American Masters: John Ford / John Wayne: The Filmmaker and the Legend

Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 9 pm

American Masters offers a unique take on the complex relationship between John Ford and John Wayne with The Filmmaker and the Legend.

John Wayne was a largely unknown B movie actor when John Ford - considered the greatest director of all time - bucked the studio to cast him in the career-making part of Ringo Kid in the classic western Stagecoach. The friendship between the two men, forged over poker parties on Ford's yacht, developed into one of the most enduring collaborations in film history. Over the course of 23 years, Ford and Wayne made 14 films together, including Fort Apache, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Thanks to Ford, John Wayne became a legend, increasingly serving as a moral compass for a changingnation, both on-screen and off.

Director Sam Pollard was intrigued by the way the John Ford/John Wayne saga played out against the backdrop of an ever-changing America. “For many Americans, John Wayne is a living example of what America is, or at least, that idealized notion of what we want it to be. With every intellectual dismissal of Wayne's mystique, it only grows larger,” says Pollard. “What does the 'Duke' represent that keeps him so powerfully alive in the American psyche? The answer can be found in part by looking at the man who created the legend that we have come to know as John Wayne. That man was film director John Ford.”

During the course of a remarkably long career, John Ford won more Oscars than any other director and is consistently cited by his peers as the master. The larger-than-life John Wayne, who has become synonymous with flag-waving patriotism and box-office success, was to a great extent, the creation of John Ford.

Wayne met Ford when he was a college student working for the studios as a prop man. Ford had already earned a reputation for mythic filmmaking - and on-set pettiness. After a rough start, the two established a father-son relationship, with “Pappy” firmly in control. Eventually, Wayne's career shot into the stratosphere and he eclipsed Ford. But the actor never forgot his mentor. The dramatic arc of their friendship – played out during films such as The Quiet Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and How The West Was Won - is at the core of The Filmmaker and the Legend.

“Somebody once said to me that John Wayne was to Ford what David was to Michelangelo,” says Ford biographer Joseph McBride in the film. “He was the ideal man, the masculine ideal.”

The film also explores the changing political scene and the way dramatic historic events - from World War II through Vietnam - affected the two men. Ford, a Navy man, assembled his Hollywood crew into a volunteer unit that documented some of the greatest sea battles in U.S. history. Increasingly right-wing, Wayne nonetheless bucked his on-screen image by staying out of the war to become a huge star, angering Ford. The rift intensified when the two men came down on opposite sides of McCarthyism. By the late 1960s, however, Ford came full circle, disheartened by the way anti-war radicals co-opted his beloved America.

The John Ford/John Wayne friendship spanned nearly 50 years. The films they made together - many of them considered masterpieces - stand the test of time, serving as cinematic testament to 20th-century America.