Review: Hondo

John Wayne stars as Hondo Lane, a former Army scout and part Apache, who protects a mother (Geraldine Page, in just about her film debut) and son from Apaches (principally Michael Pate and Rodolfo Acosta), as they’re in Apache territory and her husband (Leo Gordon) is currently away.

TV character Al Bundy’s favourite movie of all-time, all I can say for Mr. Bundy’s cinematic tastes is that I guess he never saw “Shane”. Or countless other, superior westerns to “Hondo”. For while I consider the aforementioned George Stevens western a bit overrated, there’s a lot of “Shane” in this John Farrow (“The Big Clock”, “The Sea Chase”) B-western and the comparison doesn’t end up favourable for The Duke. Although based on a novel by Louis L’Amour, it’s pretty obvious screenwriter James Edward Grant (“Angel and the Badman”, “The Alamo”, “Circus World”) had been influenced by the George Stevens film released several months beforehand. Even star Wayne conceded that one of the reasons it wasn’t a smash hit was its similarity with “Shane”.

Being a rip-off of “Shane” doesn’t tell the whole story, though. In fact, after the opening scenes it kinda moves in its own direction anyway. It’s just not an overly exciting direction. It’s far from a stinker, but I was surprised at how ordinary and workmanlike this one was aside from the cool music score by Hugo Friedhofer (“The Best Years of Our Lives”, “Enchantment”, “Broken Arrow”). Even Duke’s performance here is not one of his best. I guess it’s kind of interesting seeing him get sorta romantic and all, and he also plays a part-Indian character, which may be considered a wild departure for some. I mean, we’re a million miles from “The Searchers” here, that’s for sure. Even his entrance, whist fine is rather unusual: He slowly walks into frame looking dirty and exhausted having lost his horse. A bit undignified, really. However, his best moments are actually those that are far more iconically John Wayne, and the character of Hondo (aside from his parentage) is classic Wayne. Sure, it’s not quite as macho as Al Bundy led me to believe, but when the title character teaches his mangy-looking Collie (not Lassie, despite what you may have read) to be independent and get its own food…yeah, that’s John Freakin’ Wayne right there. However, all this film ultimately does is make me wish Wayne had starred in “Shane”. That wasn’t a great film (though it was much better than this one), but Wayne surely would’ve been a stronger lead than Alan Ladd and he’d be working with a stronger filmmaker in Stevens than he has here with hack Aussie-born director Farrow.

The film is too short to properly deal with everything, and Wayne has the film stolen out from under him by Aussie-born Michael Pate and especially Rodolfo Acosta as the Native Americans. I don’t much like whites playing Native Americans, but Pate was always one of the more believable ones and that holds true here, playing the far lesser of two evils. Acosta is even better as the clearly more villainous of the two, and appears to be enjoying himself quite a bit. We also get rock-solid turns by Wayne regulars Ward Bond (as another cavalry scout) and Paul Fix, as well as a fine small turn by a sour Leo Gordon as Geraldine Page’s estranged husband, who is basically an arsehole and gets punched out by Wayne’s Hondo in his second scene. As for Ms. Page, she’s weak and probably a better stage actress than film actress from what I’ve seen of her film work over the years. That said, she earned an Oscar nomination here, so judge for yourself.

Somewhere around about 2^nd or 3^rd tier John Wayne western, this one’s got its strong points and a fairly large following, but is overall nothing you haven’t seen before, since, and better. Unless you’re a John Wayne fan, this is a mildly watchable curio at best. 

Rating: C+