It's kind of funny, but in my generation there was a lot of, "If you like X then you can't like Y." In other words, you took sides. If you liked one musical genre, you pretty much stuck to that genre and disparaged most others. (Heavy Metal fans hated "Alternative," "Alternative fans hated Heavy Metal," Pop fans hated both Heavy Metal and Alternative, Heavy Metal and Alternative fans both hated Pop - you get the idea.) It was a weird thing that I grew up with as a teenager in the 80's, as it was a very competitive environment.

So what does this have to do with John Wayne?

I was a Humphrey Bogart fan as a teenager. Big time. (I still am.) Back then the two biggest legends of classic movies were John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart. I took sides. I saw John Wayne as a mediocre Western actor who got by on charisma (and Westerns were most definitely "out" at that time), whereas I saw Humphrey Bogart as a merchant of cool in The Big Sleep, a ruthless gangster in The Petrified Forest, a world weary outlaw in High Sierra, a tormented soul in The Caine Mutiny, etc. He seemed to be an actor of wider range who relied a little less on personality than acting abilities.

I was wrong, of course. John Wayne had nearly the range that Bogart had, and he was a lot more than just an actor relying on charisma. Wayne could do things that Bogart could not, but I never saw that. (Both Wayne and Bogart were actors who relied on their personalities as a base for their performances, but both were capable of stretching beyond what most people expected of them.)

During the 80's and most of the 90's I focused on obtaining as many Bogart movies as I could, and excluded almost all other classic movies (with the exception of some great Science Fiction movies). I chose Bogart over all others, especially John Wayne.

Over time I caught a few John Wayne movies here and there - The Searchers, Stagecoach, The War Wagon, etc - but it was The Shootist that showed me just what I had missed. I find it a little ironic that it was The Duke's final movie that opened my eyes to just how great he was. Even then, though, it wasn't until the DVD age that I really got to see a great number of John Wayne's movies. Once I saw movies like The Fighting Seabees, Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Angel and the Badman, etc, I realized just what I had missed out on for all those years.

I really became a John Wayne fan only a year ago at the age of 36. I finally became obsessed with collecting as many of his movies as I could - an obsession that continues to this day.

In a way I'm glad that I didn't get to discover John Wayne until recently because it has been a hell of a lot of fun for me to collect his movies on DVD. John Wayne became something new for me, something he and his movies couldn't have been if I had discovered them two decades earlier.

Now I have 23 Bogart movies on DVD and almost 30 John Wayne movies on DVD - and I get excited any time a movie from either of them is released on DVD for the first time!

Better late than never!

Heh heh, if one has to have an obsession about something, it might as well be for something good, like John Wayne.

In a way I am like you, I started off with John Wayne and have only in the last year or two, really getting into Humphrey Bogart-though I always liked him ESPECIALLY in Sahara, Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The African Queen.

I dislike admitting that I was fairly late in becoming a fan of James Cagney (I was 15 at that time) and a fan of Errol Flynn (Appx the same age) but I have reformed and I cannot think of NOT liking the movies of people such as these.

Originally posted by The Ringo Kid@Apr 24 2005, 02:39 PM
Heh heh, if one has to have an obsession about something, it might as well be for something good, like John Wayne.

In a way I am like you, I started off with John Wayne and have only in the last year or two, really getting into Humphrey Bogart-though I always liked him ESPECIALLY in Sahara, Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The African Queen.

I dislike admitting that I was fairly late in becoming a fan of James Cagney (I was 15 at that time) and a fan of Errol Flynn (Appx the same age) but I have reformed and I cannot think of NOT liking the movies of people such as these.
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I always kind of liked Cagney, but like John Wayne I never saw enough of his movies to get a good idea of what he really did as an actor. Now I've seen a dozen or so of his movies and am VERY impressed with what he accomplished as an actor. He was an amazingly talented man.

It's only in the last decade that I really got a chance to become a fan of actors like Jimmy Stewart, Robert Mitchum, Lee Marvin (even if all he did was The Killers in '64 he would rank up there for me - his performance in that movie was that good), John Payne (he was an underrated actor with tremendous range - from romantic movies to dark and violent films noir to Westerns he could do it all, and do it well), Kirk Douglas, Richard Widmark, etc. I've only recently started to take notice of Errol Flynn as a serious acting talent. Like Bogart and Wayne, Flynn relied on his personality quite often to carry a performance - but in the case of each of those actors it usually made the film better.

Now I tend to buy classic movies over movies from the last 25 years by about a 2 to 1 margin. Of course, about a third of the classic movies I buy are John Wayne movies.... ;)

Originally posted by B5Erik@Apr 24 2005, 01:01 PM
I was a Humphrey Bogart fan as a teenager.* Big time.* (I still am.)* Back then the two biggest legends of classic movies were John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart.* I took sides.* I saw John Wayne as a mediocre Western actor who got by on charisma (and Westerns were most definitely "out" at that time), whereas I saw Humphrey Bogart as a merchant of cool in The Big Sleep, a ruthless gangster in The Petrified Forest, a world weary outlaw in High Sierra, a tormented soul in The Caine Mutiny, etc.* He seemed to be an actor of wider range who relied a little less on personality than acting abilities.*

I'm a long-time fan of Humphrey Bogart too. But you know what, Erik? My all-time favorite Bogart movie is "We're No Angels". I love that movie because Bogie shows a great and, except for "The African Queen", unexpected flair for comedy. I thought he, Ustinov and Ray were perfect together in "Angels".

