McLintock! (1963)

G.W. McLintock's estranged wife (Maureen O'Hara) returns to the family ranch to try to take custody of their daughter, who is returning from school. McLintock himself (John Wayne) divides his time between mild raucous drunkeness, getting on with and being liked by everyone (except the obvious villains), sagely fixing the region's problems (homesteaders, Indians and the like), giving speeches in favour of capitalism, and generally making it clear that he is a fair and just guy. In between all this he somehow has to win back his estranged wife. Also, his daughter needs to be romanced by a ranch-hand McLintock has recently employed.

It's fair to say that I'm not a huge fan of Andrew V. McLagen as a director, although fortunately McLintock is enough of a broad comedy to avoid his worse traits (imitating John Ford-style sentimentalism without having the quality of characterisation or plotting to back it up), and as such is basically an enjoyable farce. The plot has a few (big) flaws. First, its desire to paint John Wayne's character as far too much of an all-round nice guy without any flaws, and to let him speechify he political views (a trend that's increasingly common in John Wayne films from here). Second (and more serious) the romance plots—loosely based on The Taming of The Shrew—seem to take the view that all women really want is a good spanking with a coal shovel. Which might not be such a problem, but there really isn't enough development to justify either McLintock's daughter's romance or McLintock's reconciliation with his wife: there's a little bit of fond reminiscing about the good old days, but not a great softening of feelings towards each other, then he hits her with the coal shovel and it's all fixed.

Still – with those flaws ignored it's mostly good fun although completely insubstantial. Really not John Wayne's finest moment but probably not far off Andrew V. McLagen's.

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