Barnes & Noble

When the long-overdue critical reevaluation of John Wayne’s films has finally been completed and assimilated by students of pop culture, this masterful 1953 western will emerge as one of the Duke’s very best star vehicles. His portrayal of cavalry scout Hondo Lane -- rugged, principled, and taciturn -- is quintessential Wayne, the Wayne that impressionists loved to mimic on TV and in their nightclub acts. As the story opens, an Apache warrior (Michael Pate) is waging war on all whites, soldiers and settlers alike. Hondo, coming across a strong-willed housewife (Geraldine Page) and her young son (Lee Aaker) in their desert homestead, urges them to leave but stays to offer help when they refuse. There’s an undeniable attraction between the nurturing mother and the self-sufficient scout, but romance won’t have much chance when the woman learns that Hondo has killed her ne’er-do-well husband (Leo Gordon). Originally shot and presented in 3-D, Hondo is an unusually good-looking western, boasting terrific location cinematography that has the added virtue of careful composition. In fact, the production values all bespeak a greater-than-usual attention to detail, but it’s the script and acting that really carry the day. Wayne delivers an economical performance: Hondo isn’t much of a talker, so the Duke conveys much of the scout’s personality with facial expressions and body language. Page is terrific in a role that would have been sabotaged by the casting of a typical Hollywood glamour girl. Attractive but not classically beautiful, she has an expressive face that displays character, and that makes her perfect as the indomitable frontier woman. The relationship that develops between Wayne and Page seems natural and unforced, and that’s one of the movie’s great strengths. Unavailable for several decades, its exposure limited in recent years, Hondo deserves wider distribution because it’s easily one of the best films Wayne made. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

Hondo is so "perfect" a John Ford western that many people assume it was directed by John Ford--or at the very least, Andrew McLaglen. Actually the director was suspense expert John Farrow, who worked with the "Duke" only twice in his career (the second film was an oddball war drama, The Sea Chase [55]). In Hondo, John Wayne plays a hard-bitten cavalry scout who is humanized by frontierswoman Geraldine Page and her young son (Lee Aaker, star of TV's Rin Tin Tin). Try as he might, Wayne can't convince Page to move off her land in anticipation of an Apache attack. He leaves her ranch, only to be ambushed by desperado Leo Gordon--who happens to be Page's long-absent husband. Having killed Gordon, Hondo returns to the ranch to protect Page from the Indians, and to rekindle the woman's hesitant love for him. The climactic attack sequence is enhanced by Hondo's 3-D photography, one of the few truly effective utilizations of this much-maligned process. Long unavailable thanks to the labyrinthine legal tangles of the John Wayne estate, Hondo was finally released to videotape in the early 1990s. Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 097368876149
• Source: PARAMOUNT
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Pre-1954 Standard (1.33.1)
• Sound: Dolby Digital Mono, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Time: 1:23:00
• Sales Rank: 13,572

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• The John Wayne Century Collection
• The John Wayne Western Collection

Features:

DVD MENU