In addition to being one of the biggest stars of his era, John Wayne exuded an iron-willed confidence that left him completely ambivalent to whatever the critics had to say about his work.
‘The Duke’ didn’t make films with the intention of winning rave reviews, being showered in acclaim, and going home every awards season with a haul of trophies under his arm. He made films to be enjoyed by the whole family on the big screen, and from his perspective, he was excellent at his job.
No actor spends their life being completely satisfied with their entire body of work, and Wayne was no different. Even though he was firmly in the minority based on the reception, the veteran admitted that one of his late-career projects didn’t quite find him firing on all cylinders.
He was at least united with a familiar collaborator, though, with Henry Hathaway having previously directed ‘The Duke’ on How the West Was Won, Legend of the Lost, Circus World, and North to Alaska. However, their penultimate collaboration before the star’s Academy Award-winning turn in True Grit may have come a touch too soon for the leading man.
Remarkably, production on The Sons of Katie Elder began in January 1965, just months after Wayne underwent cancer surgery that necessitated the removal of his entire left lung and two ribs. Not only that, but he insisted on doing all of his own stunts in the story of four brothers returning home to attend their mother’s funeral, only to end up embarking on a revenge mission in the name of their murdered father.
Even though his recovery and return to work were borderline superhuman, Wayne admitted to Roger Ebert that the after-effects of his surgery may have been detrimental to the film. “I don’t care much for it myself,” he said of The Sons of Katie Elder. “I had just got over that cancer operation, and I thought I could hear myself breathing all the time. Everybody said it was my imagination.”
Whether it was real or not, ‘The Duke’ couldn’t resist the opportunity to take a shot at his director in jest. “Well, old Henry was very thoughtful of me of course, since I was recuperating and all,” he deadpanned. “He took me up to 8,500 feet to shoot the damned thing, and on the fourth day of shooting, he had me jumping into ice water. Very considerate.”
Wayne wasn’t entirely sold on his performance, but audiences once again ended up as the true measuring stick of his drawing power, with The Sons of Katie Elder earning its budget back almost four times over from cinemas in the United States, adding another unqualified hit to a career that lived and died by them.