Hondo

What have I consistently learned from watching Westerns? That the us cavalry in the Old West were a bunch of damn fools. Invariably they wind up blundering into some sort of trap or cluster and are only extricated by the fact that someone like John Wayne is around to save the day. Well, maybe it wasn’t entirely like that, but it might have been something close. Or so this horse opera would have you believe. Yet again we see the schizophrenic take on the natives that was so prevalent in these old oaters: viewing them as worthy of respect, but also ultimately as targets for elimination, or at least as a problem to be overcome, usually in a hail of bullets. In this case, Wayne supplies a heavy dose of the fusillade in his role as a half-Apache scout who roams through the plot as a kind of Western paladin, noble to a fault, tougher than nails, and yet with enough heart to win over the woman at the story’s core—even after killing her husband no less. I guess the outlook really was a lot different back then. I wouldn’t say this outing quite lives up to the standard of the best of the genre—for one thing, Geraldine Page, while a fine actress, isn’t quite the beauty you usually find at the center of one of these flicks—but overall the film provides a good amount of action, a solid story, and enough of the vibe that you get from these movies that the full package stands as good enough entertainment.