John Wayne Western Movies

Marion Robert Morrison was a person who basically took Hollywood by storm and became a very big movie star. Although, if one was to discuss Marion Morrison with folks, many would not know who they were speaking of.

That is because the odds are that they would not know him by this name. On the other hand, if one was the say the name "John Wayne," then, almost instantly, they would recognize who exactly you would be talking about. He was one of the most famous and important actors to ever grace the silver screen and made over one hundred films, many of which were westerns. Therefore, lets take closer look at some of the John Wayne western movies and discuss some of their aspects.

His very first starring role film was "The Big Trail." This was a nineteen thirty movie that was considered to be an epic that used sound. However, it was also regarded as a box office failure too. His name, at the time was not John Wayne though, it was "Duke Morrison." It was the studio that changed his name to "John Wayne" for him. And, they did this without his knowledge.

It was a successful change and suddenly, directly after his appearance in the movie "Stagecoach," every knew who he was and he was immediately a star and Hollywood scrambled to have him in their pictures. This was a movie that was black and white and these black and white movies continued until nineteen forty one when he starred in his very first colored film. This was "Shepherd of the Hills."

He had worked with many directors over the years but, only worked for Cecil B. DeMille once. That was for "Reap the Wild Wind," in which he portrayed a bad guy. It was one of his extremely limited times that he had done that.

Those films are not necessarily the movies that most are familiar with. It is the "True Grit, Rooster Cogburn, The Alamo," and even "The Sons of Katie Elder" that most people will be able to recall and remember. These eventually went on to become some of his best films that have withstood the test of time, and rightly so. Fore, "True Grit" gave him a Best Actor Oscar and "The Alamo" had nominated him as a producer.

Even his very last film "The Shootist," was in the western genre style of movies and was about a gunfighter that was dying of cancer. This seemed to be rather ironic considering that he himself would go one to die of the very same thing only a few years later.

Therefore, when discussing in general, the Hollywood westerns, it would be considerably hard to not add in the John Wayne western movies which was a large part of it.

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