Hondo Summary
Director: John Farrow
Genres: Western
Rating:
Hondo is so "perfect" a John_Ford western that many people assume it was directed by John_Ford--or at the very least, Andrew McLaglen. Actually the director was suspense expert John_Farrow, who worked with the "Duke" only twice in his career (the second film was an oddball war drama, The_Sea_Chase [55]). In Hondo, John_Wayne plays a hard-bitten cavalry scout who is humanized by frontierswoman Geraldine_Page and her young son (Lee_Aaker, star of TV's Rin_Tin_Tin). Try as he might, Wayne can't convince Page to move off her land in anticipation of an Apache attack. He leaves her ranch, only to be ambushed by desperado Leo_Gordon--who happens to be Page's long-absent husband. Having killed Gordon, Hondo returns to the ranch to protect Page from the Indians, and to rekindle the woman's hesitant love for him. The climactic attack sequence is enhanced by Hondo's 3-D photography, one of the few truly effective utilizations of this much-maligned process. Long unavailable thanks to the labyrinthine legal tangles of the John Wayne estate, Hondo was finally released to videotape in the early 1990s. Hal Erickson, Rovi
Great Film Moments:
- In Theaters
- This Week
- Coming Soon
- New on DVD
Browse More Movies:
