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Yesterday was a John Wayne double feature. First up was Dakota (1945), one of his Republic pictures I'd never seen before. Unfortunately, there is a reason I'd never seen it before. The plot is opaque and strangely abbreviated (like they lost a reel of film somewhere and just decided to steam ahead).
The one noteworthy thing about the movie is the relationship between Walter Brennan (wrascally steamboat captain) and his black bosun played by Nick Stewart. Unfortunately Stewart is stuck in full Stepin Fetchit mode, but that isn't uncommon. What was uncommon is the way Walter Brennan was speaking to him. He kept calling Stewart "****** demon." This is unusual because while there was quite a bit of racism in movies, the actual saying of "******" was generally off limits.
It wasn't until John Wayne finally spoke to Stewart's character by name that I realized Brennan wasn't saying "****** demon" but Nicodemus.
When that one was over, 10 minutes later Wayne had aged almost 30 years for The Cowboys. Wil Anderson is my favorite Wayne performance from his last few years and if the Academy had to give him a sympathy award I'd much prefer it had been for this one rather than the slightly embarrassing Rooster Cogburn in True Grit.
But anyway, I hadn't seen this Red Dawn of westerns in may 15 years so I am glad to see it still holds up pretty well.
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