Summary
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is arguably Wayne and Stewart’s best Western, showcasing their unique on-screen chemistry and individual talents.
- A sprawling epic, How the West Was Won features Wayne and Stewart in a star-studded cast, but lacks depth in exploring its themes.
- The Shootist is Wayne’s moving swansong, offering a powerful portrayal of an aging gunslinger and challenging his image as a clean-cut hero.
Over the course of their respective legendary careers, John Wayne and James Stewart co-starred in three Westerns, but which was the best and which was the worst? Wayne and Stewart are two of the biggest names in Hollywood history. The former was John Ford’s muse, the latter Alfred Hitchcock’s. Wayne and Stewart were huge stars of the Golden Age, and each represented something entirely different. Wayne represented the American ideal – the gun-toting hero who doesn’t hesitate to spring into action – while Stewart was the mild-mannered everyman that audiences could relate to and see themselves in.
Wayne wouldn’t have approached a movie like that It’s a wonderful life! and Stewart wouldn’t have gone near a movie like that True courageThe fact that their acting styles and on-screen personas were polar opposites made it a sight to see whenever Wayne and Stewart co-starred in a film together, especially when they shared the screen in a Western film, as they each brought something unique and different to the Western genre, and it was fun to watch those two energies collide. Wayne’s stoic sternness contrasts Stewart’s carefree affability in some really interesting ways.
You are watching: All 3 John Wayne & Jimmy Stewart Westerns, Ranked Worst To Best
Throughout their career as two of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Wayne and Stewart co-starred in three western films: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and How the West was wonboth in 1962 and The shooter in 1976. None of them are bad, but one of them outshines the others. So which is Wayne and Stewart’s best western?
3 How the West was conquered
1962s How the West was won is one of the most ambitious ventures in Hollywood history. It was essentially a mini-series of films that ran back-to-back on the big screen. It took three filmmakers to make it a reality: Henry Hathaway (who directed three of the five episodes), John Ford and George Marshall, and it was shot in true three-lens Cinerama to achieve a classic look. Set between 1839 and 1889, How the West was won chronicles the westward expansion of the 19th century, covering the gold rush, the Civil War, and the building of railroads.
The entire historical epic is told through the eyes of the Rawlings family, led by Linus Rawlings (Stewart). Wayne plays the real-life General William Tecumseh Sherman in the third chapter of the film. Wayne and Stewart aren’t the only big stars of this film. How the West was wonThe cast of ‘s includes almost every recognizable actor from that era of cinema: Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, Debbie Reynolds, Lee J. Cobb, George Peppard, Walter Brennan, Robert Preston, Eli Wallach, Russ Tamblyn, Andy Devine, Raymond Massey… it’s an impressive collection of A-list stars who have gone on to star in their own films.
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Wayne’s role in How the West was won It’s not a great story, but it does get to a crucial point in history. Linus (Stewart) and his son Zeb join the Union Army in an attempt to serve their country in the Civil War and achieve a sense of glory. But they quickly learn that war isn’t what they expected, especially after the bloody Battle of Shiloh, which costs Linus his life. Zeb happens to meet Wayne’s famous Union general and his sudden decision to save the general’s life sets him on the path to becoming a war hero.
While it is true that it is an impressive spectacle, How the West was won It doesn’t go as deep into its themes as it could have. Because it sets out to chart 50 years of American history and there’s only time to do so, it ends up providing a handy overview in bullet points without much additional information. It’s a marvel to behold, with some genuinely tense sequences, such as a buffalo stampede and a raft caught in raging rapids, but this sprawling epic is more tedious than impressive.
2 The shooter
14 years after their previous western collaborations, Wayne and Stewart reunited for another entry in the genre with 1976’s The shooterdirected by Don Siegel. The shooter marked Wayne’s final film appearance before he passed away in 1979, and ended up being the perfect swansong for one of the western genre’s most iconic stars. In the same way that Unforgiven It would later become Clint Eastwood’s final Western outing, a fitting marker of his retirement from the genre that made him a star. The shooter It came as the perfect film for Wayne to end his western career.
When Wayne reached the end of his road and began to deal with his own mortality, he accepted one last role in a western that dealt with those themes. The shooter revolves around an aging gunfighter who recognizes that he doesn’t have much strength left to fight and begins to search for a way to die with dignity. There’s something moving about watching a dying movie star bring that pain and reflection to the screen. Wayne gives one of the strongest dramatic performances of his career in The shooterbringing genuine pathos and anguish to this dark deconstruction of his stoic gunslinger archetype.
For most of his career, Wayne played the typical hero. He leapt into action to protect innocent people from bad guys, showed no fear in the face of life-threatening danger, and always saved the day in time for the end credits. But Wayne did his most interesting work when he defied that clean-cut persona and played a more morally ambiguous antihero, such as Rooster Cogburn in True courage or Ethan Edwards in The search engines. The shooterJB Books belongs to this group. He is not a simple hero and that is what makes him so interesting.
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There is nothing particularly original in The shooter; the story of the gunslinger who ends up on the road has been told in other movies (and told more effectively in other movies). But what The shooter What that film offers is Wayne, the poster boy of the Western genre, finally shattering the myth he helped create with a performance as a sad, broken man at death’s door, looking back and wondering if it was all worth it. That performance makes The shooter An unforgettable film; it is not perfect, but it will remain in the viewer’s memory long after it has ended.
1 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
A few months before the launch of How the West was won In 1962, Wayne and Stewart shared the screen in their first western collaboration, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance – and it is arguably the best film they made together. It was directed by John Ford, the pioneer who established Wayne’s screen persona with his role as the Ringo Kid in Diligence and he also pioneered many of the cinematic techniques used in the American Western. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance It is one of Ford’s best works and one of the best western films ever made.
What are you doing? The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance The best Wayne-Stewart Western is the one that makes the most of the unique acting pairing. It uses what made each of them great actors and beloved stars. The film opens with Stewart’s character, U.S. Senator Ranse Stoddard, attending the funeral of Wayne’s character, Tom Doniphon, as a framing device for the story. Tom saved Ranse after he was beaten and robbed by the notorious outlaw Liberty Valance and his gang. What blossomed from that noble act of heroism was a beautiful and lasting friendship.
In How the West was wonWayne has a minor supporting role in an otherwise extensive ensemble and does not appear until Stewart’s character has already been killed off. The shooter It’s primarily a Wayne-starring vehicle, with all the supporting cast, including Stewart as Doc Hostetler, the doctor who used to treat Books’ gunshot wounds, existing in his orbit. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance It’s the closest Wayne and Stewart have come to making a two-character film in the Western genre, where their characters’ relationship is the central point of the story and the crux of the drama.
Ford’s ability to bring heart and humor to his tales of the Old West is on full display in The Man Who Shot Liberty ValanceBut at the same time, it doesn’t shy away from the violence and bleakness of the setting. An aging Wayne and Stewart are the film’s central focus, both with compelling individual performances and a dynamic that is endlessly watchable. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance explores the irony of heroism (everyone ends up dead one way or another) through a slyly pessimistic lens that was uncharacteristic of Ford’s cinema.
The only disadvantage of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is its final act, which is predictable, overlong, and ultimately disappointing. Once Ranse achieves fame and success, the film becomes trivial and even a bit boring, especially since the framing device already foreshadowed the ending. If the film had ended 20 minutes earlier, it would have been perfect. But with its anticlimactic final roll, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance It’s close to perfection, and that’s more than can be said for most movies (including the tedious How the West was won and the derivative The shooter).
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