Howard Hawks was already asking a tad additional of John Wayne for his portrayal of Thomas Dunson, an Ahab-like rancher decided to drive his cattle from Texas to Abilene, Kansas. Dunson is a tough man whose pitiless therapy of his males leads his adopted son, Matt (Montgomery Clift), to foment a mutiny and exile him from the drive.
In accordance with Allen Eyles’ biography “John Wayne,” Hawks was desperate to inject a little bit of humor into Wayne’s efficiency by having Dunson get drunk so his finger, which had been “mangled between a saddle horn and a rope,” might be amputated. Alas, Wayne had stretched so far as he was comfy as Dunson, and nixed the concept. Hawks acquiesced, however not earlier than informing the Duke that he’d deploy the bit later with a extra versatile actor (that wound up being Kirk Douglas in “The Large Sky”).
However, Hawks loved collaborating with Wayne (11 years later, they’d come collectively for the masterful “Rio Bravo”), and was fast to reward the star’s filmmaking acumen. Per Eyles, Hawks mentioned:
“Wayne is sort of a massive cat on his toes, he thinks rapidly and he thinks proper. Additionally he contributes to what different individuals do. If he sees any person who just isn’t transferring he tells ’em to maneuver, and it turns into a part of the story.”
Simply do not ask him to appear to be a dope who would not know the best way to rope cattle for the amusement of an viewers. As a result of it was his viewers, and he knew they did not wish to see such nonsense (until 1969’s “True Grit”).
