John Wayne?

[Marc Garlasco]

How many WW2 films was john Wayne in about the European theater?
Marc

[Daniel Griffin]

2 I think , Reunion in France and the Sea Chase ( he plays a German Naval officer ).

[Marc Garlasco]

Interesting - he seems to have done a lot more in the Japanese theater of ops.

Who would you all consider a main American actor in movies about the European Theater besides Audie Murphy (well, not EXACTLY an actor).
Marc

[Jonathan M]

Longest Day as well

[MauserKar98k]

Longest Day as well

Great film and a great actor!

[John Pic]

I always found it amazing how popular John Wayne was since he never served in the Military and wasnt really a Cowboy. Jimmy Stewart...a more nerdy type however did in fact serve. I watched The Longest Day yesterday it was on TV and watching him realized that in that movie he was a terrible commander/leader always deriding his men and yelling at them. I liked him in The Green Berets better although that movie was highly fictionalized as well.

[MauserKar98k]

...always deriding his men and yelling at them...

Sometimes, that's what it takes. Even Major Richard Winters (then Lieutenant) had to yell at his men to get them out of that ditch in Carentan.

[Duzig]

Hello,
In regards to Waynes popularity I have heard that he was booed more than once by the troops and that he was resented by many because of his not being in the armed forces. None the less a great actor and it could be said that even though he did not serve in the military the movies he made back then were just as important for the war effort.
Duzig(Bill)

[crowback]

Jw

Really didn't make too many war movies during
the war - http://www.jwplace.com/military.html

[R MICHAEL]

Van Johnson.......... Nothing more needs said.

[John Pic]

Van Johnson...yes a staple in War films.

Major Richard Winters did "yell" but was never condescending in giving orders..at least not according to him or his men who wrote about him. If you watch John Wayne when he portrays leaders in some but not all his movies he comes across like he is in command of a gaggle of idiots who cant think without him more of a father than a leader.

Back to Major Winters, Im still reading more about him and can say without doubt that he in my eyes is what a true leader should be like.

[MauserKar98k]

Back to Major Winters, Im still reading more about him and can say without doubt that he in my eyes is what a true leader should be like.

I concur. Major Winters is a true American hero.

[Fallschirmjaeger]

Maybe seen it?

2 I think , Reunion in France and the Sea Chase ( he plays a German Naval officer ).

I forget i have seen the sea chase movie now,as they have shown many of his movies over the years on tv.But they dont show hardly any on now on our main tv channels.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0048593/
The Sea Chase(1955).

http://imdb.com/name/nm0000078/
John Wayne.

[J.von Canon]

Hello,
In regards to Waynes popularity I have heard that he was booed more than once by the troops and that he was resented by many because of his not being in the armed forces. None the less a great actor and it could be said that even though he did not serve in the military the movies he made back then were just as important for the war effort.
Duzig(Bill)

Gotta jump in here...
Yes;he was booed a couple of times(undeservedly so)
He had a draft deferment since he had a bunch of children (6, I believe it was).
Incidentally,draftees far outnumbered volunteers among the "Greatest Generation"...
Also,during the very unpopular Vietnam War John Wayne was about the ONLY American actor who vocalized support for servicemen.His movie
Green Berets" was often protested by Viet Cong Flag carrying protestors.
Hollywood all but blacklisted him and several other actors(including David Jansen,also in the film)
While filming "Green Berets" at Ft.Benning and Ft.Bragg he stopped at the Special Forces Parachute Club where wives and girlfriends of "Green Berets" were selling cakes and pies to raise money for a Special Forces Museum.
In those days Special Forces was the Army's "Bastard child".
When the girls looked at the check Wayne deposited it was made out for one million dollars!
The mock villages built for the film at Ft.Benning were left for the Army's use in training after the film was made too.
The old "Green Berets" LOVED this guy!
Just my 2 cents...

[Robert Shoaf]

Let me first say that I have been a big John Wayne fan since I was a kid, a loong time ago, and I still am. That being said, while he was 34 in 1941, married, with kids, he could have signed up, like Stewart, Fonda, Gable, etc., but he chose not to. Nothing stood in his way to enlist, but he declined, much to his later regret, it would appear. His biography at Wikipedia provides a succinct explanation of this subject.
I also must respectfully disagree on "The Green Berets". I thought it was a very bad film, with a real howler of an ending, showing the sun setting in the South China Sea!

Bob Shoaf