'John Wayne Day' In Texas Honors Actor's 108th Birthday

FoxNews.com reports that yesterday was declared 'John Wayne Day' in Texas.

Texas Lt. Govenor Dan Patrick declared 'John Wayne Day' in honor of the great western actor's 108th birthday.

You can read the piece via the below link:

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/05/26/john-wayne-day-in-texas-honors-actor-108th-birthday/

Note: You can read an earlier post on John Wayne via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/05/happy-birthday-to-film-legend-john-wayne.html

Clint Eastwood, Don Siegel, And The Great Anti-Hero

I'm a huge fan of Don Siegel's crime films with actor Clint Eastwood, such as Dirty Harry and Coogan's Bluff.

So I was interested in reading Aliya Whitely's piece at the web site denofgeek.com on the films of Clint Eastwood and Don Siegel.

Between them, director Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood created some classic movie anti-heroes, including one Dirty Harry...

Let’s start at the end of this story.

Unforgiven (1992) is a film that builds on the groundwork of others, and takes the ideas of the past to a new level. In it, Clint Eastwood plays a once-vicious killer, William Munny, who chooses to return to the role of bounty-hunter in his old age.

It's no wonder that the film is dedicated to the two directors who shaped the public image of Eastwood to such an extent that we can view Unforgiven as an extension of the mythology of his classic role- the anti-hero. One is Sergio Leone, who turned Eastwood into the Man With No Name. The other director is Don Siegel.

Siegel directed five films that starred Eastwood and was a great influence on him when he started to direct his own films, even playing a small part in Eastwood's directorial debut, Play Misty For Me (1971). The movies they made together relied heavily on Eastwood's silent sneer (Leone said of Eastwood – “As an actor, he has two expressions: with, and without the hat”) but also began to stretch him as an actor in interesting directions.

These films shaped the crime movies and the Westerns that followed, and are still incredibly entertaining and iconic today.

You can read the rest of the piece and watch video clips via the below link:

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/clint-eastwood/27287/clint-eastwood-don-siegel-and-the-great-anti-hero

RIP To Cowboy Actor Harry Carey, Jr.

The British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a good piece on the death of actor Harry Carey, Jr.

The Daily Mail also offers some good photos of the old cowboy. 

Harry Carey appeared in several of John Ford's classic Western films, appearing alongside John Wayne, Ward Bond, Pedro Armendariz, Ben Johnson and the other great actors in Ford's so-called stock company.

Carey, a World War II U.S. Navy veteran, also appeared in one of my favorite more recent Westerns, Tombstone.

By all accounts, Carey was a fine man as well as a fine actor.

Western character actor Harry Carey, Jr. died on Thursday aged 91. 

His daughter Melinda confirmed that he passed away from natural causes surrounded by family at a hospice facility in Santa Barbara, California. 

She said on Friday: 'He went out as graceful as he came in.' 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2254710/Western-character-actor-Harry-Carey-Jr-dies-aged-91.html

You can also watch the trailer for 3 Godfathers via the below link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x3_Hy70usg

Note: Harry Carey appears in the center of the above movie poster between John Wayne and Pedro Armendariz.

True Grit: 1969 Versus 2010

Entertainment Weekly questions the Coen Brothers' claim that their film True Grit, starring Jeff Bridges, is not a remake of the 1969 film True Grit, which starred John Wayne and was directed by Henry Hathaway.

You can read the piece and watch selected scenes of both films via the link below, and, as they say on FoxNews, you decide.

http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/02/01/true-grit-1969-versus-2010/

You can also read my earlier post on the two True Grit films via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/09/true-grit-updated-by-coen-brothers.html

John Wayne's Winchester and Other Favorite Movie Guns

As The American Rifleman notes, guns have been part of the movies since The Great Train Robbery  in 1903.

The magazine's web page has complied a list of the 10 most favorite movie guns, which includes John Wayne's Winchester Model 1892 (seen in the above photo), which appeared in the film True Grit.

You can see the rest of the favorite movie guns via the below link:

http://www.americanrifleman.org/GalleryItem.aspx?cid=22&gid=90&id=608