The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)

This was John Wayne’s come-back movie after a successful surgery to remove his cancerous left lung and two ribs in 1964. To show the world that he was still Big John he did most of the stunts for the movie by himself. The result is a tough, old-fashioned cowboy movie.

The four sons of Katie Elder – John Wayne, Dean Martin, Earl Holliman and Michael Anderson Jr. - return to their hometown of Clearwater, Texas for the funeral of their mother. The four have largely neglected their parents and are surprised to hear that their father had lost the family ranch in a card game. To make things worse, he was shot in the back on the same night, by a person who was never identified. As a result, their hard-working and well-respected mother had fallen into poverty. The boys suspect foul play by the new owner of the ranch, Morgan Hastings, a sinister arms dealer and local tyrant who wants to own the entire town and its surroundings, but Hastings claims that everything was arranged legally .... And then the sheriff is shot and the brothers are accused of murder...

It’s a bit hard to see the four as brothers: if Mrs. Elder gave birth to her oldest son when she was 18, she must have been 54 when she gave birth to the youngest. Quite an achievement. But never mind, the boys are a fine troupe and excellent support is given by James Gregory as the local tyrant and George Kennedy as Curley, the professional gunfighter hired by Gregory to take care of those trouble-making Elder brothers. The first half of the movie is a bit slow, with lots of talk and not too much happening, but the action picks up with a brawl in the Elder home (where the brothers beat the living daylights out of each other over a futile incident) and a couple of diverting visits to the blacksmith (don’t miss the scene with the Duke knocking out George Kennedy with a club!). And when the hostilities between the families finally come to a head and both pull out their weapons, we’re in for a rousing action movie. For a film from 1965, the action scenes are by the way surprisingly potent.

Some great location work was done in Mexico, where most of the outdoor scenes were shot. The film’s main action sequence, an ambush near a bridge, is particularly good-looking, but nearly proved fatal for John Wayne when he contracted pneumonia after being dragged into the water.  What makes this apparently straightforward movie even more interesting, is the fact that it’s not just a revenge movie, but also a story about reflection and redemption: while avenging the death of the parents, the sons are also confronted with their own shortcomings: they largely neglected their parents and and instead of acting as brothers, they pursued their own personal success - mostly in vain. Only in the course of the film do they truly grow into worthy 'sons of Katie Elder'. 

The Sons of Katie Elder is also a bit of an overlooked film within John Wayne's body of work. Wrongly so. It may not be on the same level as some of the classics he made with john Ford or Howard Hawks, but it's a very entertaining movie, and also one with a heart and a soul. 

Miscellaneous:

* John Wayne would re-unite with director Henry Hathaway four years later for True Grit, the movie that finally brought him the Oscar.

Dir: Henry Hathaway, Cast: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Mary Gordon, Earl Holliman, James Gregory, Michael Anderson Jr., George Kennedy, Dennis Hopper, Paul Fix, Jeremy Slate, John Doucette, Cinematography: Lucien Ballard, Music: Elmer Bernstein