The 13 Most Badass Moments Of John Wayne’s Career4

By Steven Novak, Aug 18, 2010 in Heathens, Pop Culture, Show News

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The 13 Most Badass Moments Of John Wayne’s Career

Few have ever commanded a movie screen the way John Wayne did. Over the course of his fifty-plus-year career, the six foot-two, 220lb. tough guy made over 170 films, appeared on television and radio, and wore a cowboy hat like nobody’s business. Most would agree that the Western genre itself wouldn’t exist without him. Since Wayne, there have been many interpretations of westerns – from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns, to Asian-inspired films like Sukiyaki Western Django to KoldCast TV’s own series, Heathens – but it’s The Duke that set the bar. In honor of the man that made it all possible, here’s the 13 most bad-ass moments of John Wayne’s career.

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1. As Genghis Kahn in The Conqueror

Released in 1956, The Conqueror is widely considered to be John Wayne’s worst film (and with good reason). It’s pretty awful. So what in the world is it doing on a list of The Duke’s most badass moments? Simple. It took a certain controlled, undeniably gutsy stupidity for Wayne to think he was even remotely right for the role of Genghis Kahn. As terrible an idea as it was and as bad a movie as the final film turned out to be, at the very least you have to admire the fact that he gave it the old college try. As a fearless actor, he’s pretty badass.

2. The Final Scene in The Searchers

Considered by some to be among the greatest westerns ever made, 1956’s John Ford-directed The Searchers tells the story of a civil war veteran that returns to his home of northern Texas and very quickly moves on to spending years of his life looking for his abducted niece with the aid of his nephew. The final scene of the film is a well-shot piece of work that beautifully sums up the whole of John Wayne’s many characters, and the overall tone of the western genre in general.

3. The McLintock Mud Fight

Released in 1963, McLintock is a comedy western, starring The Duke and Maureen O’Hara, that’s very loosely based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. It’s also notoriously famous (or possibly infamous) for not one, but TWO spanking scenes in which a mother and a daughter are whacked with coal shovels. Ouch. In addition, it’s been remembered fondly over the years for the wild and muddy brawl that started when The Duke decides his fists are just aching to “belt someone in the mouth.”

4. “Gonna Blow Your Head Off”

Released in 1971, Big Jake featured John Wayne as an aging rancher and legendary gunfighter whose grandson (aptly named Little Jake) is kidnapped by a ruthless gang of outlaws led by Richard Boone. As you can imagine, this wasn’t exactly the smartest move they could have made. Stealing from The Duke – not so bright. As the tension reaches a boiling point, Wayne pulls the ol’ switcheroo and turns the tables on the bad guys, reminding them one more time that he’s the guy that blows peoples heads off and not the other way around.

5. “Count Your Toes If You’re Nervous”

Over the course of his career, John Wayne appeared in well over a hundred movies. And he only died in maybe six of them. 1949’s The Sands of Iwo Jima is one of those movies. In Marine Sergeant John Stryker, Wayne brought to life one of the most iconic characters in the history of war films. He was tough as nails, demanding, and a bear of a man to be around. But as is evidenced by the letter to his son that his men discover after he’s gone, he had a heart of gold as well. Considered among the best films ever shot on the subject of WWII, it remains to this day one of Wayne’s finest, and most “badass” performances.

6. The Fight Scene From The Spoilers

Saloon fistfights are a lost art in the world of American cinema, and one of the best of all-time comes from a little 1942 film called The Spoilers. John Wayne shows just how badass he can be while trading meat hooks and boot spurs with none other than Randolph Scott. Chairs are destroyed, tables are smashed, poker chips are sent sailing, and glass is shattered to bits – all while a sexy Marlene Dietrich looks on with a saloon full of mustached drunks.

7. A Swimming Lesson

Not only is 1953’s Hondo one of the favorite films of Al Bundy from Married with Children, it’s also a favorite among the most hardcore of hardcore John Wayne fans. Wayne stars as a cavalry dispatch rider that stumbles onto a woman living alone with her young son deep in Apache territory. It doesn’t take long for him to become entrenched in their daily lives. There’s some tough talk, some gun slinging, and a lot of the standard John Wayne western flair. The most badass moment of all though, comes when Wayne decides to give a kid a swimming lesson the only way he knows how – by hoisting him up by his britches and tossing him in the lake. Badass? Yes. A little disturbing? Yeah, there’s that too.

8. The Final Fight Scene from Rio Bravo

Directed by the legendary Howard Hawks, Rio Bravo stars John Wayne alongside Ricky Nelson and Dean Martin. (Which is an odd bunch, but it worked.) For as good as Wayne is at doing what he does best here, the movie is arguably most remembered for its musical numbers between Martin and Nelson. The film is also believed to have been an inspiration for John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 years later. Like Carpenter’s film, the final fight is a thing of absolute legend.

9. Bruce Dern Takes a Whoopin’ in The Cowboys

Released in 1972, The Cowboys stars John Wayne as a rancher that’s forced to enlist the aid of local schoolboys in his nearly four hundred-mile cattle drive. The group runs into a pack of men looking for work led by a slimy, greasy-haired Bruce Dern. They quickly prove to be as untrustworthy as their unkempt manner might have suggested. Eventually The Duke is forced to lay down the law the only way he knows how – with his right fist, his left fist and few words.

10. Selling Booze From Beyond the Grave

The number ten addition to our little list doesn’t come from any movie featuring John Wayne. In fact, it wasn’t even shot until well after he was dead, and believe it or not it, actually features Johnny Knoxville of MTV’s Jackass. It’s actually a beer commercial for Coors Light. You know you’re a certified badass when you start shilling booze from beyond the grave.

11. The “Joust” From True Grit

Released in 1969 and directed by Henry Hathaway, True Grit stars John Wayne as a gritty (bet you didn’t see that one coming) U.S. Marshall by the name of “Rooster” Coburn. Rooster meets up with a local girl who needs help in avenging the death of her father. Because he has a long reputation for “getting the job done,” she approached The Duke. Turns out she picked the right man for the job. After tracking down the bad guys and being called a “one-eyed fat man,” the Wayne charges at Robert Duvall and his men with his guns blazing and a wrinkly old grimace. Who you callin’ fat?

12. The Fight Scene from The Quiet Man

1952’s John Ford-directed The Quiet Man is considered in some circles to be John Wayne’s greatest performance. Alongside Maureen O’Hara, Wayne stars as an Irish-American, and former boxer from Pittsburg, that returns to Ireland to reclaim his family’s farm in Innisfree. It’s here that he falls in love, stirs up some trouble, and eventually ends up taking part in one of the most famous hand-to-hand brawls in the history of cinema. During the fight, The Duke even stops for a drink. My hero.

13. Alongside Jimmy Stewart in The Shootist

Released in 1976, The Shootist stars an aging John Wayne in what would be his final film role, and is in many ways a tribute to his career as a whole. The Duke plays a legendary gunfighter named J.B. Brooks that’s been diagnosed with cancer, and who ultimately conjures up a situation in which he can go out doing the only thing he does well – filling people with bullets. In a weird parallel of life imitating art, Wayne himself would die only three years later after a long battle with stomach cancer.

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Steven Novak is a writer, illustrator, graphic designer and admitted lifelong nerd with an embarrassingly large DVD collection. He is currently working and living in the Southern California desert. His most recent fantasy/action adventure novel, “Forts: Fathers and Sons,” is available everywhere books are sold.