Hondo

Hi Stumpy,

The film Hondo like The High and the Mighty and Island in the sky has a certain mystique in that for many years it was one of the Holy Grail of Duke's films. It unavailablilty made it a must have for Duke fans. What is happening now is that people who have seen the High and the Mighty are now criticsing it content and its worth as a film. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
When Hondo was released on video in the United Kingdom Michael Wayne and his family attended the initial screening of the picture at the British Film Institute in London.

What should also be considered is John Waynes least successful sustained period as a box office star was around the 1950's, Jet Pilot, The Conqueror, The Barbarian and the Geisha, all films considered to have been box office flops, various films where he didn't appear in costume punctuated by 'The Searchers', Hondo, and ending with Rio Bravo'.

The following article was written around 1954 for Picturegoer magazine.

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'......The day before she was nominated for an Oscar on the strength of her supporting performance in Hondo I (the reporter) phoned the Warner Brothers studio about Geraldine Page. There was a rumour that she and Wayne were to be teamed again in a story called 'The Wicker Basket'.

A studio spokesman scoffed, "I shouldn't think so, nobody likes her here."

But thats the way it goes with Geraldine. She makes no efforts to be liked. All her trying goes into getting her character believed and liked if the story calls for it.

On location in Mexico for Hondo Wayne and his director John Farrow spoke to Geraldine only when neccessary. They found her complete indifference to whether or not they liked her quite baffling; Geraldine shrugs. "I was honest. I thought all that should interest them was my acting".

The film shot they let her go back to the New York stage, where critics and audiences had discovered her in a tiny Greenwich village (in Tennessee Williams's play 'Summer and Smoke' and promoted her to Broadway stardom in the play 'Midsummer'.

Then the bomb burst. Studio heads saw the rough cut of hondo and screamed. It was Geraldine's face which they were't too pleased about.

Geraldine in Hondo plays a lonely ranch widow in the early west. She falls in love with a footloose cowboy John Wayne, and he with her, though he killed her husband in a gun fight. They start a new life together - happy ending.

"What!" said the studio heads - who will believe it? You see Geraldine page 29, five feet eight inches, eight stone nine pounds unmarried, born in the little prarie town of Kirksville Missouri is no body's beauty.

Her blue eyes are on the pale side. Her nose is strong and the top of it is rather bulbous to. So are her cheek which seem to protrude from her face leaving heavy cheek lines from her nose to her rather full and curling lips.

Yet with all this roundness her face is boney. He cheekbones are pronounced, and the curve of her jawbone on either side of a long chin is really more of a jag.

She has thin hands with long fingers. a reedy rather cracked voice, which at times, resembles something of a midwest whine. Her hair is best described in her own words @dishwater blonde' which when washed, shows a reddish tint.

This demanded the studio heads, this is what John Wayne settles for, in a romantic saga of the west? How can we justify it?

They sent for Geraldine to fly back from New york and shoot some added scenes. In one of them they had her tell John why she might do nicely for him adding, "I know I'm a homely woman".
(In the U.S 'homely' usually means plain).

She said it's because It was required of her. But off set she remarked, "They should have known what they were buying. I'm not a glamour puss".

So that was that. There was much handwashing of the Page girl art Warners. Geraldine went back to Broadway and starred in the new play 'The Immortalist'. And once again the critics exploded into raves.

Big girl Geraldine shrugged them off.
"Behind the footlight'" she said, "You can look like William Bendix and be a glamourous actress - but in front of the camera, they expect you to be beautiful.

By 'they' she meant studio men. Picturegoers turned out to be different.

Cinemas everywhere in the United Staes are packed with audience for Hondo, who find it absolutely delightful that John Wayne, the big hero takes up with this homely woman. So did the Academy Award voters (who nominated her for the best supporting actress) as they credited her with an extraoridnary talent for achieving this romantic appeal dispite her appearance.

I agree with you that I would have drowned Brandon de wilde in Shane but then I wasn't that fussed about the film anyway.

But to go on about her morals and cleanliness (Clark Gable had such severe halitosis that he could have stopped a bear at ten feet) and some of the earlier starletts were quite familiar with the casting couch. And even some of the major female stars often accomodated entire football teams in one sitting. In the early years of Hollywood I doubt if Morals and Morality were even included in the dictionary, (it may even be they still aren't).

Yes I know that John Wayne disgusted with her table manners pushed a plate of mashed potatoe into her face, and she was grim. But she was nominated so she couln't have been all bad.

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And asking someone to change his name for a failure what wasn't?

What happened to life liberty freedom of speech and moms apple pie?

Regards

Arthur

Well, we've got a few things to add here.

First of all, that writer in Picturegoer magazine certainly had an ax to grind against Geraldine Page. I've never read such a derogatory piece <_< .

Stumpy, you might find the following threads and posts interesting reading:

Hondo vs. Shane

A pertinent post regarding Geraldine Page. . .

A sort of funny post . . . that relates to all this . . .

Personally, I thought John Wayne did a great job as Hondo, and I would be proud to have that name. After all, our Hondo didn't go for the name Geraldine . . . .

Chester

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Originally posted by Stumpy@Mar 6 2004, 04:31 AM
Well, it appears I plowed some ground that had already been turned over, doesn't it? Didn't know y'all had already discussed the relative merits of "Hondo" vs "Shane", and the hygienic shortcomings of Miss Page.

Hey, Stumpy, there are an awful lot of pages of threads to plow through. It just happened that you stirred up enough vivid memories for some of us who have been hanging around longer, that we knew it was there and could dredge it up for you .

I guess if you had limitless time, you could go back to the end and work your way to the beginning . . . . . . hm-m-m-m, limitless time . . . I don't know anybody with that much time.

Chester