THE WAR WAGON
US, 1967, 101 minutes, Colour.
John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Howard Keel, Robert Walker Jr, Keenan Wynn, Bruce Cabot, Joanna Barnes, Bruce Dern, Gene Evans.
Directed by Burt Kennedy.
The War Wagon is an entertaining western, strong performances from John Wayne as well as from Kirk Douglas. Wayne is a man who gets out of prison, wants to get the gold that had been stolen from him by usual villain, Bruce Cabot. He enlists the help of Kirk Douglas who had shot him five years earlier. The gold is being transported in a war wagon and the conspirators plan to rob it. This is fairly conventional material but entertainingly done by Burt Kennedy, veteran writer and director of westerns who was at a strong period of his career in the mid-60s with such films as Welcome to Hard Times, Rounders. He was also to make the comic Support Your Local Sheriff with James Garner in 1969.
The film also has the spectacle of Howard Keel portraying an Indian, Levi Walking Bear!
1. How good a western was this? Was it enjoyable? Typical features of westerns? How did it use them?
2. How did the film capitalise on the personality and style of John Wayne? How did it do the same for the personality and style of Kirk Douglas? A good combination?
3. How serious was the film? Was it merely a comic strip western? Much was said about emotions. Were they real emotions or contrived?
4. What did the film have to say about justice in the west? Who was good and who was bad? A typical western theme? what happens when law does not uphold the good? Must the good man seem bad in order to administer justice?
5. Comment on the relationship between Taw Jackson and Lomax. Their initial encounters in the bar. The possibilities of one killing the other? The need for each other for getting the war wagon? The growing relationship and comradeship between the two? How well was this portrayed? Two western type heroes in the west?
6. How important was gold in the west? How much a preoccupation? What motivated Jackson in getting back his gold? What motivated Lomax? Greed? What motivated the others in helping to got the wagon?
7. Was the character of Levi Walking Bear an interesting one? first seeing him as being baited by Mexicans? The irony of his type of being an Indian? a contribution to the getting of the war wagon?
8. How sympathetic a character was Billy Hyatt? So young? His talents with explosives, alcohol problem? The sequence of the nitro-glycerine robbery? Of putting explosives on the bridge? The possibilities of a romantic
interlude? Were these all realistic or were they merely copy book and contrived? (If so, did this matter?)
9. How ugly a character was Wes Catlin? How necessary was he for the plan? His relationship with his wife? Was his being killed off too easy for the film?
10. How stereotyped were the villains? Was this important? Why had the boss taken over Jackson's house and mine? The importance of the sequence where Jackson revisits his home? Justice done in the death of the criminals? The main boss? The gunfighters in the beginning?
11. How interesting for the western were the plans, the chases, the fights? Original? Anything striking?
12. How well filmed was the siege of the wagon itself? The nature of the wagon,? The people involved in guarding it?
13. How satisfying an ending did the film have? What did the film offer about people, justice, right and wrong, gold, the value of life? (Jackson’s pretending for six months until the gold was recovered?)
