The War Wagon
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Movie Reviews of The War Wagon
Movie Review: The War Wagon
Summary: 4 Stars
John Wayne and Kirk Douglas. Can you find a better combination of macho? They play off each other beautifully. Add Bruce Cabot as the bad guy, mix in Robert Walker, Jr., Keenan Wynn and Howard Keel (as an Indian) and you've got an uproariously funny western.Movie Review: War Wagon
Summary: 4 Stars
A 1967 movie> Wish it was better video quality on big screen but was a lot of fun to watch. Good movieMovie Review: Seeking his due
Summary: 3 Stars
Taw Jackson (John Wayne) was a prosperous and contented rancher until gold was discovered on his land and Frank Pierce (Bruce Cabot) schemed to have him framed, ambushed, and shipped off to prison so he could seize Taw's land and gain control of the mine. Now Taw has been paroled and is resolved to get back what he figures Pierce owes him. Recruiting an Indian (Howard Keel), a young alcoholic who can make explosives turn somersaults (Robert Walker), an evil-tempered freighter (Keenan Wynn), and the gunfighter (Kirk Douglas) who shot him, he engineers a complex and daring plan to knock over Pierce's "war wagon," an armored stagecoach with a Gatling gun turreted on top and an escort of 28 gun-slung riders, which is due to carry half a million dollars to the railhead.
Of course the chief attraction of the movie is watching how Taw and his crew plan to accomplish their end and how they overcome the inevitable obstacles in their way. There's also a lot of give and take between Wayne and Douglas (who had worked together two years earlier in In Harm's Way but here have a much closer relationship, if not the friendliest one). But I found the humor rather heavy-handed and the ending disappointing: even though what Taw is doing is technically illegal, you feel that he's right and want him to succeed, and he doesn't, not completely. Fans of Wagon Train - The Complete First Season - Special Limited Edition - 39 episodes! COLLECTOR TIN OFFER ENDS SOON! should watch for Wayne's long-time friend Terry Wilson as a corrupt sheriff and Frank McGrath as a bartender.
Movie Review: Fun, but a bit much
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a typical John Wayne western from the era when he had some control over what he starred in, and its content. As a result, he plays essentially the same character over and over again (he seems to wear the same red shirt, faded to a washed out pink, in half of the movies) and is just confronted with a different situation each time. In this instance, his character, Taw Jackson, has had his land stolen from him. He wasn't able to stop it because a hired gun shot him and put him in the hospital. The ranch he owned turned out to have gold on it, and the local rich guy, having had him shot, took over the ranch and has become even richer.
So Taw has to return from jail to take back what's his. The twist is that he hires the hired guy, Lomax (nicely played by Kirk Douglas), to help in his plot. Since the rich guy (his name is Pierce) transports the gold out of the territory in an iron-plated wagon called "The War Wagon" Wayne has to come up with a sophisticated scheme to upend said wagon and get his hands on the gold.
While the plot's interesting and the action is reasonably fun, the movie's also very predictable. When one of Wayne's partners is particularly negatively portrayed, you know he's the one who will be killed somewhere towards the end. And I had one big disappointment with this movie. Usually, with one of these old westerns, there's a rousing soundtrack, if nothing else, but here you get this very strange choral thing with silly words about the war wagon and who's following it and so forth. It's one of the most dated soundtracks I've ever heard, embarrassing even to listen to. That aside, this is a fun movie.
Movie Review: Wayne Made Them By The Bushel
Summary: 3 Stars
During the Sixties the Duke made a plethora of Westerns; just about all of them were generic, formulaic, and eminently predictable. Case in point: director Burt Kennedy's THE WAR WAGON, a story of a wronged man getting his sweet revenge (in gold dust, mind you). That being said, this Western still has its moments--mostly due to John Wayne and Kirk Douglas playing well off one another, and Howard Keel as an irreverent Indian is hysterical.
Wayne, playing ex-con (framed for a crime he didn't commit) Taw Jackson, seeks vengeance against the villain who took his ranch once gold was discovered on it, the despised, filthy rich, Mr. Pierce (Bruce Cabot). Feeling the heat, Pierce hires Lomax, a gunman (Douglas), to kill Jackson--yet in one of the best twists of this story Lomax elects not to kill Jackson, but team up with him once he learns of Taw's plot to rob Mr. Pierce's traveling Fort Knox, the War Wagon. (With an escort of 33 armed riders and a mounted gatling gun, don't ya know.) The other conspirators include Keel's character, a cranky teamster (Keenan Wynn), and a drunken, young explosives expert (Robert Walker, Jr.). (That's right, booze and dynamite always go well together.) The plot is launched, is nearly derailed to the detriment of all several times, and finally the predictable onslaught of the War Wagon is underway. Again, the Duke and Douglas as near-antagonists banter rather well, Keel gets the best lines (there aren't many), and THE WAR WAGON serves as another notch in the belt of John Wayne's cliche-ridden Westerns.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning