Donovan’s Reef

#52 in my ranking of John Ford's filmography. Essentially just an excuse for John Ford, John Wayne, and Lee Marvin to have a paid vacation in Hawaii while Ford said goodbye to his yacht which he had to give up to help pay some taxes, Donovan's Reef is a movie in search of a story,…

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How the West Was Won

#59 in my ranking of John Ford's filmography. This is a product of a studio trying to make huge spectacle with MGM using the Cinerama process to create what Abel Gance did in 1927 with his Napoleon epic, essentially using a tryptic of full frames to create an ultra-wide view. It has three directors (including…

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

#3 in my ranking of John Ford's filmography. Contemporaneous reviews of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance applaud its first two-thirds and then feel like the final third just took too long to get to the point, robbing it of the kind of drama they're expecting. I've even seen comparisons to an episode of Gunsmoke.…

Two Rode Together

#74 in my ranking of John Ford's filmography. John Ford made this film under duress, almost. He hated the script he was given, brought in his regular writing partner Frank Nugent to help, and threw up his hands because he felt it was unsalvageable. He still made the movie out of a sense of loyalty…

Sergeant Rutledge

#24 in my ranking of John Ford's filmography. There was a moment about halfway through this film when I thought it was going to stand as one of John Ford's greatest triumphs. If the movie had simply kept to the actual story it was trying to tell, I probably would have kept onto that opinion,…