"Hondo" opens on some of the aspects of George Stevens' "Shane," with the arrival of a lone figure, a U.S. cavalry dispatch rider, Hondo Lane (John Wayne) and his dog (Sam) to an isolated ranch in Apache Territory...
Lane is received by a young courageous frontier woman Angie Lowe (Geraldine Page) and her 6-years old son Johnny (Lee Aaker). Angie tries to convince Hondo that she is not alone, that she lives with a husband, and that she is not worried about apache uprisings, because there is a peace treaty, and the apaches will not "bother" her at all...
During his 24 hours stay, Lane knows that Annie is an abandoned woman, and after kissing her, he learned much more...
Lane leaves the place, but after finding out that the Indians are killing and destroying all around the land, decides to return for the young woman and her boy...
Under the lead of a stylistic director, "Hondo" may be very likely the finest Wayne psychological Western not directed by John Ford... With long tracking shots and interesting camera angles, "Hondo" is far better in the way of capturing the abrasive solitary man manifested in "Red River." There is nothing really surprising about Wayne's part, but I think it does stress something that's a real Wayne attribute, and that is his honesty and straight forwardness
With a kind of short, curly, blonde hair, Geraldine Page is excellent in her Oscar-Nominated debut, specially in the scene of her confession to Lane about her late husband: 'He was a liar, a thief, a coward and a drunker... He only married me to get the ranch.'
Shot on a hot, dusty, foreign location (Camargo, Chihuahua, Mexico) in color and in 3-D, John Farrow's "Hondo" is one of the early pleasant looking Western that I saw with my father a long, long time ago...
Lane is received by a young courageous frontier woman Angie Lowe (Geraldine Page) and her 6-years old son Johnny (Lee Aaker). Angie tries to convince Hondo that she is not alone, that she lives with a husband, and that she is not worried about apache uprisings, because there is a peace treaty, and the apaches will not "bother" her at all...
During his 24 hours stay, Lane knows that Annie is an abandoned woman, and after kissing her, he learned much more...
Lane leaves the place, but after finding out that the Indians are killing and destroying all around the land, decides to return for the young woman and her boy...
Under the lead of a stylistic director, "Hondo" may be very likely the finest Wayne psychological Western not directed by John Ford... With long tracking shots and interesting camera angles, "Hondo" is far better in the way of capturing the abrasive solitary man manifested in "Red River." There is nothing really surprising about Wayne's part, but I think it does stress something that's a real Wayne attribute, and that is his honesty and straight forwardness
With a kind of short, curly, blonde hair, Geraldine Page is excellent in her Oscar-Nominated debut, specially in the scene of her confession to Lane about her late husband: 'He was a liar, a thief, a coward and a drunker... He only married me to get the ranch.'
Shot on a hot, dusty, foreign location (Camargo, Chihuahua, Mexico) in color and in 3-D, John Farrow's "Hondo" is one of the early pleasant looking Western that I saw with my father a long, long time ago...