Hondo (1953)

Directed by John Farrow; produced by Robert Fellows

Hondo Lane (John Wayne) trudges in to an isolated ranch having survived an Apache attack in the desert. He meets Angie Lowe (Geraldine Page), who is running the ranch with her little son (Lee Aaker) in the absence of her husband (Leo Gordon), and quickly establishes a rough rapport with her. Their mutual attraction is, however, subject to a number of factors, including hostile cowboys, patrolling soldiers and raiding Indians, whose leader (Micahel Pate) develops a proprietorial interest in Mrs Lowe’s seemingly fatherless boy.

Right away, one might note a similarity in at least the premise of Hondo to Shane, which was released in the same year. Given the star of the former movie, one might also rightly expect Hondo’s canvas to be broader than Shane’s, and its attitude to be less introspective. Both films are successful, however, though Hondo works almost exclusively because of Wayne.

Wayne’s character is one of his most interesting. Hondo is a very practical man; certainly not politically correct, he strikes the viewer as a fairly realistic interpretation of an individual raised on the frontier, where sentiment may exist but takes no part in decisions. For instance, Hondo explains how his dog, a semi-feral collie, was trained to “smell Apaches”; the process involved an Indian beating a puppy until it recognises its tormentor’s scent. This explanation horrifies Mrs Lowe, who inadvertently embodies the different attitudes of later times.

Hondo, while eminently practical, is also a romantic, describing how his late wife – an Apache girl – had a name the meaning of which cannot fully be comprehended in English, and comparing it to how a person feels while watching dawn arrive or sensing the first winter breezes off the mountains. These feelings are not entirely subjugated to the real world. Hondo’s unwavering devotion to honesty is, ironically, contested by Angie’s assertion that honesty is not always the best policy. These contrasting qualities between, and in, the two characters make them deeper than what one might initially suspect them to be.

In contrast to Wayne, who, though he won an Oscar (for his part in True Grit (1969)), is not noted for his acting range (some might substitute ‘talent’ for the phrase), Geraldine Page’s performance in Hondo was thought highly enough to be nominated for an Academy Award. I cannot agree with the nomination. I think her acting here is unconvincing, and not up to Wayne’s. There is nothing that really stands out about it as bad, but almost all of her lines seem uttered in a high-schoolish fashion. Katherine Hepburn was the original choice for the role, and I can only think wistfully of what she might have made of it.

The story is not complex, but it does involve more than a few events, one leading fluidly into the next. It is based on a Louis L’Amour short story, “The Gift of Cochise”. Some reviewers have written that the movie is the most faithful adaptation of a L’Amour work; I believe the short story was greatly expanded with much original – or at least, new – material. L’Amour later wrote a novelisation of the movie, based on its script. This may be from what some people think the film was derived (rather than vice versa), in which case there is no wonder that it runs so closely to the movie.

The depiction of Indians in Hondo is unsentimental. Like the title character, they are products of a hard environment and cannot afford sentiment dictating their actions. They are villains by circumstance. They attack settlers, and therefore they must be fought. But as Hondo himself states, whites broke the treaty that had been made with the Apaches. At one point, Vittorio, the Apache leader, states that his sons are all dead; since he himself is hardly middle-aged, it seems likely they were killed young, perhaps as children, by whites.

Hondo has great sympathy for the Apaches and their way of life; he lived among them. His dog’s ability to smell them is hardly racist: Hondo demonstrates how he himself can smell Angie Lowe, thanks to her baking and washing. (American long-range reconnaissance team-members in Indochina would sometimes eat indigenous food and refrain from  washing before patrolling, so their American scent wouldn’t give them away.) Though individuals might be heroic or villainous, the whites and the Indians in Hondo are shown neutrally, simply as people who want to get by, their cultures and their respective need for land making conflict inevitable.

While the story does not contribute to the most exciting feature of Wayne’s career, it does furnish an entertaining film, with some exciting action scenes, and his character provides interest. Together, they make Hondo a superior entry in the western genre.