The Admiral and the Duke
John Ford and John Wayne were more than simple patriots.
Ford was always the admiral. He was the admiral on the set ... and everybody else was just sort of an enlisted seaman.—Scott Eyman, John Ford: The Complete Films
The films discussed in this essay are available in The John Wayne/John Ford Film Collection and The John Ford Film Collection. The first collection also contains excellent documentaries about the actor and the director.
*Correction, Sept. 29, 2006: Due to an editing error, the sentence originally implied that John Wayne was the star of the 1946 film My Darling Clementine, when, in fact, the lead was played by Henry Fonda. Click here to return to the corrected sentence.
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