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Reexamining a Couple of Movie Heroes
Were they really so heroic?
John Wayne and Burt Reynolds were two of the most iconic movie heroes of the twentieth century. In retrospect, I wonder how that happened. Let’s consider a couple of these guys’ most iconic roles.
So, why was John Wayne’s character in, “The Shootist,” considered a hero?
In, The Shootist”, Wayne’s character is J. B. Books. Books is an aging gunfighter with terminal cancer. He gets that diagnosis from noted frontier doctor, Jimmy Stewart. The diagnosis is not the problem, the prescription is.
Stewart implies that Wayne, aka Books, might be better offing himself as opposed to going through a painful death. It seems Stewart was a frontier Jack Kevorkian.
Well, Wayne doesn’t kill himself, but he does manipulate things to arrange death by thug. Actually, Wayne arranges for three bad guys to have an opportunity to gain from killing him. Now let’s meet the three contestants.
And let’s meet our three wannabe killers.
Our first shooter Jack Cobb, owns a creamery and a nasty disposition. Beyond hollering at Wayne when Wayne hits town, I’m not sure that makes him worthy of being shot by Wayne. Of course, back then Dale Carnegie courses…
