, Wayne loses his moral center and loses the girl and his friends. This movie almost turns into a pro-industry/anti-labor propoganda piece in support of the war effort.

The Conqueror - 1955 - This is one of the worst movies John Wayne ever made. It is worth watching just to see how bad an actor he could be. Wayne plays Genghis Khan, and Susan Hayward plays a mongol princess. The costumes are ridiculous, the acting awful, and the results are tragic, as Howard Hughes filmed the movie out in the Nevada desert in a region polluted by above-ground nuclear testing. Worse yet, when the production moved into the studio, Hughes had tons of the red, radioactive dirt trucked into the set. Many of the actors in the movie, including Wayne, eventually died of various cancer. No doubt Wayne's lifetime of cigarette smoking was the main factor in his death, but the fact that he spent months, during the filming of the Conquerer, breathing radioactive isolotes did not help.

Jet Pilot - 1957 - is another forgettable Wayne film, in which he plays a pilot who defects to Russian (but not really) for love of a female Russia pilot who defects to the U.S., turns out to be a spy, but not really. The only virtue of this film is that it is marginally better than The Conqueror.

This set is a good mix of Wayne's non-cowboy films and show the wide range of roles he was able to play from romantic comedies to period drama and propaganda film to war movies. Wayne affectionados will want to add this to their collection.

The Shepherd of the Hills.......2007-06-08

this was very good movie and of special interest to me. the other movies were good, too. John Wayne was an excellent actor.

J.W. an american icon.......2007-05-27

The "Duke" is my favorite action hero. Out of 152 movies this giant has made, I have seen 116. The oldest being "SALUTE'. I will continue to add to my collection as his older movies are being added to the dvd list.

The Shepherd of the Hills.......2007-01-21

I bought this DVD simply because it contained The Shepherd of the Hills, which is a different kind of movie for John Wayne, who did a great job in his role as a young and determined Ozark mountain man who learns a great lesson at the end of the movie.