Cahill: United States Marshal (1973)

An entertaining but forgettable entry in John Wayne’s latter-day filmography, Cahill: United States Marshal lacks the tragic poetry of The Cowboys (1972) and The Shootist (1976), the elegiac Westerns that comprise the Duke’s farewell to his beloved cowboy genre. Instead, Cahill: United States Marshal briskly presents a by-the-numbers story punctuated with solid action. There’s nothing here that fans haven’t seen a gazillion times before—Wayne struts through hordes of enemy gunmen like a superhero with a six-gun, barely flinching whenever he’s shot—but then again, novelty and surprise aren’t what people expected (or wanted) when they bought tickets to cowboy movies starring John Wayne. In this flick, the Duke plays J.D. Cahill, a tough-as-nails U.S. Marshal whose young sons fall in with a bad element while he’s away on business. Fraser (George Kennedy), a two-dimensional villain with a tendency to snarl while standing outside in lightning storms, pressures Cahill’s boys Danny (Gary Grimes) and Billy Joe (Clay O’Brien) to help with a bank robbery. When the robbery leads to the murder of a local sheriff, the lads realize they’ve gotten involved with the wrong varmints and try to wrangle themselves free of their predicament without getting killed or letting Dad know what’s happening. Much of the picture comprises Cahill stalking the robbers with the aide of his cranky Indian guide, Lightfoot (Neville Brand), so the drama of the piece, such as it is, stems from the question of how long the Cahill boys can manage to deceive their father. Quite predictably, it all comes to a head when Cahill figures out the truth in time to dole out equal measures of hot lead and life lessons. Efficiently directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and adequately written by Harry Julian Fink and Rita M. Fink (who also penned the Duke’s 1971 Western Big Jake), Cahill: United States Marshal is pleasant entertainment and nothing more, a well-made but uninspired run through the usual tropes of last-minute rescues, ornery put-downs, tense shootouts, and tough talk about how a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

Cahill: United States Marshal: FUNKY

Big Jake (1971)

          Apparently aware that his days were numbered, cowboy-cinema legend John Wayne spent the early ’70s looking for a Western that might serve as his swan song in the genre. He ultimately hit the target with The Cowboys (1972) and The Shootist (1976), yet even the also-rans during this period are interesting, partially because Wayne’s stock Western performance was oiled to perfection by this point, and partially because you can feel him writing rough drafts of his Final Statement. So, while Big Jake is not a particularly distinguished picture—it lacks the poetic impact of The Cowboys and the crowd-pleasing closure of The Shootist—it delivers an enjoyable mixture of action, drama, and humor, laced with sly nods to Wayne’s advancing age.

          He plays Jacob McCandles, a wealthy rancher with an intimidating reputation that borders on myth, given the fact that most people assume he’s dead. In fact, he’s merely been wandering the wilderness in the years since he fell out with his wife, Martha (Maureen O’Hara), who raised their brood in his absence. When varmints led by ruthless John Fain (Richard Boone) attack the McCandles ranch and kidnap Jacob’s grandson, demanding a $1 million ransom, Martha asks Jake to rescue the boy and wipe out the crooks. He sets out on the mission accompanied by two sons he barely knows, James (Patrick Wayne) and Michael (Christopher Mitchum), plus a long-in-the-tooth Indian pal, Sam (Bruce Cabot). The posse has a few colorful adventures on the road, mostly to do with people trying to steal the ransom money, before their final showdown with the kidnappers.

          Written by Harry Julian Fink and Rita M. Fink, the creators of the Dirty Harry character, Big Jake is bloodier and meaner than the usual Wayne fare, so the climax has real tension, although the edginess makes the requisite comic-relief bits feel out of place. And though Boone is entertaining as an amiable psychopath, he and the Duke (plus O’Hara) are the only formidable performers in the picture; Patrick Wayne, the star’s son, and Mitchum, whose dad is movie tough guy Robert Mitchum, are flyweights. As for Wayne, he’s no more an actor here than usual—his strength was inhabiting a larger-than-life persona, rather than incarnating actual characters—but he delivers the macho goods, strutting ridiculously as he shrugs off bullet wounds and other injuries in the name of doin’ what a man’s gotta do. Big Jake is hokum, to be sure, but it’s a step along the path that Wayne followed to his final reckoning with Westerns.

Big Jake: FUNKY