"The Duke does L'Amour"

The greatest of all cowboy actors doing an adaptation of the greatest western novelist. This should be one of the Duke's most celebrated roles, but because of the decision to shoot this in 3-D (or as I call it, "The Stupid Gimmick That Refuses To Go Away") this is a rarely seen underrated gem of a western that deserves to a wider viewership.

The film opens with Hondo Lane (Duke Wayne)dehorsed and wandering the desert with his dog. Fortunately, he comes across a small ranch where a young woman (Geraldine Page) and her son take him in. Hondo reveals that he is carrying vital dispatches for General Crook. Namely, some damn fool as irritated the Apaches, and it's war. Hondo also begins to notice that things around the ranch are...welll...not right. The woman keeps insisting that her husband is off in the hills chasing stray calves. But Hondo keeps noticing little things, the tea can is nearly empty, the axe is dull, and the horses are badly in need of shoeing. Finally the woman reveals that her husband has been missing for some time. Hondo, however, is a Louis L'Amour hero...which means decency personified. He helps the woman get her ranch into something approaching working order, tries to get her and her son to go with him to the fort, and continues on his mission on a borrowed horse.

At the fort Hondo delivers his message and meets a rather unpleasant man who rubs him the wrong way (Leo Gordon). Before you can say "what an unlikely coincidence," it turns out that the nasty man is (1...2...3.. all together now)The Missing Husband! And his status as bad hat doesn't end there. He's cheerfully playing cards, getting drunk, and getting in everybody's face while his wife believes him dead (well, to be more accurate wishing he was dead). As you can imagine, things between hm and Hondo get worse. Meanwhile the Apaches are paying a visit to the ranch...

Wayne does his usual good job as Hondo. Playing him as the archtypical frontiersman, wise in the ways of the wastelands, a natural gentleman, and deadly when his life and sense of justice are challenged. The movie is an unusually fathful adapation of the book, and the Duke slips into the mold of L'Amour hero like he was born to play it (actually, to a certain extent he probably was). The other actors in the film are a who's who of western regulars, Paul Fix, Ward Bond, Leo Gordon, and a young James Arness just out of his monster movie phase, so everybody pretty much knows what they're doing. The major disappointments are Geraldine Page's rather whiney heroine, and the occasional bits they throw in to show off the 3-D effects (spears flying at the audience, Ray Acosta stabbing with a knife, etc) Mostly it's having to listen to Page's whimpering voice, making one almost sympathetic to Leo Gordon's plight. After six years of listening to that voice I'd want to run away too. And for a girl supposedly raised on the frontier, she's remarkably helpless (Can't put an edge on an axe, can't shoe a horse, etc.).

But on the whole, it's entertaining, by the numbers oater, with a good solid performance by the Duke, and a nicely paced action packed plot. Exactly what western lovers are looking for.