Stumpy, thanks for reminding us of We're No Angels. My wife and I really enjoyed that movie. It's right up there for me with Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which I felt was one of his best movies.

B5Erik, we're sure glad you finally "saw the light" regarding the Duke - we've really enjoyed having you around here :D .

It's amazing how we've all evolved over time, to arrive at this same point. It seems the more I watch older movies, the less I like the contemporary ones.

Chester :newyear:
"Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges."

I can see this getting a little off topic, but I thought I would list my favorite Bogart movie. I really like Key Largo with Bacall, Edward G. Robinson, Lionel Barrymore, and the rest. This is an intense movie with man and the furies of nature. Enough of that, Duke has always been my favorite, I like Jimmy Stewart, Gregory Peck, and Cary Grant, but Duke is above all the best of the three to me.

I have been collecting Bogart movies for a little while and recently got The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in my DVD collection, and liked it. Seeing Bogart in that light was very different to me for a major actor, but it only shows how good an actor he was. He is a good actor, but Duke ranks much higher that Bogart. Growing up in the 60's & 70's, the older actors impressed me a lot. I liked the movies of Martin & Lewis, but that was really before my time, and I enjoyed seeing those movies on the late show on Friday nights when I could stay up late.

I liked westerns, because of Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and The Rifleman on TV, which introduced me to Duke movies at the Drive-in. My parents were not John Wayne fans, but that didn't keep me from seeing Duke on the Silver Screen. I had friends and their families take me to see Duke. So. most of my life, I liked Duke, but really became a fan with my first VHS movie, Rio Bravo in 1991, and studied Duke every since.

Cheers B)

Hi Erik, Stumpy, Chester and Hondo D.L.

My first Cagney was when he was with Pat O' Brien and Alan Hale Sr. in The Fighting 69th. My next Cagney was Mister Roberts and then Kiss of Death? I think? I discovered him long before Bogart but like him very much the same. I love one of many of his lines in Fighting 69th: "Take your hands off me you big mick son of a beeee!"

John Payne is also another I feel is underrated though what I have seen him in he is nothing less than brilliant.

I love We're No Angels - the comedy is so low key, and yet so funny! That is a great movie. Just watch out for that snake Adolph!

Bogart had a real talent for comedy, but he rarely had the opportunity to show it. It's funny - John Wayne also had that flair, but he was given many opportunities to use that talent.

If I could recommend a few Bogart movies to the uninitiated they would be:

The Petrified Forest
Black Legion
High Sierra
All Through the Night
The Maltese Falcon
The Big Sleep
To Have and Have Not

That's just a few - some are very well known, some are just well known among serious classic movie or Bogart fans - but they're all great!

Bogart is an actor I would like to see more of he was great in the African Queen and Casablanca and I also liked his 1950's movie the Enforcer.

I actually started out a Clint Eastwood fan but my taste evolved to John Wayne although I still like Clint.

:agent:

I also became a Wayne fan from The Shootist, only for me, when The Shootist came out, I was just a kid, and I watched it for the first time in about 1979 with my older brothers. They told me all about John Wayne and what a hero figure he played in all his movies, and this was his last one. I remember getting all excited about it, and at the end of The Shootist, when Ron Howard walked out of the saloon, with Wayne dead inside in his last film, my brothers and talked about Howard now picking up the mantle and becoming the next John Wayne. Of course we didn't know what we were talking about, but that experience got me started, and only now in the recent 5 years have I tried to view the more rare JW films.
GSP

I'm beginning to feel, even" more mature" then my illustrious friends on this site. I started off a Duke fan, back in the fifties, any body old enough, to remember them? Here in England, back then, we used to have Saturday morning matinees at the local ABC cinema, and we had a weekly dose, of early Duke films, of course now we know them as the Monogram ones. We also had The 3 Mesquiteers, including the dummy! and don't forget Hopalong! they were just fantastic days, and now with the advent of VHS/DVD, we can re-live those times all over again. Just think, pre-TV days,our parents, saw a film, and probably never saw it again, if you were a fan, it must have been hopeless.

Originally posted by ethanedwards@May 2 2005, 12:45 PM
I'm beginning to feel, even" more mature" then my illustrious friends on this site. I started off a Duke fan, back in the fifties, any body old enough, to remember them? Here in England, back then,* we used to have Saturday morning matinees at the local ABC cinema, and we had a weekly dose, of early Duke films, of course now we know them as the Monogram ones. We also had The 3 Mesquiteers, including the dummy! and don't forget Hopalong! they were just fantastic days, and now with the advent of VHS/DVD, we can re-live those times all over again. Just think, pre-TV days,our parents, saw a film, and probably never saw it again, if you were a fan, it must have been hopeless.
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In the early days of television most major movie studios wouldn't even sell the rights to most of their movies to television (as they still viewed TV as the competition back then). Once you saw a movie there was no way to see it again unless it was re-released in a 2nd or 3rd run down the line.

That's why a heck of a lot more people actually went to the theaters to see movies back then - if you missed it there might not be a second chance!

If I were around back then you can bet I would have been at my local movie theater every week catching the latest movies - ESPECIALLY when a new John Wayne movie came out!

Now I just pick up as many John Wayne DVDs as I can. :D