Posts by Ken Briggs

The PBS special "John Wayne Standing Tall" was only available on VHS for a limited time. Unlike many of their other biographies, this one was never released on DVD. I still have a VHS unit just for this reason. There are several movies that were only made available on VHS that have not been put on DVD or Blu-Ray. Case in point - the roadshow (extended version) of John Wayne's "The Alamo". If you don't have a VHS copy of it, you may never get a Blu-Ray or DVD copy because the film elements are so badly deteriorated. You can only view the full version on Turner Classic Movies. Fortunately, I recorded it many years ago on VHS, translated to mva4 format and put it on DVD. Unfortunately, the soundtrack gets out of sync in the second half right after the "Intermission".

Duke: And I'm tellin' ya it's Susan Hayward, NOT Susan Hayworth. The fella that printed the lobby cards got it wrong. It just doesn't sit well with a girl when a fella gets her name wrong. You never know how she's gonna react.

Duke: The judges agree. You can't smile like me.

That's a nice purse you have there. Too bad it doesn't go with the outfit.

True. "Circus World" was not one of his best. I think it was more of a "last hurrah" for Rita as most of the plot was focused on her and her daughter. The wild west action scenes were somewhat dragging. Overall it was not a good movie. But a must have for true fans of the Duke. Just like "The Conqueror" and "Jet Pilot". In "The Conqueror", the dialogue reminded me a lot of a Shakespeare play.

I have 130 John Wayne films in my collection. Some of his earlier films are of very poor quality but I enjoy them because of Duke. Those that I could not find here in the U.S. I was able to find from some European websites. One of the hardest to find was "Circus World" starring John Wayne, Rita Hayworth, and Claudia Cardinale. I believe it was Hayworth's last movie. It was also the movie being made when Duke was diagnosed with cancer the first time. He had been complaining of shortage of breath while filming. His first movie after removal of a lung and several films was "The Sons of Katie Elder". During the filming of that, he insisted on doing some of his own stunts because his fans expected it.

Amazon had "Circus World" ("Le Plus Grand Cirque Du Monde") for a little while after I got it. "Legend of the Lost" was another I got from an European distributer until it came out in the U.S. recently and I upgraded to a better transfer of the film. Other films I have gotten from foreign distributers on Blu-ray are "El Cid" and "55 Days in Peking". A couple of Samuel Bronston titles starring Charlton Heston.

The movie is part of the Warner Archives collection and can be purchased from Amazon or Walmart online.

I was 4 years old when my father took our family to our first drive-in movie. The movie playing was "Hondo". I was lying on the deck of the rear window when it came on. Because it was a western, I was immediately enthralled. When Hondo picked up the kid and "taught" him how to swim impressed me enough that my brother and I went to a nearby pond and taught ourselves sometime later. But, when Duke said that Indians hated liars, that hooked me on him forever.