John Ford

Discussion and info on people in film, ranging from directors to actors to cinematographers to writers.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: 'Forthcoming' Lists Discussion and Random Speculation Vo

#126 Post by knives » Sun Jul 17, 2011 2:56 am

I liked him in The Shop Around the Corner. He has some of the funniest bits there.

User avatar
whaleallright
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2005 12:56 am

Re: 'Forthcoming' Lists Discussion and Random Speculation Vo

#127 Post by whaleallright » Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:48 am

Second only to Tobacco Road as worst Ford film
I can only hope you haven't seen Born Reckless or The World Moves On--the first incoherent, the second stultifying, both excruciating. I'd put the better-known Mary of Scotland in that company, too. By contrast, Tobacco Road at least has Gene Tierney slithering in the dust and some lovely Arthur Miller cinematography.
Last edited by whaleallright on Mon Jul 18, 2011 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
tarpilot
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:48 am

Re: 'Forthcoming' Lists Discussion and Random Speculation Vo

#128 Post by tarpilot » Tue Jul 19, 2011 8:42 pm

domino harvey wrote:Second only to Tobacco Road as worst Ford film
I hope these are the words of a man who has yet to see The Wings of Eagles. Tobacco Road is great, maybe top 5 Ford for me.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: 'Forthcoming' Lists Discussion and Random Speculation Vo

#129 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jul 19, 2011 8:50 pm

tarpilot wrote:
domino harvey wrote:Second only to Tobacco Road as worst Ford film
I hope these are the words of a man who has yet to see The Wings of Eagles. Tobacco Road is great, maybe top 5 Ford for me.
Wings of Eagles is truly awful. I can't really argue with someone who thinks it's worse than the two I named, but at least it has Ward Bond's Ford parody. As for other suggestions, Born Reckless is a good movie, and Up the River isn't, but it's not terrible either. And all of this back and forth should probably go in the John Ford thread...

evillights
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2004 2:47 pm
Location: U.S.
Contact:

Re: John Ford

#130 Post by evillights » Tue Aug 02, 2011 3:02 am

Wow. There's a lot of hate here for some Ford films which I think are pretty interesting.

I can't say that I've found any stinkers in the Ford corpus, of what I've seen. Actually, I should revise: the first two times I saw When Willie Comes Marching Home, I thought it completely sucked. The third time I saw the film (in the "Ford at Fox" set), it was a revelation — insofar as I thought it was a fine film; what irritated me about it initially, by then seemed pretty lovely. If I had to compare it to any other film (both in terms of shift of personal evaluation, and in terms of content), it would be Fritz Lang's Cloak and Dagger.

I had a similar turnabout on Tobacco Road, though that came only in a second viewing and one in rapid succession. I think it's a beautiful film.

So, for what it's worth, going through a list of all the Ford films I've seen, I'd rank each entry within the following brackets — from 'least good' to 'greatest.' (I caught part of The Hurricane last night on TCM for the first time, but it was only a portion, so I won't count it in the big tally; but what I saw I thought was fairly amazing.) Of course this is subject to change over time, as with any list. But maybe it will provoke in some forum-readers a reassessment of the films they haven't been keen on, or will inspire viewers who haven't seen much Ford to start investigating unexplored corners of the director's body of work.
===

OF SOME INTEREST:
The Last Outlaw
A Gun Fightin' Gentleman
Born Reckless
Mister Roberts


VERY GOOD:
Straight Shooting
Bucking Broadway
Just Pals
Hangman's House
Up the River: A Comedy Drama
Seas Beneath
Arrowsmith
The Lost Patrol
The Informer
Mary of Scotland
Four Men and a Prayer
Tobacco Road
When Willie Comes Marching Home


EXCEPTIONAL:
The Iron Horse [US version]
Salute
Airmail
The World Moves On
The Whole Town's Talking
Steamboat Round the Bend
The Prisoner of Shark Island
The Plough and the Stars
Sex Hygiene
Torpedo Squadron 8
December 7th [1h 23m version]
This Is Korea!: The Story of the 7th Fleet and the 1st Marine Division
What Price Glory


PROBABLE MASTERPIECES:
3 Bad Men
Mother Machree [incomplete only-extant version]
Four Sons
Pilgrimage
The Long Voyage Home
3 Godfathers


ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECES:
Doctor Bull
My Darling Clementine [either version]
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
Wagon Master
Rio Grande
The Rising of the Moon
The Horse Soldiers
Sergeant Rutledge
Wagon Train: "The Colter Craven Story"
How the West Was Won: "The Civil War"
Cheyenne Autumn


SUPREME, COSMIC MASTERPIECES:
Judge Priest
Wee Willie Winkie
Stagecoach
Young Mr. Lincoln
Drums Along the Mohawk
The Grapes of Wrath
How Green Was My Valley
The Battle of Midway
They Were Expendable
Fort Apache
The Quiet Man
Mogambo
The Wings of Eagles
Donovan's Reef


ZENITH OF ART OF CINEMA:
The Sun Shines Bright [release cut]
The Long Gray Line
The Searchers
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

User avatar
Peacock
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2008 7:47 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: John Ford

#131 Post by Peacock » Tue Aug 02, 2011 10:08 am

Wow, now there's a true Ford fan! Great to see... he's probably my favorite director after Rossellini. Although I wouldn't put The Long Gray Line that high your list isn't far off mine (although i've seen far less sadly!). Interesting that you put The Wings of Eagles so high when some consider it one of his worst, i'll have to check that out soon. Also, no 7 Women! I'm sure that would rank highly after you see it?

Any hope for more Ford after The Iron Horse for MoC? Sun Shines Bright, The Rising of the Moon.... 7 Women? (Although i'm guessing the latter is WB, and as it doesn't even have a dvd anywhere perhaps there isn't even a dvd master out there)

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: John Ford

#132 Post by domino harvey » Tue Aug 02, 2011 5:20 pm

evillights wrote:But maybe it will provoke in some forum-readers a reassessment of the films they haven't been keen on, or will inspire viewers who haven't seen much Ford to start investigating unexplored corners of the director's body of work.
Would much rather have read a couple lines of defense from you for the individual films than just a list of a few dozen movies subjectively ranked. It's a little like dropping the mic and backing away-- not exactly a conversation starter

evillights
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2004 2:47 pm
Location: U.S.
Contact:

Re: John Ford

#133 Post by evillights » Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:17 pm

domino harvey wrote:
evillights wrote:But maybe it will provoke in some forum-readers a reassessment of the films they haven't been keen on, or will inspire viewers who haven't seen much Ford to start investigating unexplored corners of the director's body of work.
Would much rather have read a couple lines of defense from you for the individual films than just a list of a few dozen movies subjectively ranked. It's a little like dropping the mic and backing away-- not exactly a conversation starter
I think that lists are exactly that: conversation starters. I'm happy to talk about why I like certain films I ranked, and why I put them so high. In fact it would give me a chance to watch them again (when I have a moment). Just ask which ones you're interested in why I like them as I do...

To mention just very briefly two of the pictures which have been mentioned: I think both The Long Gray Line and The Wings of Eagles are, practically, unbearably moving. It seems that Line is one of the least known of the great Fords. (I seem to remember Jonathan Rosenbaum mentioned it in a Ford round-up for DVDBeaver, and liked it — but seemed perplexed about why a few people, Tag Gallagher and Jean-Marie Straub come to mind, regard it so highly. I think the greatness of Line is almost as obvious as the greatness of, say, The Quiet Man, there's just no Wayne here. I first found out about the film, in fact, when I was getting into Ford, from a remark or two by Straub and Huillet in an interview.) And I always had The Wings of Eagles was regarded as one of the High Great '50s Fords.

True, I've never seen The Fugitive, The Last Hurrah, Gideon of Scotland Yard, or 7 Women, to name a few of the biggies (especially 7 Women). Or Chesty. But very much looking forward to them all, some day.

User avatar
matrixschmatrix
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm

Re: John Ford

#134 Post by matrixschmatrix » Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:25 pm

Do you want to make a case for The Plough and the Stars? It's something I was considering, as it's on Criterion's Hulu channel, but it seemed like it was pretty universally looked upon as a crappy one.

User avatar
Mr Sheldrake
Joined: Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:09 pm
Location: Jersey burbs exit 4

Re: John Ford

#135 Post by Mr Sheldrake » Tue Aug 02, 2011 7:46 pm

Se7en Women is Ford's greatest 30's picture. Unfortunately, he made it decades later, in the swinging 60's when it was so out-of-place few bothered to look, and of those who did look, most snickered.

I find it a moving depiction of one of Ford's most deeply felt themes, Christian self-sacrifice. Anne Bancroft is magnificent, the female interplay, rare for Ford, interesting in it's sexual repression and moral hypocrisy. And then theres Lolita, Sue Lyon, in the midst of her brief career, looking mighty pretty.

The movie has the feel of an old man summing it all up - 'this is how I feel about life, look past the cardboard sets'.

But I'll have to vote for The Prisoner of Shark Island for my 30's list.

mattkc
Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 10:32 am

Re: John Ford

#136 Post by mattkc » Tue Aug 02, 2011 10:00 pm

A great ranking, evillights. Judging from your choices I'd say you have the best still to come, with Seven Women. And really all four you mentioned, I'd hazard to say are among the very best. Gideon's Day is a bit narrower than ultimate Ford, but marvelously tight, with beautiful performances. So glad you put The Sun Shines Bright where it belongs. Since you bring him up, have you ever figured out why Straub considered "The Civil War" not only the height of Ford's art, but went so far as to say it's the most important thing he knows? I love it, but... Inspired by your post, I'm going to try to come up with why I think The Horse Soldiers is incredibly, monumentally terrific

I would also love to read your thoughts on Sex Hygiene......

User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: John Ford

#137 Post by swo17 » Fri Aug 05, 2011 1:01 pm

One of four directors to be memorialized by the USPS with a stamp, to be issued next year:

Image
Last edited by swo17 on Wed Aug 17, 2011 11:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Gregory
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm

Re: John Ford

#138 Post by Gregory » Fri Aug 05, 2011 1:59 pm

It has a real '80s quality about it.

User avatar
Yojimbo
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:06 am
Location: Ireland

Re: John Ford

#139 Post by Yojimbo » Fri Aug 05, 2011 7:55 pm

Peacock wrote: Sun Shines Bright, The Rising of the Moon.... 7 Women? (Although i'm guessing the latter is WB, and as it doesn't even have a dvd anywhere perhaps there isn't even a dvd master out there)
Sun Shines Bright' is long overdue a DVD release; its one of my very favourite Ford; and more, its quintessential Ford.
Perhaps its 21st Century political incorrectness may have held it back.

I don't share the revisionist 'deification' of 7 Women, though; I just saw it as case of the old Ford thinking that he needed to 'right some wrongs', but overdid things, even if there were wrongs to be redressed in the first place.

User avatar
whaleallright
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2005 12:56 am

Re: John Ford

#140 Post by whaleallright » Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:39 pm

The Sun Shines Bright, Rio Grande, and The Quiet Man were Republic films. The Republic titles are now owned by Paramount, after some decades of being managed by Artisan. Paramount seems to have exactly zero interest in exploiting them (it may be that they don't even own good elements for most Republic titles). Sun Shines Bright is no more "politically incorrect" than Judge Priest or a number of other classic Hollywood films that the majors have happily released on DVD.

I agree that 7 Women is flawed--very deeply in my opinion. Most notably, much of the acting is terrible, including but not limited to Sue Lyon and Eddie Albert (who I like elsewhere but who is irritatingly shrill here). Naturally, I blame Ford as much as the actors for this, since the bad acting is part of a general coarseness and broadness. The grace notes seem few and far between--though there are some beautiful ones. Think of the famous moment in The Searchers --conveyed in a gracious long shot-- when Ward Bond accidentally spies Dorothy Jordan caressing John Wayne's coat, then turns away. By comparison, much in 7 Women is overstated, then restated. In my opinion it inherits some of the didacticism of Ford's 1930s RKO films, as does the almost-unwatchable Cheyenne Autumn. (I probably should admit that I find traces of a similar coarseness in Liberty Valance.)

I'm inclined to think that Ford's best critics, such as Joe McBride, Tag Gallagher, and Andrew Sarris, have overpraised this film because of the indifferent-to-hostile reaction it received upon its original release in the late 1960s, at a low point in Ford's reputation in general.

However in my experience those who don't express unstinting admiration for 7 Women are apt to be treated with suspicion or even disdain by Ford cultists. It's part of a broader tendency by many self-identified "auteurists" to cherish even the most lumpy of late works by their favored directors, as if to demonstrate their finely-honed aesthetic sensibilities. I'm the first to admit that often these folks are right--I like Family Plot and even The Human Factor--but the gesture seems to nearly transcend the qualities of the individual films.
Last edited by whaleallright on Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Yojimbo
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:06 am
Location: Ireland

Re: John Ford

#141 Post by Yojimbo » Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:48 pm

jonah.77 wrote: I'm inclined to think that Ford's best critics, such as Joe McBride, Tag Gallagher, and Andrew Sarris, have overpraised this film because of the indifferent-to-hostile reaction it received upon its original release in the late 1960s, at a low point in Ford's reputation in general. However in my experience those who don't express unstinting admiration for 7 Women are apt to be treated with suspicion or even disdain by Ford cultists.
I can take that; but are Ford's best critics, "such as Joe McBride, Tag Gallagher, and Andrew Sarris" prepared to accept the 'revisonism for revisionism's sake charge' with equal equanimity.
I suspect you're perhaps closer the mark, though.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: John Ford

#142 Post by domino harvey » Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:58 pm

Cahiers du Cinema loved it on first release, if memory serves. But that means nothing, really, as their Ford tastes ran eccentric to put it mildly

User avatar
Yojimbo
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:06 am
Location: Ireland

Re: John Ford

#143 Post by Yojimbo » Fri Aug 05, 2011 10:30 pm

domino harvey wrote:Cahiers du Cinema loved it on first release, if memory serves. But that means nothing, really, as their Ford tastes ran eccentric to put it mildly
Didn't they love every Jerry Lewis film, on first release, also?

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: John Ford

#144 Post by knives » Fri Aug 05, 2011 10:33 pm

Well they're right on that. By the way going even further off topic is there a good english translated compilation of their writing from this period?

User avatar
Cold Bishop
Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 9:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR

Re: John Ford

#145 Post by Cold Bishop » Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:58 pm

7 Women is great, and I thought so long back when I was still on the fence whether I liked Ford (and I still don't care for The Searchers or Liberty Valance).

User avatar
tarpilot
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:48 am

Re: John Ford

#146 Post by tarpilot » Sat Aug 06, 2011 1:04 am

Yojimbo wrote:
domino harvey wrote:Cahiers du Cinema loved it on first release, if memory serves. But that means nothing, really, as their Ford tastes ran eccentric to put it mildly
Didn't they love every Jerry Lewis film, on first release, also?
Every Jerry Lewis film deserves love on any release

mattkc
Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 10:32 am

Re: John Ford

#147 Post by mattkc » Mon Aug 08, 2011 12:10 am

Even if Lyon and Albert are weak, I'm not at all sure it would make 7 Women a better film if they were any different. The main players, Bancroft and particularly Leighton, hit all the right notes, and if anything is overstated it's nothing that doesn't remain on the surface in any case. Scenes like the one between Agatha and Emma, the arrival of Cartwright, the first supper, the child birth, the final scene of the women together are obvious only if one is unwilling to penetrate beyond the most obvious level. The pathos is potboiler stuff, but seeps into the marmoreal fabric of the style to become something else entirely... The sense of the unspoken shades of difference and distance between individuals and between their places within a larger whole; the presence of objects - that green lamp that holds the space between Cartwright and Agatha's confrontation - their influence over the images; the dense weave of designs, of patterns, of separate layers of order... no words can conjure up the realm of the film, everything physical and concrete yet a fantasy bordering almost on nightmare. Ford is able to generate, bring forth the summation of a character and put it on the screen. Everything is stylized in this film, which will doubtless put off some, but it is the culmination of that late, stately style of John Ford.

User avatar
Yojimbo
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:06 am
Location: Ireland

Re: John Ford

#148 Post by Yojimbo » Mon Aug 08, 2011 12:35 am

mattkc wrote:Even if Lyon and Albert are weak, I'm not at all sure it would make 7 Women a better film if they were any different. The main players, Bancroft and particularly Leighton, hit all the right notes, and if anything is overstated it's nothing that doesn't remain on the surface in any case. Scenes like the one between Agatha and Emma, the arrival of Cartwright, the first supper, the child birth, the final scene of the women together are obvious only if one is unwilling to penetrate beyond the most obvious level. The pathos is potboiler stuff, but seeps into the marmoreal fabric of the style to become something else entirely... The sense of the unspoken shades of difference and distance between individuals and between their places within a larger whole; the presence of objects - that green lamp that holds the space between Cartwright and Agatha's confrontation - their influence over the images; the dense weave of designs, of patterns, of separate layers of order... no words can conjure up the realm of the film, everything physical and concrete yet a fantasy bordering almost on nightmare. Ford is able to generate, bring forth the summation of a character and put it on the screen. Everything is stylized in this film, which will doubtless put off some, but it is the culmination of that late, stately style of John Ford.
Bullshit! =;

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: John Ford

#149 Post by knives » Mon Aug 08, 2011 12:53 am

Because that is the more compelling argument. #-o

User avatar
Yojimbo
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:06 am
Location: Ireland

Re: John Ford

#150 Post by Yojimbo » Mon Aug 08, 2011 1:02 am

knives wrote:Because that is the more compelling argument. #-o
No, because if I ask matt to parse that post and explain it clause by clause and then the sum of the whole he'd be hard-pressed to do so while keeping a straight face.
Late, stately style, indeed: he'd lost the plot!

Post Reply