Copyright Screen Rant
John Wayne starred in countless Westerns over his career, and he had a methodical way of choosing his roles in his later years, all based on his personal beliefs. There was even a feud between Wayne and Western star Clint Eastwood because he felt the new star's movies weren't traditional Westerns and were too violent. Interestingly, the later movies in Wayne's career, when Eastwood was making a name for himself as the Man with No Name, were also violent. Wayne won an Oscar for True Grit, a revenge movie in which Wayne's marshal hires himself out to a young girl. He also released his most violent Western in 1971, the underrated Big Jake. Big Jake Presents John Wayne At His Most Violent Big Jake was the last Western movie for long-time prolific Western director George Sherman. In the film, John Wayne plays Jacob "Big Jake" McCandles, a man who left his family when his kids were young because he didn't want to abandon his idealized life as a gunfighter. However, when someone kidnaps his grandson, he returns to help. When the film was released, it took many critics and viewers by surprise. Big Jake was not a movie about John Wayne as a white-hat Western hero coming to save his grandson. He was a violent man, and the excessive violence in the film was like nothing fans typically saw in The Duke's films. This is shocking since John Wayne blasted Clint Eastwood for the violence in his movies, specifically with a letter he wrote after High Plains Drifter was released. However, Wayne embraced the violence in Big Jake, even opening the film with a massive massacre, and using blood squibs, a rarity for Wayne movies. This was also something John Wayne had a hand in. Wayne co-directed Big Jake, helping out Sherman, who was in ill health during the filming. It seemed almost strange that it would be so violent, with Wayne working behind the camera as well. Big Jake Is The Antithesis Of Classical John Wayne Films Big Jake was a different role for Wayne, as he abandoned his family and embraced a violent life rather than taking responsibility. For someone like John Wayne, who professed to want to appear only in movies promoting positive American lifestyles, this was a very different performance. He turned down other movies for lesser sins. In a Playboy interview the same year John Wayne came out, he blasted violence in movies, targeting films like Easy Rider and The Wild Bunch. Wayne felt that blood spurting out made fictional films seem too realistic, which he said was going "too far." As for Big Jake, Wayne tried to add humor to help balance out the scenes of extreme violence. Big Jake Shares A Similarity With The Searchers Concerning Family There is one thing in the movie that plays close to John Wayne's greatest Western, The Searchers. In that movie, Wayne set out to save his niece, who was kidnapped by a Native American tribe. When he learned she was happy with the tribe and had assimilated with them, he chose to kill her to "save her." Of course, he doesn't do that because he is a John Wayne character. However, when he kills the people she has chosen to live with and brings her home, there is a scene where he is outside the house, and the door closes, shutting him off from his family. That is similar to his relationship with his kids in Big Jake. Jake left his family when the kids were young, leaving his wife to care for and raise them on her own. When he returns to attempt to save his grandson, his children refuse to accept him. They know he abandoned them, and they want nothing to do with this violent, selfish man. They shun him, push him away, and he is not part of the family. Where Big Jake differs is that, in the end, Jake and his family acknowledge their familial bond, and there is hope that he can find the family he once gave up. However, as with The Searchers, there is a case to be made that he might not deserve it. Ironically, his character's son and grandson were played by Wayne's own sons, Patrick and Ethan. Big Jake Offers Up John Wayne's Final Collaboration With Maureen O'Hara John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara starred in five movies together over their career in Westerns. According to O'Hara, this was because she was the only woman "big enough" and "tough enough" to match up with Wayne as a romantic interest. Of those five movies, the last one was Big Jake, and O'Hara retired after this film. Their best movie was easily The Quiet Man, which was not a Western, but a brilliant drama about life in the American West. However, their relationship in Big Jake was different from all their other collaborations. That is because they were married, but Jake left her to fend for herself and raise their kids alone.
